r/RedditCrimeCommunity

In 2004, when I was 14, I was dating a man who was 22. He was violent, abusive, and I genuinely believed he was capable of killing me. During that time, I witnessed him murder someone. I was terrified and never told anyone.

I moved away when I was 20 and tried to leave that part of my life behind. Years passed, and I convinced myself there was no point in coming forward. Then, in 2020, he was arrested and convicted of a different murder.

The part that haunts me is that he killed both victims in exactly the same way. After his conviction, his mother somehow tracked me down and reached out to me. Now I'm convinced that if I come forward, he'll know it was me. He only got 15 years for the second murder, and I keep wondering if I should tell the police what I know or stay silent and hope he never gets out.

ETA: I did not wish to give a ton of details but this is important. In 2020 he gave someone something that killed them. Texts proved it. It was not what the person thought they were getting. Then in 2004 I saw him give a kid, maybe 17, something and he died that night from it. I do not know what his parents know or think about it. Police never got involved and it was ruled an accidental overdose. To me this is murder. I did not feel it was back then but now I know that it is murder. However there is no evidence beyond something I saw 22 years ago.

That’s what my mom said to me.. while sitting on the porch overlooking the backyard. I looked over and said “the dog bones?” She immediately started talking about my missing brother. She hadn’t spoken of him in years.

She was well into her dementia at this point but when he went missing she was adamant that I not report it. She didn’t want to shut off his social security payments either and I don’t know if she ever did.

I had my suspicions I had shared with my husband long before those words came out of her mouth.

Her and my dad were very violent in my younger years. Had a belt out around my neck and was choked while my mom screamed for my dad to “kill me”. Emotionally abusive too. All of us kids had to deal with it.

He was an adult alcoholic. Not a saint by any means but he was my brother and was traumatized by his childhood

She passed in 2024. I have finally contacted authorities so I do not have to sit with this.

We have gotten permission to search the backyard from the new owners

I hope I am wrong.

On the morning of June 10 1991 Jaycee Dugard walked toward her school bus stop near her home in South Lake Tahoe. Her stepfather Carl was in the driveway when he saw it happen. A car slowed down beside her. A woman in the passenger seat used a stun gun on her. Jaycee was pulled inside. Carl chased the car on his bicycle until it was gone. Then he ran to a neighbor's house to call 911.

She was 11 years old. She did not come home for 18 years.

Philip Garrido was already known to law enforcement long before he took her. In 1977 he kidnapped and raped a 25 year old woman named Katie Callaway Hall and received a 50 year federal sentence for it. He served 11 years. When the California Inspector General reviewed the case years later he called that release inexplicable. Garrido was on federal parole when he grabbed Jaycee in 1991 and nobody stopped him.

He kept her in a shed behind his home in Antioch California. His wife Nancy was involved from the beginning. Jaycee gave birth to her first daughter at 14 years old with no medical help, and her second at 17. Both girls were fathered by Garrido. She raised two children inside that compound while her mother spent 18 years not knowing if she was alive.

Her mother Terry never gave up. Carl spent years under suspicion simply because he was there and had witnessed it, cooperating with every request and passing every polygraph while the man who actually took her was being visited by parole officers who never looked past the front of the property. The stress of it ended his marriage to Terry.

A neighbor reported seeing a young blonde girl in Garrido's backyard in 1991 and said the girl gave her name as Jaycee. Nothing came of it. Parole officers visited the property 60 times between 1999 and 2009 and never found her. In 2008 one of those officers found a young girl living there in direct violation of Garrido's parole conditions and still did nothing. The California Inspector General later confirmed that Garrido had been properly supervised for 12 out of 123 months under state watch. A 90 percent failure rate, documented and confirmed.

Each parole agent had 45 minutes a week per case. That was the system's answer to supervising a violent convicted sex offender with a kidnapping already on his record.

It ended in August 2009 when Garrido brought Jaycee and their daughters to the UC Berkeley campus to hand out religious pamphlets. Two campus employees thought something was off, ran a background check, and called his parole officer. Garrido showed up to the meeting with Jaycee and the girls beside him. That is what it took after 18 years.

Jaycee was 29. Her youngest daughter had never known any life outside that compound.

Garrido and his wife pleaded guilty and went to prison. California settled with Jaycee for 20 million dollars. A federal appeals court ruled she could not sue the federal government, with the majority writing that while their hearts were with her the law was not. The dissenting judge said his colleagues got the law wrong.

Jaycee wrote a memoir called A Stolen Life in 2011 and founded the JAYC Foundation for families affected by abduction and trauma. She raised her daughters and rebuilt her life.

Carl got everything right the night it happened. He described the car, the two people inside, all of it, and it matched exactly when they finally found Garrido 18 years later. He just could not get there fast enough on a bicycle.