Kidnapped girl in 1991 'found alive' 18 years later

Jaycee Lee Dugard, today 29 years old, turned up at a police station in Concord, California on Wednesday, approx 200km from her house where she disappeared from and identified herself as the missing woman, police officials said.

She was kidnapped from her house at South Lake Tahoe when she was only 11 in 1991 and spent 18 years hidden away, said the police.

At the time, witnesses told police that they saw her last time going into a car occupied by two people as the step father, Carl Probyn, watched. Probyn said that he saw from a distance a car had stopped and took the girl. He tried to follow them in a bicycle, but was unable to reach them. The police considered him a suspect until now.

It was discovered that she had two daughters, believed to be aged 11 & 15, with her kidnapper when police searched through the hidden place in the backyard behind her captor’s home, said the police speaker in an interview.

Police has suspects Philip & Nancy Garrido into custody. Philip, 58 years old is a registered sex offender, who has served time in prison for kidnapping & rape, Contra Costa county Sherrif Daniel Terry told ABC News, adding the couple were being investigated for kidnapping to commit rape.

Terry told Agence France-Presse the pair was arrested on Wednesday and was being held on bail of $US1 million ($A1.19 million).

Sheriff of El Dorado, Les Lovell, said conversations with the woman confirmed that she was Duggard.

Despite being a victim of a kidnapping in 1991, Dugard is in good health, indicates Mr Lovell.

Probyn, his wife and another daughter flew Thursday morning from Riverside, California to San Francisco to meet Dugard.