Since Jaycee Dugard walked into a government office last month to identify herself as the victim of an 18-year ordeal, media coverage of the story has been intense and worldwide. Hundreds of reporters have rushed to the California town where Jaycee, now 29, was held captive after being kidnapped at age 11.

The interest is understandable. The length of Jaycee’s captivity, the fact that she has two daughters by Phillip Garrido, the man who allegedly abused her; the involvement of Garrido’s wife, Nancy, in the horrifying kidnapping – all these elements are unprecedented in the history of American crime.

Look up the story on the Google news index on any given day, and you’ll see more than 6,000 articles, video clips and photo slideshows. It’s to the credit of the Dugard family and the authorities that they have managed to keep Jaycee and her 11- and 15-year-old daughters, Starlite and Angel, out of the spotlight themselves. There have been no pictures and no interviews.

Investigators who are questioning the family have also prohibited Jaycee and the girls from reading newspapers or listening to TV or radio, according to the website Radar Online, because they do not want memories of the ordeal tainted by any news reports. “They are going a little stir crazy,” Jaycee’s stepfather, Carl Probyn, told the website. “We don't know how much longer they have to stay in hiding but we will do it the right way for however long it takes because we have to make sure they are brought along slowly so they can deal with all of this in a healthy way.”