Wow, what a horrifying story. The more that I hear about, the more sickening it gets.
Police: Kidnap suspect fathered victim's kids
Demian Bulwa, Jaxon Van Derbeken, Henry K. Lee,Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, August 28, 2009
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(08-27) 19:56 PDT ANTIOCH -- Phillip Craig Garrido was already known as an oddball who said he could channel the voice of God through a makeshift box, but on Thursday, the eccentricity took on an aura of horror.
Eighteen years ago, authorities said, he kidnapped 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard on her way to catch a school bus in South Lake Tahoe. Ever since then, they said, he kept her prisoner in a squalid backyard compound near Antioch, raping her and fathering two daughters by her - the elder of whom is now 15.
Those girls also were housed in sheds and other outbuildings in the backyard, which had been walled off so it couldn't easily be seen by neighbors or other outsiders, authorities said.
When police found Dugard this week, she told them her name was Allissa, authorities said.
Garrido's wife knew all about what was happening, officials said. On Wednesday, Phillip Garrido, 58, and his 55-year-old wife, Nancy, were arrested.
That Dugard, now 29, was found in such living conditions was appalling, said El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar, whose agency is leading the investigation. But more important, he said, was the fact that she was found at all.
"We're very happy to be in front of you under these circumstances - Jaycee Dugard was found alive," Kollar said.
stepfather had given up
Her stepfather, Carl Probyn, who watched helplessly in 1991 as a stranger's car drove off with the girl, was thrilled to have her back.
"I gave up hope for 18 years, just went into recovery mode," Probyn said. "I thought it would be nice just to recover her and capture the people and find out why they did this.
"Now, I just won the lotto. It's just unbelievable."
Probyn, 60, who now lives in Orange, said his wife, Terry, from whom he is separated, had spoken with Dugard and reported that "she sounds normal. She told my wife she remembers everything."
Phillip Garrido is being held without bail in the El Dorado County Jail on suspicion of kidnapping, rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor, sexual penetration and conspiracy. Nancy Garrido was booked on suspicion of conspiracy and kidnapping and held on $4.2 million bail.
Dugard and her daughters, who are 11 and 15, are together in a motel in Antioch, sources said.
One of the sheds where Dugard and the girls were living could only be opened from the outside, Kollar said, and rudimentary toilets and electrical hookups were set up nearby.
"None of the children have ever been to school; they've never been to a doctor," the undersheriff said at a press conference in Placerville. "They were kept in complete isolation in this compound."
eighbors' suspicions
Neighbors in the unincorporated, semi-rural area outside Antioch where the Garridos live say they always thought he was bizarre, and even suspected something fishy was going on with the girls he called his daughters - but they thought authorities were keeping tabs on it all.
Phillip Garrido is a registered sex offender, and authorities inspected his house several times over the years but never discovered the backyard compound.
The neighbors and other acquaintances said Garrido conducted religious revivals in a tent, claimed to hear the voices of angels and God, and said he had developed a device through which he could control sound with his mind. He propounded this all in a business he called "God's Desire."
In a telephone interview from jail with Sacramento TV station KCRA, Garrido said, "In the end, this is going to be a powerful, heartwarming story."
ait till you hear'
In recent years, he said, "my life has been straightened out. Wait till you hear the story of what took place at this house. You're going to be absolutely impressed. It's a disgusting thing that took place with me at the beginning, but I turned my life completely around."
The Garridos were arrested Wednesday after Phillip Garrido came to a state parole office in Concord, accompanied by his wife, a woman - who turned out to be Dugard - and Dugard's two daughters, officials said.
Garrido was asked to come in because UC Berkeley police Officer Allison Jacobs had become suspicious after questioning him about handing out his religious materials on campus without getting clearance first, authorities said.
"Diligent questioning" and further investigation by state authorities and Concord police revealed that the woman was Dugard, state officials said.
Dugard had last been seen June 10, 1991, as she was walking to a bus stop in South Lake Tahoe. The blond, blue-eyed 11-year-old, wearing a pink top and pink pants, was going to catch the bus to her school near South Lake Tahoe.
As Carl Probyn watched from the family's driveway on a hill about two blocks away, a sedan pulled up and someone yanked the girl into the car and sped off. No trace of the car or girl was ever found.
uspect did time
Officials said Garrido served time in Nevada on kidnapping and rape convictions in the 1970s, '80s and '90s and was paroled after one stint in 1988 and another in June 1999. It was not immediately clear where Dugard may have been while Garrido was in custody.
Neighbors of the Garridos on Walnut Avenue - and even some of his own family - considered Phillip Garrido strange as he proselytized to them about his messages from God and kept the females at his house from contact with outsiders.
Erika Pratt, 25, who stayed next door two years ago, said she was continuously "freaked out" by Garrido's behavior and that when she popped her head over the fence she saw his secret compound. There were tents, sheds and pit bulls, she said, and water hoses leading from her house next door.
hey never talked'
"He had little girls and women living in that backyard, and they all looked kind of the same," Pratt said. "They never talked, and they kept to themselves."
Pratt said people came and went from the property, but the core group consisted of two girls about 4 years old, one girl about 11, another girl about 15 and a young woman about 25. They were all blond, she said.
Pratt said she had called Contra Costa County sheriff's deputies to investigate, but that officers "told me they couldn't go inside because they didn't have a warrant. So they just told him they'd keep an eye on him."
Police said Thursday that the only people living in the yard when the Garridos were arrested were Dugard and her daughters.
blank stare'
Haydee Perry, 35, who lives next door, said that when Phillip Garrido helped her jump-start her car a month ago, he had a young girl clinging to him in a manner that struck her as strange.
"She stayed close to him at all times," Perry said. "It wasn't normal behavior. She had a blank stare on her face. Now it seems like a cry out for help."
A Web site containing statements from Garrido and others called "Voices Revealed" talks about a turnaround that allowed him "to open doors that will honor the creator and his eternal purpose for mankind."
The site also indicates that he gave a demonstration in Pittsburg last month with a homemade box to prove "the creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world."
Mary Thomas, accountant at J&M auto dismantlers in Pittsburg, near where Garrido set up his revival tent, said he "was always very professional and spoke the word of God whenever he talked."
Garrido had a printing business, making business cards for J&M and others in the area. Tiffany Tran, who runs Furniture Gallery in Brentwood, said she had seen and done business with "Phil the printer" for six years, as recently as last week.
little different'
She recalled Garrido as being "a little different" and said he constantly talked about religion and showed her a device through which he claimed he could control sound with his mind.
"Some people have a story behind their smile, some don't - he did," Tran said. "He was happy-go-lucky, but you knew there was a story behind it."
Chronicle staff writers Matthew Yi and Matthew B. Stannard contributed to this report. E-mail the writers at
dbulwa@sfchronicle.com,
jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com,
hlee@sfchronicle.com and
kfagan@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...MN4N19EJ35.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard found 18 years later.
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