It was high drama Thursday morning inside a small El Dorado County courtroom as Phillip and Nancy Garrido were sentenced in the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping case. A box of tissue was set at a podium in the front of the courtroom ready to catch the expected tears.
Jaycee Dugard's mother Terry Probin read a statement written by Jaycee that said her life was stolen by abductors.
In that victim-impact statement, Dugard wrote:
"I chose not to be here today because I refuse to waste another second of my life in your presence. Phillip Garrido you are wrong. You are a liar and all your theories are wrong. Everything you did to me is wrong. What you and Nancy did is reprehensible."
"I hated every second of every day of 18 years because of you and the sexual perversion you forced on me. Save your apology and empty words. I hope you have as many sleepless nights as I did. You stole my life and that of my family. I no longer live in a nightmare. You do not matter anymore."
Dugard wrote specifically to Nancy Garrido that her actions were evil and wrong. Nancy Garrido's lawyer said his client wept during her sentencing.
Probin cried as she read the statement by her daughter. She also had words of her own to say to the couple.
She remembered the day Jaycee was born calling her a gift from God and a true miracle. "I lived and breathed for that baby," Probin said.
She recalled singing Jaycee to sleep to the tune, "You are my sunshine." Then she said on June 10, 1991 "my world went dark and my sunshine was taken away." She added all her dreams turned into nightmares. "No amount of jail time will cleanse your corrupt souls. You should be ashamed. You are nothing other than selfish, self-serving monsters. The only satisfaction I have is you will never lay eyes on my daughter again." She added that they will never see her granddaughters either. She says the girls "know and understand your despicable secret" and she says there's "no love lost." She ended by saying, "I hate you both."
After the impact statements the judge sentenced Nancy Garrido to 36 years to life in prison for the crime of kidnap and rape.
"She loved her," Tapson said of his client's feelings toward Dugard. "They delivered the kids. They were a family - bizarre as that sounds, that's true."
Reporters from across the country swarmed the courthouse ahead of the 9 a.m. hearing, many searching the crowd for the victim in the case. A KCRA reporter Tweeted that two "unidentified" women were "escorted" into the courthouse at 8:20 a.m. In the end, those two women were Jaycee's mother and her aunt.
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Dugard was snatched off the street near her home near Lake Tahoe in 1991. She lived the next 18 years in squalor in the backyard of the Garrido home in Antioch.
Now, nearly two decades after being taken and nearly two years after being freed, the couple who plead guilty to the crime are expected to learn their punishment.
Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years, which was the maximum sentence.
The Garridos are kidnapped Dugard when she was 11 and holding her captive for 18 years.
The sentencing followed a plea deal that was reached in April. The plea of guilty enabled Dugard and her two daughters, who were fathered by Phillip Garrido, to avoid having to testify in the trial.
El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson said on the day the guilty pleas were entered that this will finally bring closure to Dugard and her family who he says have waited 20 years for justice.
He credited Jaycee for bringing the Garridos to justice because he said it was the threat of her testifying in the trial that forced the guilty pleas.
Even though Dugard choose not to speak in court Thursday, we will soon hear her tell the story of her life. She has written a memoir that will be released next month and part of the publishing is reportedly a book on tape that will be read by Dugard herself.
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Read what Twitter users are saying about the Garrido sentencing.
