FROM THE ARCHIVES:South Lake Tahoe, June 12th, 1992: Terry Probyn shook her head in awe and appreciation as she marched with about 400 parents and children beside the gentle shore of Lake Tahoe in support of her missing daughter.
Carrying lighted white candles and wearing pink ribbons, they proceeded solemnly up the main street of this resort town to deliver a simple message: Even in these violent times, when acts such as kidnapping seem commonplace, one little girl’s abduction won’t be forgotten.
“It’s a message to her – that I’m still looking for her,” Terry Probyn said. “It’s a message for all the other kids, that parents will not give up.”
The Wednesday evening rally and march marked the one-year anniversary of Jaycee Lee Dugard’s kidnapping. It happened as she walked to the school bus stop in the last week before summer. She had hoped to spend the vacation working at a horse stables.
An older grey Ford pulled sharply in front of her. Arms reached out and dragged her inside. Her stepfather, Carl Probyn, watched in horror from the family garage a third of a mile away, and grabbed a bicycle to give chase. Too late.
For the Probyns and this High Sierra community, the search goes on for Jaycee, whose 12th birthday was last month. Working with a handful of friends, Terry and Carl Probyn have blanketed the Sierras with their daughter’s picture. Posters hang in markets, gas stations, casinos, car windows, on T-shirts. Pink ribbons are tied around pine trees and car aerials. A plaque with her picture is on a granite boulder outside the county library.
“It took me a month of crying and carrying on and going crazy,” Terry Probyn said. Then after her family had left, she found herself alone in a big house and it struck her: “I can’t sit here and cry. I have to fight for what I want.”
She moved a desk and a personal computer into Jaycee’s room and positioned it under a poster-sized photo of her daughter. From there she works full-time, gathering addresses, writing letters and worrying.
Each Wednesday night the Probyns and a small core of friends can be found sitting around long tables in a conference room of the El Dorado County Library. There, they address posters that plead for Jaycee’s safe return.
Librarians marvel at their tenacity. Over the months, they’ve mailed 1.3 million posters nationwide, paid for by donations.
The Probyns had lived in South Lake Tahoe only nine months when their daughter vanished.
Back in their old hometown, Garden Grove, they had lived in a security building. They were forever cautioning Jaycee not to play outside unattended. In Tahoe, they hoped, Jaycee and their other daughter, Shayna (2), could grow up safer and freer.
The kidnapping is the top priority of the El Dorado county sheriff’s department, said Lieut Bob Altmeyer. In all, deputies and FBI agents have interviewed 5,375 people and followed 4,066 leads, all leading nowhere. Lieut Altmeyer said police assume she is alive, but he offers no motive or theories about the crime.
“There are a hundred theories. We won’t know until we get her back,” said Trish Williams, director of Child Quest International, a San José group involved in the search.
At the family home, a swing hangs from a pine tree, kittens wrestle and a sandbox is well used. Other than her mother’s desk and computer, Jaycee’s room remains as she left it. The same dirty clothes are stuffed in dresser drawers. Her favourite night-time stuffed animal, a big pink bunny, rests on her pillow.
On a wall hangs one of her fifth-grade assignments, a description of herself written in near-perfect penmanship:
“Blond hair. Blue eyed. Freckled. Sibling of Shayna . . . Lover of chocolate. Cats. Horses. Who feels happy on Holidays. Pain when hurt . . . Who needs loving care. Friends. Family . . . Who fears Bumble bees. Spinach. Spiders. Who would like to see My friends. Less Homework. More trees.”
– (Los Angeles Times service)