Shattered Innocence: The Abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard?The Untold Story

About eight years ago I purchased "A Stolen Life: A Memoir" (ASL) written by Jaycee Dugard. Overall I thought it was a very good book. I hate using the word "brave" -- it's one of the most overused words in the English language next to "like" -- but I thought that Ms. Dugard was beyond brave for disclosing such private information of the pain and torment she endured. And I was interested in the story because I remembered hearing about her abduction many years earlier and was surprised to find out that she was still alive and had been rescued. Just like everyone else most likely, including her family.I will admit, I drove by the house where she was held captive after that. After all, at the time I lived fairly close to that house near Antioch. I was surprised to see that I was the only person on the street at the time as I expected other "lookee-loos" to be there too. Maybe just too many years had gone by. I rarely drive to crime-scene sites but I just went on a whim one day. Suffice it to say that there wasn't much to see there, other than a house that appeared to have been painted and cleaned up after the Garridos had moved out. And moved into their new 10 x 8 cells where they belong. Forever.While ASL was very good it was strictly from Ms. Dugard's perspective and so you don't read much what happened outside of her world. Then recently I decided to buy and read "Shattered Innocence" (SI) because I wanted to understand her family's perspective and the detectives' perspective of the story. Long story short, I was a little disappointed in this effort.For full disclosure I didn't finish SI. I did read about 90 percent of it but then it just became a slog. The problem for me: it felt as if the author just took quotes from the newspapers and pasted them into the book. And the tone of SI just felt all wrong to me. It tries too hard to be "happy happy" after the midway point, but of course this story was quite tragic, even though Ms. Dugard is supposedly living a pretty good life now. But I just felt that I was reading the Chamber of Commerce version of events and that just wasn't very interesting to me.While reading I did think that it would be interesting if a really good book from the outside perspective were written, and then after that another book could be created which would be a combination of that new book and Jaycee's book. It would flip back-and-forth from the inside perspective -- what Jaycee was doing to survive -- and the outside perspective -- what her family and police were doing -- where the timelines were intertwined. That way the reader could get a full view of what really happened, from every angle. It probably would never happen but it would be an interesting idea.Well, I'll go with a recommendation on "A Stolen Life" but I'll give a slight pass to "Shattered Innocence." It's too bad because SI had a shot at greatness. Instead it is unfortunately just a waste of time, kind of like how it probably was for Jaycee when she had to live with the Garridos for all those years.

This book captured the pure evil and hell as it describes this true story of shattered innocence. It gives background, documented facts and details of an unimaginable monster that was left unrestrained. The author shares the weakness of a justice system that is supposed to protect the innocent and defenseless. Pointing out chance after chance how someone could have/ should have intervened on behalf of a very frightened young girl, the reader is led to ask, how can something like this just fall through the cracks?As a brother of two sisters, a father of two daughters and a beautiful granddaughter God knows there is nothing more horrible this pervert could have done to that defenseless little girl. It is so tragic and yet a miracle that she survived to see freedom for her and her daughters. My hope is that Jaycee Dugard and her family find the true freedom that only comes from a real relationship with Christ.

This case was huge to me since Jaycee and I were very similar in age when all of this happened. It was a big case but I was young and a lot of details were not made available to me. I wanted to read this to get more information about what really happened in this case. Information I got! Definitely a ton of information, occasionally repetitive, and occasionally off subject. Also a bit dry and so fact packed that it was hard to plod through at times. But I did learn a lot more about the case and I am glad to have read this book.

There is a special place in hell for people like Phil and Nancy Garrido. My heart breaks for what that put Jaycee through.This book was much longer than it needed to be as the author repeated himself over and over on many occasions. He also went into great detail of other cases of missing girls. I just felt like it took way longer than it should've to get through this book because of it.

I'm so glad that this victim was able to survive and tell her story so that her kidnappers would never see the light of day again. Well written and so revealing. The content was difficult to deal with but the writer was able to give enough information without going Huntington fetails. I was able to get a clear picture of all of the characters involved, to feel their pain and understand slot about them. Good job.

Interesting tale. A bit repetitious in parts. I didn't really get a sense of whatever motivated the wife or the kidnapped girl (who had opportunities to escape with her children) or the dynamics of the relationships between them. I suspect that the author had no way to access this information. He did a lot of research.

Shows that no matter what we do to protect our children if someone wants yo kidnap them they can. It also shows how the justice, court system can fail

This was a chilling account of who Phillip and Nancy Garrido were! I live in NZ and this story as it emerged, even here in our little country, touched me, and I wanted to read about this horrific ordeal and see why a monster like this got away with kidnapping and rape for so long. My hat goes off the the beautiful woman that endured this to come out the other side with two beautiful girls. I just hope that her life now remains filled with treasures and lots of love! Jaycee is a wonderful, strong and giving person, even though much of her life had been stripped away! AAA+++

This book is about Phil Garrido and the kind of man he was. So if you enjoy reading about what goes on in the minds’ of criminals, then you’ll enjoy reading this book. Garrido was essentially a manipulator and Scott illustrates how well that worked for him and how he managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the probation service who missed so many opportunities to go into Garrido’s home where they would have found Jaycee. Scott also shows how the police behaved towards Kate Callaway, when she was trying to get help while being raped by Garrido. The story is astonishing in how it shows the incompetence of the police. I couldn’t believe the behaviour of the lawyers, in particular Stephen Tapson, who defended Nancy Garrido. But I’m British and I don’t think lawyers behave like that in Great Britain (For example, appealing to Jaycee through the media to contact him). But the book leaves a big question in my mind. If Garrido stopped raping Jaycee Drugard in 1997 which was confirmed by Nancy and even Jaycee herself, who, did he have sex with? Jaycee was discovered in 2009. Garrido is a dangerous sexual predator, a paedophile, a sexual deviant and a rapist with a seemingly insatiable sexual appetite so where did he get his gratification? The police, at one point, thought he may have been responsible for other murders but nothing came of that. It leaves a big question mark about how many more lives this maniac ruined or even destroyed and got away with.

The story ought to be gripping. There's also a tight timeline of real events and a raft of real if strange characters to grip us. With all these aspects inside, we should be able to assume the book would be an engrossing page turner. It isn't. There are two many diversions that lead readers into the periphery and then leaves them there. And the reader (and the author come to that) always seems very very distant from the events.

I really enjoyed this book, its full of detail that I hadn't known about the case.

Poorly written, with paragraphs seeming like they have been thrown together, often with "shocking moments" that have already been mentioned in previous chapters! Very erratic and disappointing.

Good book on a true story ~ great read