by John Glatt
Dear Reader:
The book you are about to read is the latest bestseller from the St. Martin’s True Crime Library, the imprint The New York Times calls “the leader in true crime!” Each month, we offer you a fascinating account of the latest, most sensational crime that has captured the national attention. St. Martin’s is the publisher of Tina Dirmann’s VANISHED AT SEA, the story of a former child actor who posed as a yacht buyer in order to lure an older couple out to sea, then robbed them and threw them overboard to their deaths. John Glatt’s riveting and horrifying SECRETS IN THE CELLAR shines a light on the man who shocked the world when it was revealed that he had kept his daughter locked in his hidden basement for 24 years. In the Edgar-nominated WRITTEN IN BLOOD, Diane Fanning looks at Michael Petersen, a Marine-turned-novelist found guilty of beating his wife to death and pushing her down the stairs of their home—only to reveal another similar death from his past. In the book you now hold, LOST AND FOUND, John Glatt takes a look at one of the most incredible cases of abduction to make national headlines in recent years.
St. Martin’s True Crime Library gives you the stories behind the headlines. Our authors take you right to the scene of the crime and into the minds of the most notorious murderers to show you what really makes them tick. St. Martin’s True Crime Library paperbacks are better than the most terrifying thriller, because it’s all true! The next time you want a crackling good read, make sure it’s got the St. Martin’s True Crime Library logo on the spine—you’ll be up all night!
Charles E. Spicer, Jr.
Executive Editor, St. Martin’s True Crime Library
Titles by
JOHN GLATT
from the True Crime Library of
St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Lost and Found
Playing with Fire
Secrets in the Cellar
To Have and to Kill
Forgive Me, Father
The Doctor’s Wife
One Deadly Night
Depraved
Cries in the Desert
For I Have Sinned
Evil Twins
Cradle of Death
Blind Passion
Deadly American Beauty
Never Leave Me
Twisted
Lost and Found
JOHN GLATT
St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Part One
1 “THE BABY OF THE FAMILY”
2 INSANITY
3 ROCK CREEK
4 RENO
5 “ALL I WANT IS A PIECE OF ASS”
6 “JUST IMAGINE THAT YOU WERE IN ROMAN TIMES”
7 “PLEASE HELP ME!”
8 “IT LOOKED LIKE A SCENE FROM A PORNO FLICK”
9 “HE’S A SICK PUPPY”
10 SATYRIASIS
11 KATIE CALLAWAY TAKES THE STAND
12 “HE IS FOLLOWING A PATTERN”
13 “I HAVE HAD THIS FANTASY”
14 “EVERYBODY IS TRYING TO GET A POUND OF HIS FLESH”
15 LEAVENWORTH
16 NANCY
17 “I’LL SEE YOU AGAIN, KATIE”
18 THE SECRET BACKYARD
Part Two
19 JAYCEE LEE DUGARD
20 THE ABDUCTION
21 “IF YOU CAN HEAR MOMMY”
22 AMERICA’S MOST WANTED
23 THE SUMMER OF TERROR
24 STOCKHOLM SYNDROME
25 “MY BABY BLUE”
26 “THE POWER OF ADVERTISING”
27 “A PRODUCTIVE CITIZEN”
28 CREEPY PHIL
29 1554 WALNUT AVENUE
30 “I DON’T WANT TO HURT HIM”
31 “GOD’S DESIRE”
32 “DO YOU HEAR ANYTHING?”
33 THE MAN WHO SPOKE WITH HIS MIND
34 CLOSING IN
35 THE SECOND COMING
Part Three
36 “I’M SO PROUD OF MY GIRLS”
37 “MY NAME IS JAYCEE LEE DUGARD”
38 “THEY FOUND JAYCEE”
39 “A GENETIC CONNECTION”
40 “A POWERFUL, HEARTWARMING STORY”
41 MEA CULPA
42 THE SEARCH
43 ANTIOCH 94509
44 “SHE LOVED JAYCEE VERY MUCH”
45 NO STONE UNTURNED
46 “I’M SO HAPPY TO BE BACK”
47 “MISSED CLUES AND OPPORTUNITIES”
48 “A MASTER MANIPULATOR”
49 “MR. GARRIDO DOES NOT HARBOR ANY ILL WILL”
Epilogue
Author’s Note
* * *
NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
* * *
LOST AND FOUND
Copyright © 2010 by John Glatt.
Cover photo of schoolgirl by Adam Crowley / Getty Images; photo of tent by Jamie Kripke / Getty Images.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
EAN: 978-0-312-38827-0
Printed in the United States of America
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / October 2010
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Audrey and Mavis Hirschberg
Acknowledgments
After Jaycee Lee Dugard’s allegedly heartless kidnapper Phillip Garrido was unmasked as a twenty-first-century Charles Manson, many questioned how a human being could commit such unspeakable crimes. But Garrido’s arrest came as no surprise to Katie Callaway Hall, who had been his first victim in 1976, when he had forcibly taken her across the California/Nevada border to rape her.
As a result, Garrido was sent to prison for half a century. But after only serving 11 years, he had cunningly managed to beat the system to be freed back into society.
Soon after getting out, he tracked Katie down to the casino where she was working and threatened her. Terrified, she warned his parole officer that it was only a matter of time before he struck again, but was told nothing could be done.
If only law enforcement had heeded Katie’s desperate pleas, little Jaycee might have been spared her terrible eighteen-year ordeal.
Over the years, while Jaycee and her daughters Starlit and Angel lived in squalor hidden away in his backyard, the authorities missed many opportunities to catch the sexual predators and free their captives. And they would almost certainly still be there if the increasingly delusional Garrido had not virtually given himself up, seeking a world stage to preach his bizarre religious beliefs.
Perhaps the only precedent for this strange case is Austria’s Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his own daughter Elizabeth for almost a quarter of a century, fathering her seven children. In 2008 I wrote a book about the case, Secrets in the Cellar, but in many ways the Jaycee Lee Dugard tragedy is even more disturbing and heartbreaking, as it should never have happened in the first place.
Lost and Found is the result of ten months of exhaustive research and countless interviews. In it I have attempted to explore what went wrong with the system, allowing such a dangerous sexual predator back on the streets to commit the outrageous crimes with which he has been charged.
In September 2009, I visited Antioch and spoke to many people with first-hand knowledge of Phillip and Nancy Garrido, some of whom wished to remain anonymous.
I would like to thank: Tim Allen, Deepal Karuna
ratne, Lorenzo Love, Christine Mecham, Maria Christenson, Murray Sexton and Tony Garcia of the Bridgehead Café, Lt. Jim Lardieri, Michael Cardoza, Phillip Sherlwell, retired detective Dan DeMaranville, Janice Dietrick, Janice Gomes, Marc Lister, Victor Acosta, Eddie Loebs, Tommy Wilson-O’Brien, Jim and Cheyvonne Molino, Wayne Thompson, Betty Upingco, Polly White and Carol Lloyd of the Washoe County Library System.
As always, I would also like to thank my editors at St. Martin’s Paperbacks, Charles Spicer and Yaniv Soha, for their unstinting support and the superb job they always do.
Gratitude also to Gail, Jerome and Emily Freund, Debbie, Douglas and Taylor Baldwin, Trudy Gerstner, Henry Kaufman, Charlie Chen, Danny and Allie Tractenberg, Cari Pokrassa, Milda Koueder, Providence Juca, Alex Hitchens, Virginia Randall, Ena Bissell and Annette Witheridge.
Prologue
June 1991
Phillip and Nancy Garrido had spent months preparing. Behind the white picket fence that surrounded the middle-aged couple’s three-bedroom cinder block home, less than an hour’s drive from San Francisco, there was anticipation and excitement.
Always obsessive, Phillip had worked hard on his most ambitious project to date. He had divided the acre of land behind his house into two parts, creating a backyard within a backyard. At the front he had planted shrubbery, trees, and built an eight-foot fence to conceal the rear half from his neighbors. This he had transformed into a kind of concentration camp, installing an escape-proof shed.
The onetime rock musician had carefully soundproofed it with foam insulation, to muffle any sounds. Alongside it he’d constructed a primitive outhouse and shower, laying green high-voltage electricity cables all the way from his house for power.
It was in this shed that the Garridos would hold their captive. For they intended to kidnap a young girl to act as both their sex slave and the bearer of their children.
This wouldn’t be the first time the six-foot, four-inch Phillip Garrido had snatched an innocent young girl off the streets to satisfy his uncontrollable appetite for sex. But fifteen years earlier, in Reno, Nevada, it had ended badly. High on LSD, he’d been raping and sodomizing his unfortunate victim for five hours when a policeman arrived at his mini-warehouse and caught him red-handed. Even hardened detectives were shocked by the extraordinary lengths he had taken to prepare that early version of his prison, equipping it with flashing stage lights, a bed, sex toys, explicit magazines and copious quantities of wine and drugs.
“It looked like a scene from a porno flick,” recalled retired detective Dan DeMaranville. “He actually used a pair of scissors to shave off her pubic hair.”
After federal and state trials, Garrido had been sentenced to fifty years to life in prison. But the master manipulator had managed to beat the system, getting out after only eleven years.
It was while caged inside the tough Leavenworth Federal Prison that he’d first met Nancy Bocanegra, a devout Jehovah’s Witness there visiting her uncle. From his cell he had courted her with letters, and they eventually fell in love. In 1981 they were married in a jailhouse ceremony by a nondenominational pastor.
Several years later, the wily Garrido persuaded a parole board he had found God behind bars, and he was freed on parole. Heading west with his new wife to Antioch, California, they had moved into his mother’s house. But when Nancy discovered she could not have children, Phillip persuaded her to help him kidnap a young girl to bear their children.
It was God’s will, he explained, that they start a family.
One afternoon in early June 1991, the Garridos set off in their old gray two-door sedan, driving three hours east to South Lake Tahoe, California, where Phillip once lived. They were searching for a prepubescent female, who would be easier to handle than an older one. But just in case she put up a fight, they had brought a stun gun.
By the time they arrived at the picturesque ski resort 6,200 feet high in the Sierras, the schools were letting out for the day. Phillip drove through town until he spotted a pretty elementary school pupil getting off the school bus, and drew up behind her.
Amelia Edwards still remembers the sound of the tires pulling onto the dirt road behind her.
“[It] turned my stomach and sent chills down my spine,” said Amelia, who was then eleven years old. “I remember walking faster, hearing the tires go faster. So I ran home.”
But she did manage to get a good look at the battered old car and its occupants—an “Arab-looking woman” with dark hair and a man—before they drove off at high speed.
After returning to Antioch to regroup, the Garridos returned the following Sunday to hunt for new prey. It was late afternoon when they arrived in Meyers, California—five miles outside South Lake Tahoe.
Before long Phillip Garrido saw her for the first time, skipping along a street with a couple of school friends. He immediately knew he had to have her.
“She’s perfect,” he told his wife, Nancy.
Jaycee Lee Dugard was the sort of little girl Garrido had always lusted over. The blue-eyed, blonde-pigtailed child had the innocent smile of an angel and was just a month past her eleventh birthday.
The predators then followed as Jaycee went into an arts fair, getting out of the car and going inside to watch her from a distance. Then they followed her out of the fair, watching her wave goodbye to her friends and walk up Washoan Boulevard to her home and go inside.
They then drove off up the hill to wait until the next morning, when she would be alone and vulnerable.
Monday, June 10, was the beginning of the last week of the school year. It was a typical morning in Jaycee’s household. Jaycee’s mother Terry was running late, so she left for work in a hurry, without kissing her eldest daughter goodbye. It would haunt her for years.
Jaycee got ready for school. She showered and put on her favorite pink sweater and stretch pants, white blouse and white sneakers. Then after looking in on her baby sister Shayna, who was sleeping soundly, the fifth-grader checked the clock on the microwave oven, which read 8:05 A.M.
Jaycee’s stepfather, Carl Probyn, was working in the garage when he saw her come out of the house. After saying goodbye he watched from his window as she walked out of the driveway, skipping up the steep pine-studded hill toward the school bus stop, three blocks away on Pioneer Trail.
It was a beautiful sunny morning without a cloud in the sky. There was just a dusting of snow on the dreamy Sierra mountains, rising above the town.
While he watched Jaycee go up the hill, Probyn was suddenly aware of a two-tone silver Ford, slowly driving by and making a U-turn below his driveway. Then it headed back up the winding hill toward Jaycee. As it passed by his house, Probyn got a good look at the female passenger—an olive-skinned woman with straight black hair. His initial thoughts were that they were probably lost and needed directions.
Then he watched as the car reached the top of the hill, drawing alongside Jaycee. Suddenly, it turned sharply and screeched to a halt to cut her off. He heard Jaycee scream, as the passenger door was flung open. Then to his horror, he saw the woman grab Jaycee and drag her into the car, which sped off up the hill, disappearing in a cloud of dust.
Part One
1
“THE BABY OF THE FAMILY”
Phillip Craig Garrido was born in Pittsburg, California, on April 5, 1951, to Manuel and Pat Garrido. His brother Ron was seven years older and the two brothers would never be close. The Garridos were a lower-middle-class family. Manuel worked as a forklift operator and Patricia as a secretary.
In the early 1950s, Pittsburg was a largely middle-class rural town, forty miles northeast of San Francisco. Originally known as Black Diamond for its rich coal deposits, the town lay on the busy State Route 4 highway, carrying commuters to Oakland and San Francisco.
“I had been raised in the country and lived in a very clean house,” Phillip wrote in 1978. “I was the baby of the family and spoiled in the long run.”
When Phillip was small, Manuel moved his family fifteen miles ea
st on Route 4 to Brentwood. There they lived in a tiny house at the end of a dirt road, with Phillip sharing a room with Ron.
“Phillip and his brother Ron were good boys when growing up,” said their mother Pat. “But I always wished I could have had a daughter.”
Manuel Garrido was a strict father who often disciplined his youngest son, while his doting mother let him do whatever he wanted. Phillip was her favorite child and in her eyes he could do nothing wrong.
“I was more strict than his mother,” explained Manuel in 2009. “She gave him everything. Anything he wanted growing up, he got.”
Years later, Phillip told a psychiatrist that his parents had caused him “considerable emotional conflict” during his formative years.
Manuel Garrido remembered his younger son as a sweet, gentle, well-behaved child, who loved making people laugh.
“He was never any trouble,” he said. “He was bright, intelligent and polite.”
With his dark good looks and inscrutable smile, little Phillip Garrido could have been a choirboy. And from the very beginning he was a charmer, easily manipulating his parents and teachers to get exactly what he wanted.
He also had a natural sense of humor that the other kids liked.
“[He was] very popular with a lot of friends,” said his father. “They loved his jokes.”
By the time he entered Liberty High School at fourteen, his father had high hopes for his future.
“He was clever and good with his hands,” Manuel remembered. “He could do complex electronics.”
But he was a mediocre student, with little interest in his studies or school activities. Although he was now over six feet tall and athletic, Phillip disliked sports and did not belong to any school societies. But he loved rock music, spending hours in his bedroom, listening to his favorite British invasion bands, instead of doing his homework.
In 1967, San Francisco was ground zero of the Summer of Love, but according to his father, sixteen-year-old Phillip hated the flower children and what they represented.
