Lost and Found

by John Glatt

  And she told investigators she was certain that Officer Conrad’s timely intervention at the warehouse had saved her life.

  Toward the end of the interview, Detective DeMaranville asked her if Garrido had ever mentioned doing anything like this previously, or taking girls to his warehouse. Katie said he had admitted doing something similar to two other girls, saying he had not harmed either one.

  “He said he was very happily married,” she told them, “and that he was a musician and that only his wife knew where he was, and that if she had to come bail him out of jail in the morning, she would know why.”

  At 7:30 A.M., Detective DeMaranville turned off the tape recorder and concluded the interview. The still distraught Katie Callaway was then taken to the office of Washoe County deputy district attorney Mike Malloy, where she gave an affidavit statement to support a search warrant. Then finally she was released to her parents.

  But just a few hours later, she had to relive her ordeal, when Reno FBI agents reinterviewed her. As the alleged crime crossed state lines, the case would also be going to a federal grand jury.

  Meanwhile Katie Callaway’s blue Ford Pinto had been towed to the Reno Police Department Crime Laboratory. After being first processed for fingerprints, the vehicle was thoroughly searched and photographed.

  On the floor behind the driver’s seat, investigators found the key to the Master padlock of Phillip Garrido’s unit 39 warehouse. This supported Callaway’s evidence that her attacker had broken into his warehouse after losing his key.

  Investigators also found the strap Garrido had used to tie up his victim on the passenger front seat. And there were beer batter stains on the seat that had spilled from Katie’s crock pot during the attack. Other traces of the batter were later found on both her and Garrido’s clothing.

  Later that morning, Washoe County Superior Court Judge Beemer signed a search warrant for Phillip Garrido’s mini-warehouse.

  “There is probable cause to believe,” read the warrant, “that certain evidence of the crimes of forcible rape, the infamous crime against nature, kidnapping, and possession of a controlled substance, are locked and hidden within a certain mini-warehouse storage unit located at 3245 Mill Street, Reno, Washoe County, Nevada; you are therefor [sic] directed to search the said mini-warehouse unit for the following items.” The list of items included:

  a torn red satin sheet,

  a grey fur or fake fur cover or bedspread,

  an electric vibrator with three attachments and a package for it,

  disposable women’s douche materials,

  a jar of Vaseline,

  two bottles of wine and glasses,

  a pair of scissors,

  a pair of women’s beige panties,

  a silver colored trash can and an electric heater,

  a movie projector,

  movie film,

  colored stage lights,

  a red container, appearing to be part of a kerosene-type lantern,

  handcuffs,

  a piece of white tape,

  a women’s earring, described roughly as a gold ball with a post,

  a dark coat or blanket,

  a belt or strap,

  a women’s size 6 right foot brown sandal,

  a multi-colored knee sock,

  a long sleeved tee shirt with a hood, navy blue and black,

  samples of pubic hair,

  samples of possible semen stains,

  and a glass vial, approximately 2" high, containing a substance believed to be hashish.

  At 2:30 P.M., Detective DeMaranville and three other Reno investigators arrived at 3245 Mill Street, where they met FBI agent Riggs and members of the Reno CSI Unit to conduct the search.

  “I went to his mini-warehouse,” recalled DeMaranville. “It was all planned and he had it all set up. It looked like a scene from a porno flick. He had stage lights, and I’m not talking about bright lights, I’m talking about different colored lights—red, green, yellow. On and off. There was a bed. Marital sex toys. He actually used a pair of scissors to shave her pubic hair with. He’s one sick puppy.”

  The CSI technicians carefully photographed the outside of Unit 39, before moving inside to look for evidence to support Katie Callaway’s allegations.

  “I found the handcuffs,” lead detective DeMaranville later testified. “A piece of tape, the tape was silver in color. And found some small baggies, containing a substance believed to be marijuana. And a pill bottle containing a substance believed to be hashish.”

  The investigators also found a hash pipe, a roach clip and burnt cigarette rolling papers, and seized samples of pubic hair and semen stains found on the mattress.

  A few blocks away, another team of Reno police officers were searching Phillip and Christine Garrido’s Market Street house. Earlier, Sergeant C. Nearpass and Detective Penegor had interviewed Chris Garrido at Harrah’s Casino, where she had given written permission for her home to be searched.

  She claimed no knowledge of her husband’s activities the night before, as she’d been working the swing shift. But she believed he had driven her car to South Lake Tahoe.

  When asked if Phillip owned handcuffs, she admitted once buying him a pair at a Reno pawn shop, saying she had not seen them for a while.

  Chris then accompanied the officers to 1855 Market Street, Reno, taking them on a tour of the residence.

  “There were numerous pornographic books and magazines . . . on the bookshelf,” Sergeant Nearpass later wrote in his official report.

  But when the officer discovered a scrapbook hidden inside a clothing drawer in the bedroom, she asked him not to open it, as it contained explicit Polaroid photographs her husband had taken of her vaginal area. She asked the officer to respect her privacy.

  “Sgt. Nearpass did not look in the scrapbook,” read his report, “as she stated that all the pictures were of just her.”

  A few hours later, Phillip Garrido was arraigned on charges of “kidnapping, rape and infamous crimes against nature.” A Washoe County Superior Court judge set bail for $50,000, until a federal grand jury could be convened and decide if he should stand trial.

  9

  “HE’S A SICK PUPPY”

  On Wednesday, November 24, the Nevada State Journal reported Phillip Garrido’s dramatic arrest. Under the headline “Victim Freed: Man Arrested in Kidnap,” the four-paragraph story said Garrido was under investigation for kidnapping, rape and infamous crimes against nature. It reported that the FBI was also investigating Garrido, as the crime crossed the California-Nevada border.

  At 9:50 A.M., Phillip Garrido was brought into an interview room at Reno Police Department. A few minutes later, Detective Dan DeMaranville and Officer Carolyn Carlon entered and advised him of his rights. After reading and signing the Miranda sheet, Garrido asked to see a lawyer before answering any questions, explaining he did not “understand legalities.”

  The interview was then terminated to allow him to fill out an Admonition & Waiver of Rights form. And where it asked if he wished to talk now, he wrote, “No Sir, I want to talk to a lawyer first.”

  But within a few hours Phillip Garrido had changed his mind and agreed to be interviewed. He was brought back to the Reno Police Department, where Detective DeMaranville was waiting in an interview room. Just before he had arrived, the detective had learned a minute quantity of LSD had been found in a vial seized at the warehouse.

  “He was a nice-looking young man,” recalled the detective in 2009. “He was tall and well built, not a bad-looking guy at all.”

  At the start of the two-hour interview, Phillip Garrido was uncooperative, refusing to answer any questions.

  “So we just talked for a while,” recalled DeMaranville. “We had a conversation. I tried to relate to him and get him to like me.”

  Initially the detective made general conversation, asking if he was married and what he did for a living. Slowly, Garrido began to relax, enthusiastically discussing his music and his ambitions to
be a rock star.

  “I got him to talk to me,” said DeMaranville, “and then I just told him, ‘Phillip, it’s time to fess up. You got caught in the mini-storage unit with a naked woman, who says you kidnapped her from Lake Tahoe. Come on. Be a man and let’s talk about this. Are you ready to talk to me now?’ ”

  After Garrido nodded his head, the detective asked why someone as handsome as him needed to resort to kidnap and rape.

  “He said, ‘That’s the only way I can get my sexual satisfaction,’ ” recalled DeMaranville. “And I think he likes the power. I think he likes the control.”

  Garrido appeared contrite, saying he regretted what had happened. But the seasoned detective distrusted Garrido, suspecting that he was just trying to play him.

  “Well, of course he appeared remorseful,” explained DeMaranville. “But I think a lot of that was because he got caught. And he was trying to put the spin on me and that’s fine. I let him think he was.”

  At one point in the interrogation, Garrido broke down in tears, saying he hadn’t meant to do it but couldn’t help himself.

  “He was actually crying,” said the detective. “I had my right arm around his shoulder and his head was on my shoulder and chest. I wanted the guy to like me. I wanted him to talk to me. So that’s the name of the game. But I think a lot of it was put on.”

  Detective DeMaranville came away from the interview thinking Phillip Garrido was sly, devious and calculating.

  “He’s actually pretty intelligent too,” said DeMaranville. “He’s a con artist. But the bottom line is I don’t think he’s crazy. He’s got a problem and I think he knows it and he doesn’t care.”

  And after spending two hours with Garrido, the lead detective was certain that Katie Callaway would never have got out of the warehouse alive if Officer Conrad hadn’t intervened.

  “He wouldn’t have had any other choice but to get rid of her,” he said. “The guy’s not stupid. He’s not going to turn his victim loose and have her go right to the police, which is what she would have done. She’s a pretty strong girl. He picked the wrong victim.”

  10

  SATYRIASIS

  At 11:30 A.M. on Wednesday, December 1, a Washoe County grand jury was convened at the Reno Courthouse to decide if twenty-six-year-old Phillip Garrido should stand trial in Nevada. The first witness was Katie Callaway, who entered the grand jury room and was sworn in.

  For the next several hours, Washoe County deputy district attorney Michael Malloy gently led Callaway through the horrific sequence of events that had brought her to Phillip Garrido’s mini-warehouse in Reno. And throughout her often harrowing testimony she remained composed, vividly describing what Garrido had subjected her to.

  “Do you want to take a minute to relax?” Malloy asked, before asking what had happened in Garrido’s warehouse.

  “He undressed,” she testified, “and started to have sexual intercourse with me.”

  “Did he penetrate you?” asked the deputy DA.

  “Yes, he did,” she answered.

  “Were you going along with this only because you were terrified?”

  “Yes, I was lying there very still. I was tolerating it.”

  “It was against your will?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “How many times did he have sexual intercourse with you?”

  “Oh, about ten.”

  “That many times?”

  “Twelve, yes. Just continuous. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “Okay,” continued Malloy, “and then what other sexual acts did he perform?”

  “He entered me from the back.”

  “Anally?”

  “Anally and in the normal fashion.”

  “Was all this against your will?”

  “Yes,” she sobbed. “All the sexual acts were against my will, and he was just very rough and very forceful. And then he got out a vibrator and made me sit on the speaker while he just really hurt me with his vibrator, my vagina.”

  “How long were you in there?”

  “Approximately five and a half to six hours.”

  Then she described running out of the warehouse naked to escape, while Garrido was talking to Officer Conrad.

  “I fought my way through a couple of walls of carpet,” she told the grand jurors, “and peeked my head around the corner. I saw an officer and I started yelling, ‘Help me!” Help me!’ and he stood there with no reaction, and so did the abductor. And so I ran out there completely naked, and then they just stood there . . . and I thought, ‘My God, he is not going to help me.’ ”

  Callaway testified how Garrido had first claimed she was his girlfriend, and they were having a good time. And her terror after Officer Conrad had ordered her back into the warehouse to dress, before allowing Garrido back inside alone.

  “He let the abductor go back in with me,” she said. “And I was scared that he was going to take me hostage.”

  She described how Garrido had then “pitifully begged” her not to turn him in, before she ran out again half-naked.

  “I think [the policeman] really realized I was terrified when every time he took a step sideways, I was right beside him taking one step with him.”

  Then Officer Conrad had told her to sit in his patrol car, until more officers arrived.

  “They asked me if I wanted to press charges,” she said. “And I said ‘Yes.’ ”

  After Malloy finished his questions, a grand juror asked if she could recognize marijuana by looking at it.

  “Yes,” she replied. “It was in a plastic baggie, and he rolled joints out of it.”

  Then Katie Callaway was excused and Reno Police Department detective Dan DeMaranville entered the Grand Jury room to testify.

  The detective told the grand jury about his search of Phillip Garrido’s warehouse.

  “I found the handcuffs,” he testified. “A piece of [silver] tape . . . and some small baggies containing a substance believed to be marijuana, and a pill bottle containing a substance believed to be hashish.”

  The detective said he also found a roach clip on the floor, as well as a hashish pipe. There was also the burned end of a marijuana cigarette, which he informed the Grand Jury members was known as “a roach.”

  The next witness was Lloyd Whalen, the chief chemist of the Nevada State Department of Law Enforcement Assistance. He testified that his laboratory had been given a number of samples of suspected drugs found in Garrido’s mini-warehouse.

  He testified that testing had confirmed there was 1.88 grams of marijuana and 3.01 grams of hashish, as well as a “clip-type smoking device” with cannabis residue.

  At the end of the chemist’s testimony, a grand jury member had a question.

  “Hashish, or whatever you call it,” asked the grand juror, “what do they do—take it as a pill, or do they smoke it?”

  “Either way,” Whalen replied. “Normally it would be smoked, but it can be taken orally. The word hashish itself I believe is from the India dialect, and the word means assassin. There were hired assassins that would get high on this stuff and go out and do their work.”

  Then the juror asked if marijuana was an aphrodisiac.

  “Neither in my search of the literature,” replied the chemist, “nor in my personal experience.”

  Later that day, the Washoe County grand jury returned a three-count indictment against Phillip Craig Garrido for forcible rape, an infamous crime against nature and possession of a controlled substance.

  And the following day—after a separate hearing of the evidence—a federal grand jury returned a one-count indictment, charging him with interstate kidnapping. From now on the federal and Washoe County cases would run in tandem, with his federal trial being held first.

  On December 6, United States Magistrate Harold O. Taber appointed assistant federal public defender Willard Van Hazel, Jr., to represent Phillip Garrido. And two days later, Garrido was arraigned in the Washoe County case in the Second Judicial District Court in Reno.r />
  Ron Bath, the deputy public defender assigned to represent Garrido in the state case, told Washoe County district judge Grant L. Bowen that he was having problems communicating with his client.

  “Mr. Garrido has been under a great deal of stress,” he explained. “And we would like to ask that we have two psychiatric examinations prepared.”

  The defender said he also wanted the reports to see if Garrido was a danger to the “health, safety and morals of the community.”

  Judge Bowen asked if Phillip Garrido had ever spent time in an institution, and Bath said he had not.

  Washoe County deputy district attorney Donald Coppa said the state also needed to determine if Garrido knew the difference between right and wrong when the alleged kidnap and rape were committed.

  Judge Bowen agreed that the defendant should be examined by two psychiatrists, one for the state and one for the defense. And he adjourned the case for a month until the results could be known.

  On Friday, December 10, defense-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Charles Kuhn spent an hour examining Phillip Garrido at the Washoe County detention facility. The doctor conducted a clinical evaluation, but could not find any thinking disorder or organic impairment.

  “There is no question in my mind,” said Dr. Kuhn, “that Mr. Garrido has an intelligence somewhat better than average.”

  During the examination, Garrido became highly emotional, telling the doctor about his overpowering sexual fantasies of masturbating in public. He explained how drugs sexually aroused him, saying that he had taken four hits of LSD after kidnapping Katie Callaway. And since his arrest, he told the doctor, he had found God and spiritual sanctuary in the Bible.

  The psychiatrist later observed that Garrido had displayed “strangely erratic judgment” by kidnapping a girl in South Lake Tahoe and then taking over the state line to Nevada. Going to all these lengths to fulfill his sexual fantasy did not reflect proper use of his intelligence.