ANTIOCH, Calif. — His neighbors knew he was a registered sex offender. Kids on his block called him “Creepy Phil” and kept their distance. Parole agents and local law enforcement regularly visited his home and found nothing unusual, even after a neighbor complained that children were living in a complex of tents in his backyard.
For 18 years, Phillip Garrido managed to elude detection as he pulled off what authorities are calling an unfathomable crime: kidnapping 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard, raping her, keeping her as his secret captive for nearly two decades and fathering her two children.
The question of how he went unnoticed became more pressing Friday, when Garrido came under suspicion in the unsolved murders of several prostitutes in the 1990s, raising the prospect he was a serial killer as well.
Several of the women’s bodies — the exact number is not known — were dumped near an industrial park where Garrido worked during the 1990s.
Authorities acknowledged that they blew a chance three years ago to rescue Dugard from the backyard labyrinth of sheds, tents and outbuildings that were concealed from the outside world.
A neighbor called 911 in November 2006 and described Garrido as a psychotic sex addict who was living with children and had people staying in tents in his backyard.
Property not searched
The investigating officer spent a half-hour interviewing Garrido on his front porch but did not enter the house or search the backyard, said Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren Rupf. The deputy, who did not know Garrido was a registered sex offender even though the Sheriff’s Department had the information, warned Garrido before leaving that the tents could be a code violation.
“We missed an opportunity to bring earlier closure to this situation,” Rupf said. “I cannot change the course of events, but we are beating ourselves up over this and continue to do so.”
As a parolee, Garrido wore a GPS-linked ankle bracelet that tracked his every movement, met with his parole agent several times each month and was subject to routine surprise home visits and random drug and alcohol tests, said California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Gordon Hinkle.
The last unannounced visit by a team of local police agencies was conducted in July 2008.
“There was never any indication, to my knowledge, that there was any sign of children living there,” Hinkle said.
As it turns out, Dugard and her two children were living there as prisoners, authorities say. The wooded compound was arranged so that people could not view what was happening, and one of the buildings was soundproofed and could be opened only from the outside.
Dugard, now 29, was reunited with her family and was said to be in good health but feeling guilty about developing a bond with Garrido over the years. Her two children, 11 and 15, remained with her.
“Jaycee has strong feelings with this guy. She really feels it’s almost like a marriage,” said Dugard’s stepfather, Carl Probyn, who was there when Jaycee was snatched from a bus stop in 1991.
Avoiding public eye
Probyn has been in constant contact with his ex-wife, Terry Probyn, since she found out Wednesday her daughter was alive.
Probyn said both mother and daughter are trying to avoid the public eye for now. After not seeing each other for 18 years, Dugard greeted her mother by saying, “Hi, Mom. I have babies,” Probyn said.
She is now free thanks in large part to two police employees at the University of California, Berkeley, who came across a rambling Garrido this week, with Dugard’s two daughters in tow. He was on campus because he wanted to hold some sort of religious event.
Garrido seemed incoherent and mentally unstable, and the girls wore drab-colored dresses, were unusually subdued, had an unnaturally pale complexion and appeared robotic and rehearsed when they spoke, said one of the police employees, Lisa Campbell. They said they were home-schooled by their mother and had a 29-year-old sister at home.
Colleague Ally Jacobs ran a background check on Garrido and notified his probation officer. On Wednesday, Garrido arrived at the probation officer’s building with his wife, the two girls and a woman who initially identified herself as Allissa. She turned out to be Dugard.
On Friday, Garrido and his wife pleaded not guilty to a total of 29 counts, including forcible abduction, rape and false imprisonment.
