LOS ANGELES, July 10, 2011 (AFP) - A California woman kidnapped as a schoolgirl and repeatedly raped over 18 years in captivity described graphic details of her ordeal, in a first ever TV interview aired Sunday.
Jaycee Dugard, who was 11 when she was seized and kept in a back yard compound by Phillip and Nancy Garrido in 1991, described how she gave birth to two daughters of her own -- and how that helped her survive.
Giving birth, alone in a backyard and aged 14, was the most painful experience of her life, she said, describing her thoughts about when she first saw her baby daughter.
"She was beautiful. I felt like I wasn't alone anymore. (I) had somebody else who was mine...and I know I could never let anything happen to her. I didn't know how I was going to do that, but I did," she told ABC news.
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Jaycee Dugard (right) talks to ABC's Diane Sawyer in her first interview since being discovered and freed on August 26, 2009. (AP) |
Phillip Garrido was given a prison sentence of 431 years in June, while his wife was jailed for 36 years to life, after the pair agreed a plea bargain over the crimes which shocked America and the world.
Dugard, whose book about her ordeal "A Stolen Life" is published this week, said the process of recounting her ordeal in full, harrowing detail has helped liberate her mentally.
"Why not look at it? You know, stare it down until it can't scare you anymore," said the 31-year-old. "I didn't want there to be any more secrets...I hadn't done anything wrong.
"It wasn't something I did that caused this to happen. And I feel that by putting it all out there, it's very freeing," she added in the interview, according to extracts released before its broadcast Sunday evening.
She describes the moment she was kidnapped, while walking to school from her home in South Lake Tahoe, California on June 10, 1991 as "like the most horrible moment of your life times ten."
Describing how she coped with the repeated rapes to which she was subjected, she said: "There's a switch that I had to shut off."
"I mean, I can't imagine being beaten to death, you know? And you can't imagine being kidnapped and raped, you know? So, it's just, you just do what you have to do to survive."
She recalled her rescue in August 2009 -- when Garrido took her and her two daughters with him to a parole meeting, and Dugard initially maintained the fiction that she was the Garridos' daughter.
But parole officers were suspicious, and she eventually confirmed her identity by writing down her real name -- an act she likened to re-igniting a flame which had been extinguished.
"The light came back ... it was very dark for so long ... but that light finally came back on," she said.
<한글기사>
18년감금 美여성 "홀로 출산 때 가장 고통스러워"
(로스앤젤레스 AFP=연합뉴스) 미국 캘리포니아주에서 11살 때 납치돼 18년간 성 폭행을 당하며 감금생활을 해오다 지난 2009년 풀려난 제이시 두가드(31)가 10일(현지시각) 처음으로 방송 인터뷰에 모습을 드러냈다.
두가드는 미국 ABC 방송과 가진 인터뷰에서 가리도 부부의 집 뒷마당 창고에 갇 힌 채 두 딸을 낳는 등 18년간 당했던 끔찍한 일에 대해 털어놓았다.
두가드는 14살에 뒷마당에서 홀로 아이를 낳은 것이 가장 고통스러운 경험이었 다면서도 아이가 태어나자 "더는 혼자가 아니라고 느꼈고, 그 아이에게 어떤 일도 일어나지 않게 하겠다고 다짐했다"고 회고했다.
또 계속된 성폭행을 어떻게 견뎌냈는지에 대해서는 납치돼 성폭행을 당한다는 것을 상상할 수 없듯이 맞아 죽는 것도 생각할 수 없었다며 "어떻게든 살아남아야만 했다"고 토로했다.
지난주 악몽과 같았던 감금 생활을 담은 '도둑맞은 삶(A Stolen Life)'이라는 자서전을 출간한 두가드는 그동안 겪었던 고통스러운 일을 다시 이야기하는 과정이 자신을 정신적으로 해방시키는데 도움을 줬다고 덧붙였다.
그는 "나는 잘못한 것이 전혀 없다. 나 때문에 이런 일이 일어난 것이 아니다"며 다 털어놓아서 편안하다는 심경을 전했다.
18년간 두가드를 납치 성폭행해 미국과 전 세계를 충격에 빠트렸던 필립 가리도 는 지난 6월 431년형을, 그의 부인 낸시 가리도는 36년형을 선고받았다.
