Aug. 2023 - True Crime Book Club - Past Titles - LibGuides at Westwood Public Library

"A Stolen Life" by Jaycee Dugard

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard
Call Number: BIOGRAPHY DUGARD
Jaycee Dugard's New York Times bestselling memoir chronicles her raw and powerful story of being kidnapped in 1991 and held captive for more than eighteen years. When Jaycee Dugard was eleven years old, she was abducted from a school bus stop within sight of her home in South Lake Tahoe, California. She was missing for more than eighteen years, held captive by Phillip Craig and Nancy Garrido, and gave birth to two daughters during her imprisonment. On August 26, 2009, Garrido showed up for a meeting with his parole officer; he brought Jaycee, her daughters, and his wife Nancy with him. Their unusual behavior raised suspicions and an investigation revealed the tent behind the Garridos' home where Jaycee had been living for nearly two decades. A Stolen Life was written by Jaycee herself and covers the period from the time of her abduction in 1991 up until the present. In her stark, compelling narrative, she opens up about what she experienced--and offers an extraordinary account of courage and resilience.

How did reading "A Stolen Life" affect you emotionally? What were your initial reactions to Jaycee Dugard's story?
What were the key moments or incidents in Jaycee's captivity that struck you the most? How did she cope with the challenges and traumas she faced?
Discuss the role of hope and resilience in Jaycee's survival. How did she find strength during her captivity, and what kept her going?
Reflect on the psychological impact of long-term captivity and abuse. How did Jaycee's mental and emotional state evolve over the years, and what coping mechanisms did she develop?
Jaycee's memoir provides insight into the dynamics between her and her captors, Phillip and Nancy Garrido. How did these relationships change over time, and what effects did they have on Jaycee?
Explore the concept of freedom in Jaycee's story. How did she redefine freedom during her captivity, and how did her perspective on freedom change after her rescue?
Discuss the challenges Jaycee faced when she was finally reunited with her family after 18 years. How did she adjust to her new life outside captivity, and what support did she need during this transition?
Jaycee's memoir highlights the importance of community awareness and involvement in preventing and responding to cases of abduction and abuse. How can society better support victims like Jaycee, and what measures can be taken to prevent such crimes?
Jaycee started the JAYC Foundation to support families dealing with abduction and abuse. Discuss the impact of organizations like this and the significance of community support for survivors.
Jaycee's story has brought attention to the legal and justice system's handling of abduction and missing persons cases. How can law enforcement agencies improve their response to missing persons cases and provide better protection for potential victims?
In "A Stolen Life," Jaycee Dugard emphasizes the importance of education and awareness about personal safety for children. How can parents, schools, and communities better educate children about potential dangers and empower them to protect themselves?
Discuss the impact of media coverage on cases like Jaycee's. How can the media strike a balance between informing the public and respecting the privacy and well-being of the victims and their families?
Jaycee's story raises questions about the long-term effects of trauma and the process of healing and recovery. How can society provide better resources and support for survivors to heal and rebuild their lives?

June 11, 1991: Jaycee Lee is snatched just 1,500 feet from her home by a couple driving a gun-metal gray sedan. Her step-father Carl Probyn witnessed the kidnapping from his garage and attempted to chase the couple on his bicycle.

June 12, 1991: Clutching her daughter's stuffed pink bunny rabbit, Jaycee Lee's mother Terry Probyn goes before reporters and television cameras to plead for her daughter's safe return. A car fitting the description of the suspect's vehicle, with a young girl sleeping in the back seat, is spotted at Fallen Leaf Lake.

June 14, 1991: The case is profiled on America's Most Wanted, resulting in hundreds of tips to police.

Aug. 10, 1991: More than 250 people hold a candlelight vigil to show support for Jaycee Lee and her family.

Aug. 24, 1991: The FBI questions two suspects in Ceres, Calif., just south of Modesto, but find no connection to the case.

Nov. 25, 1991: People Magazine profiles the kidnapping in a three-page spread.

Jan. 1992: A Gardnerville musician records a song "Jaycee Lee" to help raise money for the search.

June 10, 1992: A candlelight vigil is held to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Jaycee Lee's disappearance. In the months since the kidnapping, her friends and family have mailed more than 1.2 million photos of Jaycee Lee across the country.

June 10, 2001: More than 100 people bearing pink ribbons in honor of Jaycee Lee's favorite color march down U.S. Highway 50 in South Lake Tahoe to mark the 10-year anniversary of her disappearance.

June 2002: Investigators dig up the yard of a Truckee priest accused of molesting three girls in the 1970s, searching for clues to Jaycee Lee's disappearance and that of another girl who had gone missing in Northern California. No connection is found.

Aug. 26, 2009: A 29-year-old woman walks in to a Contra Costa County law enforcement office, claims she is Jaycee Lee and says she was kidnapped 18 years ago.

Jaycee Dugard's Life Now - Jaycee Dugard Opens Up About Dating and Motherhood

Jaycee Lee Dugard was born on May 3, 1980, in Anaheim, California, United States. On June 10, 1991, when she was just 11 years old, she was walking to her school bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, California, when she was kidnapped by Phillip and Nancy Garrido.
For 18 years, Jaycee was held captive by the Garridos in a hidden backyard compound in Antioch, California. During this time, she was subjected to physical and emotional abuse, and she was cut off from her family, friends, and the outside world.
In August 2009, a remarkable and long-awaited breakthrough occurred. Phillip Garrido took Jaycee and her two daughters, whom he fathered through his repeated sexual assaults on Jaycee, to the University of California, Berkeley campus. His bizarre behavior attracted the attention of campus police, who eventually uncovered Jaycee's identity and the fact that she was a missing person.
Jaycee was finally reunited with her family after nearly two decades of captivity. The news of her reappearance shocked and moved people around the world. She was able to reconnect with her mother, Terry Probyn, and other family members.
Following her release, Jaycee Dugard maintained a relatively private life, understandably seeking to rebuild and recover from the trauma she endured during her captivity. She co-authored a memoir titled "A Stolen Life," which was published in 2011. In the book, she bravely shared her experiences, giving insight into the horrors of her abduction and captivity and her journey to recovery.
Throughout her ordeal and in the years after her release, Jaycee Dugard became an advocate for victims of kidnapping and sexual abuse. She founded the JAYC Foundation (Just Ask Yourself to Care) to support families dealing with abduction and the aftermath of such traumatic experiences.

"Because, as Maslin knows well, last year the Irish novelist Emma Donoghue published her remarkable novel Room, which in fact imagines just such a situation. (Donoghue has said that she had finished her novel before Dugard was found.) Some of the details are different: The kidnapping victim in Room is in college; she has only one child, a son, by her captor; and she is imprisoned for a shorter period of time. But others, such as the soundproof backyard shed in which the victim and her offspring are kept, are uncannily similar. I can’t think of another instance in which fiction mimics life so closely, so presciently. And yet a look at the two books side by side shows that they’re not at all similar. This has to do with the authorial choices made by Dugard and Donoghue, in terms of the way they decided to tell their stories and the emphasis they placed on certain elements. But it also has to do with the fundamental differences between novel and memoir—two forms that, especially in recent years, have often been confused, but which have essentially different aims" (The New Republic, 2011).
"Dugard’s book is the work of a traumatized woman. The story proceeds in fits and starts as the author forces herself to recount memories that are often fragmentary. Many of the chapters end with a section headed “Reflection” in which Dugard, speaking in the present, adds new thoughts that she’s developed in therapy" (The New Republic, 2011).
'“When I read the pages, I was moved and inspired by the raw power of Jaycee Dugard’s voice, her strength and her resilience,” Simon & Schuster publisher and executive vice president Jonathan Karp said of what she has written so far' (Seattle Times, 2010).

The 4th Quarter

A Stolen Life: a Memoir

Freedom: My Book of Firsts

The Abduction of Jaycee Dugard (2012)

Kidnapped for 18 Years: The Jaycee Dugard Story (2009)

*many true crime shows also covered her story throughout the years*

The Family Next Door by John Glatt
Call Number: 362.76 Glatt
From New York Times bestselling true crime author John Glatt comes the devastating story of the Turpins: a seemingly normal family whose dark secrets would shock and captivate the world. On January 14, 2018, a seventeen-year-old girl climbed out of the window of her Perris, California home and dialed 911 on a borrowed cell phone. Struggling to stay calm, she told the operator that she and her 12 siblings--ranging in age from 2 to 29--were being abused by their parents. When the dispatcher asked for her address, the girl hesitated. "I've never been out," she stammered. To their family, neighbors, and online friends, Louise and David Turpin presented a picture of domestic bliss: dressing their thirteen children in matching outfits and buying them expensive gifts. But what police discovered when they entered the Turpin family home would eclipse the most shocking child abuse cases in history. For years, David and Louise had kept their children in increasing isolation, trapping them in a sinister world of torture, fear, and near starvation. In the first major account of the case, investigative journalist John Glatt delves into the disturbing details and recounts the bravery of the thirteen siblings in the face of unimaginable horror.
A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer
Call Number: 362.76 Pelzer
Dave Pelzer was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother, a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games - games that left one of her three sons nearly dead. She no longer considered Dave a son, but a slave; no longer a boy, but an 'it'. His bed was an old army cot in the basement, his clothes were torn and smelly, and when he was allowed the luxury of food it was scraps from the dog's bowl. The outside world knew nothing of the nightmare played out behind closed doors. But throughout Dave kept alive dreams of finding a family to love him. This book covers the early years of his life and is an affecting an inspirational book of the horrors of child abuse and the steadfast determination of one child to survive.
Dancing with the Octopus by Debora Harding
Call Number: 362.88 Harding
A harrowing, redemptive and profoundly inspiring memoir of childhood trauma and its long reach into adulthood, named one of the Best True Crime Books by Marie Claire . One Omaha winter day in November 1978, when Debora Harding was just fourteen, she was abducted at knifepoint from a church parking lot. She was thrown into a van, assaulted, held for ransom, and then left to die as an ice storm descended over the city. Debora survived. She identified her attacker to the police and then returned to her teenage life in a dysfunctional home where she was expected to simply move on. Denial became the family coping strategy offered by her fun-loving, conflicted father and her cruelly resentful mother. It wasn't until decades later -- when beset by the symptoms of PTSD-- that Debora undertook a radical project: she met her childhood attacker face-to-face in prison and began to reconsider and reimagine his complex story. This was a quest for the truth that would threaten the lie at the heart of her family and with it the sacred bond that once saved her. Dexterously shifting between the past and present, Debora Harding untangles the incident of her kidnapping and escape from unexpected angles, offering a vivid, intimate portrait of one family's disintegration in the 1970s Midwest. Written with dark humor and the pacing of a thriller, Dancing with the Octopus is a literary tour de force and a groundbreaking narrative of reckoning, recovery, and the inexhaustible strength it takes to survive.
Invisible Chains by Kristina Sauerwein
Call Number: 364.15 Sauerwein
In January 2007, two boys were found in the home of Michael J. Devlin, a "nice enough guy" who managed a pizza parlor in Kirkwood, Missouri. One boy had been kidnapped four days earlier. The other, Shawn Hornbeck, had been missing for four years. How and why did this fifteen-year old, whose face appeared on thousands of milk cartons and "Have You Seen Me?" posters, stay with his abductor in plain view for four years, only an hour from his family home?From award-winning journalist Kristina Sauerwein comes this riveting story of the American kidnapping that startled the nation and catapulted the chilling reality of Stockholm Syndrome into the spotlight. Shawn had many opportunities to ask for help: he was left alone in his kidnapper's apartment many times, and had phone and Internet access. But he never tried to escape. This is the first time the full story has been told, complete with interviews with law enforcement, and top psychological experts; and a real-life happy ending.
Hope by Amanda Berry; Gina DeJesus; Mary Jordan; Kevin Sullivan
Call Number: 364.154 Berry
Two women kidnapped by infamous Cleveland school-bus driver Ariel Castro share the stories of their abductions, captivity, and dramatic escape On May 6, 2013, Amanda Berry made headlines around the world when she fled a Cleveland home and called 911, saying: "Help me, I'm Amanda Berry. . . . I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for ten years." A horrifying story rapidly unfolded. Ariel Castro, a local school bus driver, had separately lured Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight to his home, where he kept them chained. In the decade that followed, the three were raped, psychologically abused, and threatened with death. Berry had a daughter--Jocelyn--by their captor. Drawing upon their recollections and the diary kept by Amanda Berry, Berry and Gina DeJesus describe a tale of unimaginable torment, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan interweave the events within Castro's house with original reporting on efforts to find the missing girls. The full story behind the headlines--including details never previously released on Castro's life and motivations-- Hope is a harrowing yet inspiring chronicle of two women whose courage, ingenuity, and resourcefulness ultimately delivered them back to their lives and families.
Finding Me by Michelle Knight; Michelle Burford (As told to)
Call Number: 364.154 Knight
The #1 New York Times Bestseller and inspirational memoir by Michelle Knight, whose survival story gripped the world and continues to inspire and offer hope. Michelle was a young single mother when she was kidnapped by a local school bus driver named Ariel Castro. For more than a decade afterward, she endured unimaginable torture at the hand of her abductor. In 2003 Amanda Berry joined her in captivity, followed by Gina DeJesus in 2004. Their escape on May 6, 2013, made headlines around the world. Barely out of her own tumultuous childhood, Michelle was estranged from her family and fighting for custody of her young son when she disappeared. Local police believed she had run away, so they removed her from the missing persons lists fifteen months after she vanished. Castro tormented her with these facts, reminding her that no one was looking for her, that the outside world had forgotten her. But Michelle would not be broken. In Finding Me , Michelle will reveal the heartbreaking details of her story, including the thoughts and prayers that helped her find courage to endure her unimaginable circumstances and now build a life worth living. By sharing both her past and her efforts to create a future, Michelle becomes a voice for the voiceless and a powerful symbol of hope for the thousands of children and young adults who go missing every year.
The Apology by V. (formerly Eve Ensler)
Call Number: 818.54 ENSLER
Like millions of women, Eve Ensler has been waiting much of her lifetime for an apology. Sexually and physically abused by her father, Eve has struggled her whole life from this betrayal, longing for an honest reckoning from a man who is long dead. After years of work as an anti-violence activist, she decided she would wait no longer; an apology could be imagined, by her, for her, to her. The Apology , written by Eve from her father's point of view in the words she longed to hear, attempts to transform the abuse she suffered with unflinching truthfulness, compassion, and an expansive vision for the future. Through The Apology Eve has set out to provide a new way for herself and a possible road for others, so that survivors of abuse may finally envision how to be free. She grapples with questions she has sought answers to since she first realized the impact of her father's abuse on her life: How do we offer a doorway rather than a locked cell? How do we move from humiliation to revelation, from curtailing behavior to changing it, from condemning perpetrators to calling them to reckoning? What will it take for abusers to genuinely apologize? Remarkable and original, The Apology is an acutely transformational look at how, from the wounds of sexual abuse, we can begin to re-emerge and heal. It is revolutionary, asking everything of each of us: courage, honesty, and forgiveness.
My Father's House by Sylvia Fraser
Call Number: BIOGRAPHY Fraser
From the age of seven, Fraser shared her body with a "twin" who lived a separate life-- doing the things her father made her do. As an adult, she had no recollection of a sexual relationship with her father, yet some connection always remained-- pain, terror and guilt dulled the surface of her life.
My Story by Elizabeth Smart; Chris Stewart
Call Number: BIOGRAPHY SMART
The harrowing true story of abduction and survival from the courageous young woman who lived it--now the subject of a Lifetime original movie, I Am Elizabeth Smart. In this memoir, Elizabeth Smart reveals how she survived and the secret to forging a new life in the wake of a brutal crime. On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. Elizabeth was kept chained, dressed in disguise, repeatedly raped, and told she and her family would be killed if she tried to escape. After her rescue on March 12, 2003, she rejoined her family and worked to pick up the pieces of her life. With My Story, Elizabeth tells of the constant fear she endured every hour, her courageous determination to maintain hope, and how she devised a plan to manipulate her captors and convinced them to return to Utah, where she was rescued minutes after arriving. Smart explains how her faith helped her stay sane in the midst of a nightmare and how she found the strength to confront her captors at their trial and see that justice was served. In the years after her rescue, Smart transformed from victim to advocate, traveling the country and working to educate, inspire and foster change. She has created a foundation to help prevent crimes against children and is a frequent public speaker. She and her husband, Matthew Gilmour, now have two children.

True Crime Book Club - Past Titles: Aug. 2023

"A Stolen Life" by Jaycee Dugard

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