Garrido acted ‘real weird’ but agents did nothing

Phillip Garrido, the man alleged to have held Jaycee Lee Dugard captive for 18 years, during which time he raped her and gave her two children, might have been caught a lot earlier if California parole agents had been more observant. That is the conclusion being drawn from state records released under pressure from two Californian newspapers, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Sacramento Bee.

Garrido was a registered sex offender on lifetime parole for a 1976 rape case in Nevada when California authorities took over his supervision in 1999. He was bound to keep parole officers informed of his whereabouts, and they were responsible for checking on him occasionally.

Quite how occasionally was not clear until the state records were published on Friday. They show that in the course of one year - June 2001 to July 2002 - he was never visited at all. During another year - June 2004 to August 2005 - he was visited only once.

The records also show that twice in 1999 a parole agent even recommended that Garrido be discharged from supervision.

In the two years before Jaycee Lee Dugard's ordeal came to light last August, visits to Garrido's home in Antioch, California were more frequent. Yet agents were never persuaded by his bizarre behaviour to conduct anything more than a "visual cursory search" of his home.

In June 2008, for instance, a parole agent described Garrido as "acting very strange, weird to say the least by ranting on about God and loudly singing songs, other than that nothing out of the ordinary." (In the sex registration annual update form completed by Garrido on April 4, 2009, he gave his employment as 'Church' and his employer's name as 'God's Desire'.)

On other visits to the Antioch house, parole agents noted that Garrido "displays real strange behaviour" or was "real weird acting". Yet on no occasion did agents ask to examine Garrido's backyard compound of sheds and tents, where they would have discovered Jaycee Lee Dugard and her two daughters.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, further state records are expected to be made public in March at a hearing before a judge.
Meanwhile, Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy remain in custody pending their trial on 29 counts, including kidnapping and rape. ·