What do we hope to gain from reading these tales of woe?

As if the Jaycee Dugard tale wasn't awful enough all on its own, the NYT reports this morning that the timing of the revelation of this 18-year-long kidnapping could derail a California bill designed to address prison overcrowding.

Jaycee Dugard's story is utterly flabbergasting. Would an 11-year-old girl have to be especially vulnerable to fall prey to such a psychological, as well as physical, snare? Or could this happen to a normal kid?

On Wednesday, a woman she walked into a police station and announced that she was Jaycee Dugard, the 11-year-old girl who was kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., in 1991. Soon observers will be asking why she didn’t ask for help sooner.