Rummage Sale Aids Wider Search for Girl : Abduction: Jaycee Dugard’s parents hope to hire a private detective to pursue some the hundreds of leads on the 11-year-old’s kidnaping.

It has been nearly eight weeks since 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted a few blocks from her South Lake Tahoe home as her father watched helplessly.

Since then, more than 90,000 posters bearing the likeness of the blonde, blue-eyed girl have been distributed in California, her case has been featured on a nationally televised show and authorities have checked out more than 500 tips--all to no avail.

But her family, who moved to Northern California from Orange County only months before the kidnaping, says they are more hopeful than ever that their daughter will turn up alive and well.

“We have our teary days but we’re all hopeful,” Jaycee’s mother, Terry Probyn, said Saturday. “There isn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that she’s out there.”

Probyn said the family has been overwhelmed by the support of the community in South Lake Tahoe and old friends in Orange County, many of whom turned up Saturday for a rummage sale at Anaheim Plaza, held to raise money to widen the search for Jaycee outside of California.

Probyn said the family also wants to hire a private detective to pursue some of the hundreds of leads--there have been confirmed sightings in California of Jaycee and her abductors--that have been turned in to authorities and missing-children agencies.

Jaycee was abducted on the morning of June 10 as she walked to a school bus stop only a quarter-mile from her home. Jaycee’s stepfather, Carl Probyn, was working in his garage and saw a car, described as a gray, two-door Mercury Zephyr or similar vehicle, drive past the house. The car made a U-turn and someone, possibly a woman, reached out of the car and pulled Jaycee inside.

Terry Probyn and law enforcement authorities are convinced that the abductors are strangers and not relatives or someone that is known by the family.

Probyn said she also believes that her daughter had been watched and that the abduction was carefully planned. It is especially maddening because Jaycee had been coached to avoid just such an incident.

“We had her fingerprinted, and she was instructed to avoid strangers,” Probyn said. “We had her walk up the left side of the hill (to the bus stop) so she couldn’t be snatched from behind.”

The Probyns had moved from their Garden Grove home last September to provide a safer environment for Jaycee and her 18-month-old sister, Terry Probyn said. But the family has learned that there is “no safe place in the world.”

“I put a lot of blame on myself in the beginning. . . . But now I realize it can happen to anyone at any time,” she said.

The Probyns have been aided in their search by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and the Interstate Assn. for Stolen Children.

Gregg Mengell, a representative of the interstate association who attended the rummage sale, said that child abduction cases are among the most difficult to solve--and to prevent.

“The Probyns did everything they possibly could,” Mengell noted. “I think street education is the best (prevention). Just simple common-sense rules, like keeping a distance from strangers and yelling out if they are threatened. But if children aren’t taught, they don’t know.”

Mengell said that each missing child case plays out differently but that there is much hope for Jaycee.

“Jaycee has a good shot, if everyone is persistent and diligent we can bring her back,” he said.

The rummage sale will continue today until 4 p.m. at 400 N. Loara St., Anaheim.

Anyone with information about the abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard can call the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department at (916) 573-3022, the Interstate Assn. for Stolen Children at (800) 468-3545 or the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children at (800) 843-5678.