Lisa Campbell and Ally Jacobs talk to South Tahoe residents Tuesday. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

“It’s so rare to have a happy ending.”

Those were the words of UC Berkeley police Officer Ally Jacobs as she spoke with a throng of people gathered Tuesday outside South Lake Tahoe City Council Chambers.

The council brought Jacobs and Lisa Campbell, UCPD special events manager, to town to honor them for their quick thinking that eventually led to the capture of Phillip and Nancy Garrido and the release of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

The two were humble — saying they were just doing their job.

This is the first time any city or entity has honored the two women together.

Even though their captain, Margo Bennett, said the duo is done doing interviews, the truth is they left Lake Tahoe Airport yesterday morning en route to Chicago to tape a segment with Oprah Winfrey. (Winfrey is itching to be the first to interview Dugard, the now 29-year-old who was freed from 18 years of captivity in an Antioch backyard after having being been snatched from a Meyers bus stop in 1991.)

Jacobs, 33, was in high school in Orange County (where Dugard lived before moving with her parents to the South Shore) when Dugard was kidnapped from Lake Tahoe. She didn’t know anything about the case when Garrido and two young girls walked onto the UC Berkeley campus in late August.

But Jacobs was suspicious.

“I just knew something was not right,” Jacobs said of that day. “We as women get that feeling.”

As the crowd dissipated and she had changed from her uniform to travel clothes, Jacobs said, “It’s just weird to be called a hero. It’s what I do every day.”

But she also knows the importance of her intuition and police training.

“It’s a huge case. It affects so many people,” Jacobs said.

The Garridos’ next court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 29 in El Dorado County Superior Court, Placerville.