Posted on 08/27/2009 3:40:11 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A Bay Area sex offender has admitted to the 1991 kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was found safe in Concord on Wednesday, California corrections officials said. It has been 18 years since Dugard was kidnapped near Lake Tahoe.
The break in the case came after a parole agent brought Phillip Garrido in for questioning after he was seen with two children on the U.C. Berkeley campus, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.
Garrido brought two young children and an adult woman with him to the parole office. The meeting started as a routine meeting, but quickly changed.
While talking to Garrido, the agent discovered the woman was Dugard, who was 11 years old when she was abducted. Later in the questioning the agent said Phillip Garrido admitted he kidnapped Dugard.
This is the photo posted on the Megan's Law Web site of Phillip Garrido.
This is the mug shot of Phillip and Nancy Garrido Garrido said that the small children are his. Garrido was paroled from a Nevada state prison on June 8, 1999. He served time in federal custody in Nevada for sexual assault.
Lt. Les Lovell of the department's South Lake Tahoe office said, "We're 99 percent sure it's her." He says DNA tests are being conducted. Lovell was the detective first assigned to the case in 1991.
The couple lives in Antioch and both are being held on a one million dollar bail.
The FBI conducted a search of their home Thursday morning. The location is believed to be where Dugard had been living.
A news helicopter over the house showed dozens of FBI agents standing outside the home. The property has several outbuildings. The main house has a terra cotta roof. The agents set up a tent in the backyard. SF Gate is reporting Dugard was kept in a small shed on the property for years.
Neighbor Betty Unpingco said she always found Phillip Garrido to be strange. She said she never saw any children or young adults coming or going or ever playing in the front yard.
Phillip Garrido is being held in Martinez on suspicion of kidnapping, rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor, sexual penetration and conspiracy. He is a listed sex offender on the Megan's Law Web site with the same address in Antioch.
His wife Nancy Garrido was being held on suspicion of conspiracy and kidnapping.
Phillip Garrido is being described as a kind of religous fanatic. NBC Bay Area's Jodi Hernandez says he has a church in Antioch and often sets up a tent outside a wrecking yard in Pittsburg where he attempts to preach. A person who picked up the phone at the wrecking yard Thursday said he had been there just yesterday and had left several pamplets.
The couple who owns the wrecking yard told Hernandez they've known Garrido for ten years, adding they allowed him to preach outside their business. They recently invited the Garrido's and their two young children over to their house for a party. They said the Garrido children seemed to be in "culture shock" during the party and didn't seem to know how to act around other kids their age.
The young children were said to be homeschooled and they attended church in the family's basement. Dugard was abducted in 1991 on her way to a school bus stop.
Thursday is Jaycee Dugard's 29th birthday. Jaycee's mother, Terry Probyn, who currently lives in southern California, flew up to the East Bay to be reunited with her daughter.
Dugard's stepfather told KCRA Wednesday that his wife spoke to the woman last night and she instantly knew she was her long-missing daughter. He said, "Jaycee remembers everything."
All those years ago, Carl Probyn watched helplessly from his driveway as a gray sedan pulled up alongside Jaycee. Someone inside yanked the girl into the car and sped off. She was never seen again -- until she walked into the Concord police station.
"I can't even sleep," Probyn said. "I'm anxious to find out where she's been and what she's been doing." "I'm just really thrilled this is coming to an end and excited to find who did this and solve this case," Probyn said. Probyn said he endured years of suspicion from FBI agents who believed he may have been involved in the abduction. He eventually lost hope that he would ever see his stepdaughter alive.
The El Dorado County Sheriff's Department will hold a news conference at 3 p.m. to talk about the case. Lovell said investigators have been working the case consistently since she was abducted.
"You bet it's a surprise. This is not the normal resolution to a kidnapping," he said.
This perb needs to be executed
The victim was 11 when kidnapped 18 years ago, she’s 28 or 29 now. Did they keep her locked in a cage the whole time?
Who is the mother of the two young children?
The dates aren't lining up. Another report said he was in prison in NV for 11 years...that would have him locked up in '91 when this abduction happened.
Children have two parents and he was a sex offender. Why is this reporter making it sound like these two claims are mutually exclusive? They are probably both true.
Maybe Dukakis furloughed him?
He had two children with his victim. Probably not unusual behavior for this type.
See reply 6.
Makes one wonder in all those years, that he was never visited by a parole officer at home.
He had set up a prison in the back yard with several sheds. The report is that she and the two girls were kept in the sheds.
In the police press conference today, they said that yes, the two small children are his and JC’s.
It’s even worse than I originally thought. She (and then her kids too) were kept isolated all this time. No school, no friends. All those years. It’s just staggering.
Their recovery will be a long and difficult process. Certainly some of the effects of this will be with them for the rest of their lives. How awful.
That’s what I figured.
Of course if a regular taxpaying citizen had a yard full of non-code sheds and tents, county code enforcement would be all over them assessing fines, levying tax liens against the property, and sending in a crew to clean it out at which time, this poor girl could have been rescued long ago.
Or murdered if the perp felt threatened.
Local news is reporting that neighbors are saying that they called the police when they became aware there were children living with him, knowing he was a sex offender, and the POLICE DID NOT FOLLOW UP.
I am sick of paying taxes that go to government workers who do not do their jobs. Give us back our tax money and let us arm ourselves and scum like this guy and his wife won’t be around to do this to children.
The kidnapped girl. She would have been about 14 when the oldest was born.
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