Since 1999, when he was placed under California parole supervision for a 1976 rape in Nevada, Phillip Garrido, 58, was subject to drug testing, required to wear a GPS device and subject to twice-monthly visits by his state parole officer. In 2006, a neighbor called 9-1-1 to report that children were living in Garrido's backyard in squalor, but the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department failed to search the registered sex offender's premises.
Last month, UC Berkeley Police Officer Allison Jacobs became suspicious of Garrido, figured out that he was a registered sex offender who was accompanied by two adolescent girls, and contacted Garrido's parole officer. Jacobs told reporters that when she mentioned the girls, whom Garrido said were his daughters, the parole officer responded, "Garrido doesn't have any daughters."
Garrido and his 55-year-old wife, Nancy, have been arraigned on a total of 29 charges of rape and kidnapping in connection with the 1991 abduction of 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard. They have pleaded not guilty.
Throughout the Bay Area, people are wondering how a registered sex offender under parole supervision could manage to hide Dugard, now 29 -- and apparently sire her two daughters, ages 11 and 15.
"We are beating ourselves up over this," Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren Rupf told reporters. He offered his "apologies to the victims" as he accepted "responsibility" for what did not happen.
Gordon Hinkle of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told The Chronicle that Garrido essentially outfoxed parole officers by building a fence that served as "a false front" for a "secret" backyard. The department issued a press release that noted that the parole officer's "diligent questioning and follow up ... led to Garrido revealing his kidnapping of the adult female."
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