Jaycee Stepdad: "What a Miracle This Was"

(CBS/AP)  "Unbelievable" was how the man long suspected in the disappearance of an 11-year-old girl described the resolution of the nearly-two-decade-old mystery, when Jaycee Lee Dugard was found to be alive, living in the backyard of a convicted rapist and sex offender.

"It was a total surprise," Carl Probyn, Jaycee's stepfather, said of the stunning news that the girl whose kidnapping he witnessed 18 years ago had been found alive.

Probyn, 60, said he received a call from his wife (from whom he is now separated) saying she had news from the sheriff, "basically that they had found Jaycee, and then she paused for a few seconds and said, 'She's alive.'

"So we basically cried for five minutes, just lost it," Probyn told CBS "Early Show" anchor Maggie Rodriguez.

Jaycee's kidnappers. Phillip and Nancy Garrido, were arrested in what El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said was a stranger abduction - "They literally snatched her off the streets - in which she was taken to a home in Antioch, Calif., and kept in a backyard prison compound, hidden from neighbors.

More on the Jaycee Lee Dugard case from CBSNews.com:

Crimesider: Jaycee Lee Dugard Found Alive
Kidnap Victim's Nightmare Story Unfolds
Video: Ed Smart on Captive Girl
Video: Police On 1991 Kidnapping

"It's an unusual set of circumstances, presumably well-arranged," said Koller.

Philip Garrido was a convicted rapist and registered sex offender, and police said he forced Jaycee to bear two children ... the first when she was just 14. None of the children had been to school, or had ever seen a doctor.

The case broke after Garrido was spotted Tuesday with two children as he tried to enter the University of California, Berkeley, campus to hand out religious literature. Officers said he was acting suspiciously toward the children. They questioned him and did a background check, determined that he was a parolee and informed his parole officer.

Garrido was ordered to appear for a parole meeting and arrived Wednesday with Dugard, who identified herself as "Allissa," his wife, and two children. During questioning, corrections officials said he admitted to kidnapping Dugard.

"What a miracle this was after 18 years," Probyn said. "I had no idea after this long that we'd find her alive. I mean, this is definitely a one-of-a-kind situation. And then she's healthy and, you know, just unbelievable."

Probyn said he talked to his wife after her reunion with Jaycee last night. "She said Jaycee looks like, almost like when she was kidnapped. She looks very young, she looks very healthy. She told me that Jaycee feels really guilty for bonding with this guy. She has a real guilt trip."

Probyn said what disturbed him was the conditions of her captivity. "The way she was kept in the backyard. I was hoping for a better scenario where maybe a couple took her because they couldn't have their own children or something - that she, you know, had been in school, she had been raised by a couple. I wasn't expecting this ending, you know, being with this sex offender."

Probyn said that he is anxious now about what is ahead for Jaycee and her two children. "You know, the girls haven't been in school, they've never been to a doctor, a dentist. It's like, it's just unreal, you know?"

Rodriguez asked if he would embrace as part of his family the two children Jaycee bore her captor.

"You bet," he replied.

Probyn, who told the Associated Press that he was "a suspect until yesterday" in the case, told Rodriguez that he holds no resentment for investigators who focused the spotlight on him, despite having witnessed Jaycee's kidnapping and described the getaway vehicle.

"They're just doing their job. I mean, what are you going to do? I mean, you just have to deal with it. I'm glad they were doing their job. I am."

Police said Garrido, a convicted sex offender, snatched Jaycee from a South Lake Tahoe street in 1991. Probyn chased the vehicle down the street but could not catch up with it.

"I told them, it was a man and a woman," Probyn said. "I said it was an '85 Ford Monarch, gray four-door, and it turns out they had the car in the backyard. I'm surprised I got it right. I was curious for years, like, How close was I? Did I help the case, you know? Did I get the car right? And it turned out I got everything right. It's kind of a surprise."

"Does part of you feel vindicated this morning?" Rodriguez asked.

"A little bit. I really wasn't worried about that part. I knew I was innocent. I was fighting to get her back. It wasn't a priority what people thought, if I was guilty or not guilty. I had to make a living, work, go on with my life. I really wasn't worried about other people. I knew the FBI would put me through the wringer, and that was okay."

Probyn, who now lives in Orange, Calif., told the AP that he's "gone through hell" since the abduction, and that the stress on his wife from losing Jaycee ended their marriage.

"You know, it wasn't between us," he told Rodriguez. "We never had a fight. We never had no problems. We're the best of friends right now. Just losing Jaycee, it changed her life. Jaycee and Terri were like twins, they were joined at the hip. When she lost Jaycee, it just destroyed her.

"People can't believe how it destroys your life, having somebody disappear and not knowing where they're at, whether they're alive, you know, what the situation is. It's just terrible."

When asked what he wanted for the two suspects, Probyn said he hadn't really thought much about it. "Naturally I want them to pay the total price. I want the woman to, you know, not do a plea bargain.

"Actually, I got everything, you know? It's like, I'm getting answers to my questions, got them back, they're healthy, and these people are captured. They've confessed. As long as it took, 18 years to solve this, it all ended real quickly, and everything is done."

[ratmama]

Just want to give my support to Carl for the agony he endured. Get paid. You earned it.

[mandyr0867]

I will have to agree with the majority of the people... "they" should be hung and castrated. I don't know what the death penalty is in California, but maybe it's something like "Sparky"!!!

[jonjoe]

ONCE THEY PUT THESE TWO DISTURBED PEOPLE IN JAIL, THEY SHOULD SELL HIS PROPERTY AND GIVE ALL THE MONEY TO JAYCEE AND THE KIDS. THE STATE SHOULD DO IT PRO BONO . DO NOT LET A DIME GO TO THE STATE OR LAWYERS. THAT IS WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN THIS CASE. MY PRAYERS FOR THIS FAMILY. PRAISE THE LORD FOR THIS OUTCOME.

[highland_sac]

That is a GREAT idea!!! But you can bet that it won't happen. Too much red tape for our bureaucrats (how do you spell that?). But that would be great for her to get the proceeds from the property.

[highland_sac]

How did this become a political issue? Or even a religious one? Or the girl's fault for not being able to escape? It's very common for people who are kidnapped to become dependent on and sympathetic to their captors. And she was only 11. We don't know yet what he told her, such as "I'll kill your family if you try to escape," or "your family doesn't want you anymore." Anything like that. And it's common for the abductor to start feeling love towards their victim too. I read once that terrorists change out the people watching the victims because they will start bonding with them.

So this is all screwed up. What about the children who have this man for a father? How sick is that? How do you overcome that? What do you do on Father's Day? Ugh. What if the children love him and want to support him? C-R-E-E-P-Y!

The bottom line is the man is a sick mf and his wife is too. She could have turned him in at any time and saved this poor girl, but she helped him. SICK SICK SICK!

[Online4HIM]

Thank GOD for her final release from those deranged people... It is a blessing that she is still alive today. Instead of belittling each other, we should be celebrating her life and think on the good things....

[tanker144]

This just goes to show that you should teach your children how to escape and ask neighbors for help, call for police, etc. I mean, come on... 18 years in a back yard that the neighbors could see into? Had this girl had any escape savvy about her she'd have been home at least 17 years ago. If she's in the back yard, in a tent... get up at two in the morning, take down the tent, throw it across the fense and get the hell out. Sounds easy, and there could have been other factors that may impede an escape. Dogs, ankle chain, etc. But all of that stuff can be overcome at some point. Still, I'd like to see that couple get locked up for life.

[Richard-White]

Antioch is a small town so probation keeping tabs on this guy shouldn't be that dificult. The authorities dropped the ball on this one. Someone should show them how to use Google Earth. It shows the sheds and the tents at this guy's address.

Unbelievable.

[hillarynow]

This is what happens when the mentally ill take their religious beliefs too far. This freak is the type of religious nut if he were President would have started a war that decimated American life as we once knew it. Believing as long as God spoke to him and appointed him, it was justified to do what he was doing.. oh wait, we already had a religious nut job for a President that did that. Remember that same nut said the same kinds of crazy things, that one day you will see, when the whole story unfolds you will see what a wonderful thing I did, history will show one day..... uh yeah right.. don't ever vote Republican ever again, these are the kinds of dangerous overzealous religious nuts you are giving limitless power to and trusting with your life. This country is in the mess it is now in because of one of them.

[docpeter1953]

Gee, you are confused. You are not talking about GWB, but your messiah BHO, or HRC.

[rrozsa]

Leave politics out of this story - your ignorance is showing.

[presjfk]

I don't understand releasing rapists and sex offenders from prison. They should be executed or kept locked up forever after castration. What a stupid society that begs for victimization.