Video Shows Garrido Luring Girl Into Van
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Disturbing new video released Tuesday shows the wife of convicted kidnapper and rapist Phillip Garrido luring a young girl into the couple's van, asking her to do the splits and videotaping her, two years after the couple kidnapped 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard.
The videos were released by El Dorado District Attorney Vern Pierson, along with a report highlighting failures in the criminal justice system (.pdf) that allowed Phillip Garrido to roam free despite warnings, and snatch Dugard off a street in South Lake Tahoe in 1991.
He held her for 18 years, raped her and fathered two children with her while holding her captive in a backyard compound in the San Francisco Bay area town of Antioch.
Pierson said "law enforcement failed to see Phillip Garrido for what and who he truly is ... evil" and outlined a number of startling details that show how the enterprising Garrido gamed the parole system, allowing him and his wife Nancy to continue looking for victims.
In one video, shot in 1993, the voice of Nancy Garrido and a girl can be heard. Nancy Garrido asks the girl to do the splits while she videotapes it.
>> Raw: Interview With Nancy Garrido; Audio Of Girl Lured Into Van
(Video provided by El Dorado County District Attorney)
"That's it. Can you go all the way down?" Nancy says to the girl, who is blurred out in the video released by authorities.
The girl says she can go down farther.
"Let me see, I bet you can go down really easy," Nancy Garrido said.
When the girl notices a light on the camera, she asks Nancy Garrido about it.
"I don't know anything about that camera," says Nancy, quickly changing the subject.
>> Raw: Garridos Secretly Film Young Girls On Playground
In a separate interrogation video, Nancy Garrido told a detective she made 10 to 20 of these videos for her husband.
Garrido was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison after pleading guilty. Nancy Garrido was sentenced to 36 years to life.
The report says Garrido should not have been freed from prison in 1988, where he was serving a 50-year federal sentence and a five-years-to-life Nevada state sentence for a previous kidnapping and rape. Pierson said the parole system relied too heavily on psychiatric advice in determining Garrido's suitability for parole.
"The failure and inadequacies of the psychiatric profession were highlighted by Phillip Garrido and his manipulation of them to his advantage," Pierson wrote.
>> Raw: Parole Agent Searches Garridos' Home
After Garrido nabbed Dugard in 1991, Pierson said federal and state parole agents failed to investigate his history of sexual crimes and instead relied on reports from psychiatrists. This led to agents missing numerous warning signs over dozens of visits, allowing Garrido to continue holding Dugard and seeking other victims.
"Had the federal parole agents searched the Garrido residence they would have found her," the report states.
The report says Garrido's federal parole agent only visited his home once between May 1991 and May 1995. It also provides a list of dozens of incidents in which Garrido should have had his parole revoked, including once in 1988 when he contacted a former rape and kidnapping victim and other times when his urine tested positive for methamphetamine.
Dugard was reunited with her family in August 2009 after her whereabouts were discovered during a meeting with a parole agent who had summoned Phillip Garrido to his office.
The meeting came after two University of California, Berkeley police employees grew suspicious when Garrido showed up at the campus with the two girls he fathered with Dugard and asked for a permit to hold a religious event.
Pierson said he hoped his report would begin a process of exploring potential legislative solutions that will help law enforcement do a better job of supervising and detecting sexual predators.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)