by Robert Scott
Before sentencing, Nancy Garrido had a chance to speak. She declined, and instead had lawyer Stephen Tapson read a short prepared statement. In a low voice, he read about Nancy’s humiliation and sorrow about what had occurred. In part, Nancy stated, Being sorry is not enough. Words cannot express my remorse for what I did. I stole her childhood. When I walk by a mirror, I hate what I see.
Nancy Garrido’s written words mainly fell on deaf ears. Judge Phimister sentenced her to the full extent of the law, which came to thirty-six years of prison time. Phimister also denied a motion by Tapson that Nancy be allowed one more visit with Phil, before being sent to prison. Members of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office escorted Nancy out of the court. As she was exiting, she mouthed some words to Phil. Some in the gallery thought she was saying, “I love you.”
Phil Garrido did not speak on his own behalf, either. Instead, Susan Gellman, his lawyer, read from a short prepared statement. She said, “‘He had accepted responsibility for his actions and he has done this without any expectation of leniency. He has done this because he wanted to spare everyone, especially Miss Dugard and her children, a trial.’”
Despite this supposed contrition, Judge Phimister saved his angriest words for Phil Garrido. Phimister declared, “Basically what you did, you took a human being and turned them into chattel. A piece of furniture, to be used at your whim. You reinvented slaver y. I think Mr. Garrido qualifies as a poster child of a sexual predator. What you’ve done to this child is beyond horrible!”
With those words, and many more about Phil’s depravity and his manipulation of the court system and the parole system over the previous years, Judge Phimister sentenced him to 431 years.
When the sentencing was over, events ended in full circle. UC Berkeley officer Ally Jacobs had been in the gallery watching all that occurred. On a grassy area outside the courthouse, she faced a battery of microphones and reporters. Modest, as always, she repeated that she just had been doing her job in August 2009. But, in reality, it had been much more than that, as far as she and Lisa Campbell were concerned. Their actions changed the lives of many, many people forever.
And as so often happened, outside of the actual courtroom, there was one last dramatic event. On the afternoon of June 2, Judge Douglas Phimister released major portions of the grand jury transcripts from when Jaycee Dugard had testified. At last, here, in Jaycee Lee Dugard’s own words, was a clear look at what had occurred during the kidnapping and through her years of captivity.
On September 21, 2010, during sworn testimony, DA Vern Pierson asked Jaycee specifically about her memory of the morning of June 10, 1991. To his questions, Jaycee replied, “I made breakfast and left the house. I think my stepdad, Carl, was in the garage. I [began] walking to the bus stop. It’s up the hill, [about] a ten-minute walk. I called to Carl ‘I’m leaving, ’ and not halfway [crossed the street] because Carl taught me to face the oncoming traffic.
“There’s a bend in the hill that bends up to the bus stop. And I got halfway there, and this car comes up behind me. I didn’t think it was weird at the time, but it kind of pulled in close to me. I thought he was going to ask for directions, because he started to say something. And all of a sudden, his hand shoots out of the car window, and I feel a shock. And I stumble back into the bushes. I’m sitting down in the bushes, trying to back away, but I feel like my whole body wouldn’t work. It was tingly and nothing worked.” (Obviously, this was different from Carl’s recollection that the woman passenger had jumped out, Tasered Jaycee, and dragged her, screaming, into the vehicle.)
Jaycee continued, “All of a sudden, I’m in the car, and there’s something on top of me. And I feel like there’s pressure on me. Like a body. Legs. But there was something on top of me, too, like a blanket, because it was really hot. [I was] on the floorboard, facedown. I remember the car pulling away, and I did lose control of my bladder. I felt embarrassed. My limbs felt tingly still, and just everything was jumbled.”
Asked about a second person, Jaycee said, “There had to be, because I could feel the pressure. I could feel legs moving, switching around. I could hear a voice some time later. The person that took me [asked] later, ‘Do you want something to drink?’ And I heard voices in the front, and the man said, ‘I can’t believe we got away with it,’ and he started laughing.
“And then some mumbling. It didn’t sound manly, so my instinct was that it was a woman. [Being in the car] seemed like forever. It was really hot and there was still something on top of me. It was kind of like I was blacking out.”
Pierson asked about what happened when the vehicle finally stopped. Jaycee said, “I could hear the car stop. The door slammed shut and, like, [a] squeaking of a gate or something. He put the blanket back over me, and he said be really quiet because there were dogs patrolling the area. He said he had Dobermans, and that if I was to run, or try to do anything, they would come after me.
“He walked me . . . I couldn’t tell where we were. . . .” (Then the next two pages went blank. Judge Phimister ordered this blackout whenever passages of sexual molestation occurred.)
When the transcript picked up again, Pierson asked, “Were you afraid of him from the moment this all started?”
Jaycee replied, “I was very scared. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know why he was doing this. I just wanted to go home. I think in the bathroom I kept telling him that. I told him, ‘If you’re holding me for ransom, my family doesn’t have a lot of money.’ I didn’t know his purpose. I’d heard about kidnapping before. They were usually for money.”
Jaycee was shown two photos of Phil Garrido. She said, “That’s the man who took me.” Then she continued, “He didn’t say much in the beginning. Very quiet, just telling me what to do. About the dogs, [he told me] they were very territorial, and if they found anybody on their property that they didn’t know, they would attack.” Jaycee also related that in this early period, she never saw the supposed woman, who had also been in the car.
Of the early experience there, Jaycee related, “I was sitting on the couch for a while, petting the cats, and he went upstairs. Then he came back down and he said that we were going to take a little walk to the back[yard]. And I asked him, ‘When can I go home?’ My mom was going to be worried. But he didn’t say anything. He just said, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ And he put the blanket back on me and said that we were going to walk, and that he would lead the way.
“We walked. I could feel . . . I didn’t have any shoes on. I didn’t have anything on but the towel. So I could feel grass. And then later it turned to, like, cement or something. And then we were standing in front of something. You know when something is near. I could hear a lock turn, like a click, and a door open, and then I’m ushered into . . . I feel a carpet. I’m ushered into what felt like the back [of a room].
“I didn’t see the first part [of the room], but music . . .” And then the transcript stopped again for four pages, because Phil Garrido was raping Jaycee at that point. When it began again, Jaycee continued for a short time describing the layout of the yard and the house, as she knew it. This short section was interrupted again by two missing pages, in which more sexual molestation and rape occurred.
Pierson asked Jaycee about Phil’s stun gun. Jaycee said it had a “zappy” sound. “He would have it on a table, and when I didn’t want to do something he wanted me to do, he would turn it on and say something like, ‘You don’t want it to happen again. You should be good.’ I didn’t want it to happen again, so I was good. I tried to do what he wanted me to do, even though I didn’t like it.”
More blank pages followed, concerning what Phil Garrido did to Jaycee, when she was “good” to him. This went on weekly for three years, according to Jaycee. Phil would call their sexual episodes, his “runs.” She was isolated and alone in a room she called the “studio room” for a year or more. She didn’t know how long. She recalled, “He did bring me a cat. It wasn’t very happy in that room, I guess, becaus
e it would pee everywhere. He started smelling it, and he took it away.”
It was after this period that Jaycee first recalled seeing Nancy at the house. She didn’t know how many months after she was first brought there that this occurred. Phil referred to Nancy as his wife, and Jaycee remembered, “Nancy started coming in and feeding me. I was basically living in a room. The blue one. I had a pallet on the floor, and they were living on a pullout couch. Basically, we were all sleeping in the same room. We watched TV together. I didn’t feel as lonely anymore. For the first year, I was by myself mostly.
“Things changed. He moved me in next door to where they were sleeping. And after the run (sex), he would go get food, and we’d sit up and watch TV and movies and stuff. Eventually Nancy started getting me clothes. There was a time that Phil, all of a sudden, wasn’t showing up.” (This was when he was arrested in 1993 for a parole violation.) “Nancy would come in and bring me food, and we would watch TV together. And I remember asking her, ‘Where’s Phil?’ And she said that he was on this island for a little vacation or something. It was nice because I didn’t have sex or runs or anything. I think it lasted about a month. We would eat dinner together and watch TV, but usually she would just lock the door and leave. It had iron doors. Iron gate.”
Jaycee later learned that Phil actually had been arrested because, she testified, “he came back with an ankle bracelet. By then, I was watching morning shows, [which] would give the date. So I had a better idea of time. After Phil came back from prison, the runs were less often.” Jaycee thought they occurred about once a month. “By that time, I think Nancy was smoking crank. And sometimes she would tell me, ‘I’ll take this run for you.’” (This meant Nancy would have sex with Phil instead of Jaycee.)
Jaycee recalled her first child, Angel, being born on August 18, 1994. She also recalled Phil saying that “he was eventually going to stop having sex with me, and he was really trying to change and wanted us all to be a family. He took the wall out from the studio room because we lived over there for a little bit. He was always switching us back and forth. And during the runs situation, he started to listen to the walls and he bought bionic ears. He said he heard voices and stuff. I could never hear anything, but he said he heard a lot of voices and he had to make sure the cops weren’t out there or something. He was getting paranoid.”
Jaycee noted, “It seemed like everything changed when she (Angel) was born. Phil made a fence in the back, just a small portion, and I could go out there with the baby. He bought a little swing set and stuff.”
Pierson asked Jaycee if she felt like Phil Garrido was still controlling her life. She answered, “Yeah. I didn’t know where to go. Then I had a baby, and I just wanted it to be okay. I don’t know if I was afraid that he would kill me, or something. He would get mad sometimes, but I don’t think I was afraid for my life. I just felt like there was no other place for me.”
About the so-called runs, she said they were less frequent, and “Nancy would take care of the baby in another building. These runs only lasted for maybe the night, and then it was over. In the beginning, Phil said I was helping him. That he had a sex problem and he got me so that he wouldn’t have to do this to anybody else. So I was helping him.”
Jaycee said that her second child, Starlit, was born on November 13, 1997. Jaycee recounted that after she and Phil knew she was pregnant for the second time, the runs stopped altogether. It was also around this time that Jaycee agreed to call Nancy “Mom.” She recalled, “He (Phil) said I should pick a name that I wanted to be called. Before that, he’d been calling me ‘Snoopy.’ So I picked the name ‘Alyssa.’
“He started his printing business and I started working there. We had a lot more freedom outside. The kids could go play out there, and we had a pool, one of the stand-up ones aboveground. I had my own tent. It was really nice to have my own room and tent space. We just started acting like a family, and we would celebrate their birthdays together. Just trying to be normal.”
Pierson showed Jaycee some handwritten notes that she had kept while confined. He asked her to explain about them. She said, “It’s just like a journal that I kept. I didn’t want to write a lot because I was afraid he would find it and be mad. But I didn’t totally love the situation that we were in. So I kind of kept it hidden and didn’t write that much. When I did, it was usually because I was feeling strong feelings about being trapped and not having a life and just wanting to be free. Free to come and go as I pleased.”
After a short break, Pierson showed Jaycee a note that she had written and asked, “Among other things, you indicated that you sometimes wanted to run away and essentially get away from the situation that you were in.” Jaycee said that was true. Pierson continued, “On the second page, you indicated that you would never leave them, that you were a coward. Did you ever attempt to escape from the situation?”
Jaycee responded, “No.” When asked why, she replied, “In the beginning, I was scared. I didn’t know what I would do. I was afraid of, I guess, what Phillip would do. I forgot to mention it before. I don’t know if I should mention it. . . .” And then there were two missing pages that obviously concerned sexual abuse and possibly threats by Phil. The text picked up again by Jaycee relating, “He was so sorry for what he did. He said, ‘I can’t believe I did it.’”
Later she made reference to her compound: “It was just very confining. We went places later on as a family, but never by myself. And I wanted him to teach me how to drive and stuff. And that never came. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t leave. I had the girls. I didn’t know where to go, what I would do for money or anything.”
Pierson showed her a note she had written on March 28, 2006, and asked Jaycee about it. She said, “I wanted to see my mom. What I always wanted to do. When the girls first went out, they would duck in the car and not be seen by the neighbors. That was in the beginning.
“I just didn’t want to make him mad. He would go through . . . not physically violent, but just really mad. Like, we had the printing business, and he would shut it down, and then we wouldn’t make any money. I tried to go with the flow, that kind of thing.”
About Nancy, Jaycee recalled, “When she was coming in [the room], she would bring me things. She said that she couldn’t stay long because she would always start crying and tell me how sorry she was, and she couldn’t believe he did it. It was very hard for her to come in and see me.
“I would tell her how lonely I was and wished she would stay longer and talk to me.” Jaycee added that Nancy was never present during the sexual runs, but that she was aware of what was happening. Jaycee added, “Later, when I had the baby [Angel], she would say, ‘Oh, I’ll take this run, so you can spend time with the baby.’”
Once again, when asked by Pierson why she never tried to escape, Jaycee said, “I felt like I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I knew my stepdad . . . I felt like he didn’t like me. They would be happier without my being at home. He would always call them the ‘Three Musketeers’—him, my mom, and his daughter (Shayna). And I was helping someone (Phil), even though it was in a really sick and perverted way. Helping him so that it wouldn’t happen to anybody else. He said he needed help with his sexual problem, and that I was helping him. He didn’t say that he would take somebody else, but the impression I got was that I was helping prevent something.”
Pierson asked about Phil videotaping the runs (the sexual abuse episodes). Jaycee said that he didn’t videotape each one, but that he might have done so with her five to ten times. Jaycee thought the last time this happened was right before Angel was born. And then Jaycee added, “I know that Nancy used to talk about her hating summers because he would have her go out and videotape kids in the . . .” (Two pages were then blanked out.)
When Jaycee’s testimony continued, she related that after her release from captivity she had watched, along with a detective, some videos Phil had made. She agreed that she was depicted in the videos.
Regarding these v
ideos, Garrett Schiro, a deputy sheriff for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, later testified to the grand jury. He had been involved in the search on the Garridos’ property on August 29, 2009. When Schiro started removing trash from one corner of the lot, he discovered a large black trash bag filled with VHS and eight-millimeter tapes. There were seventy-five or more such tapes. Some sort of “sticky substance” had “melted them together.” Schiro set the bag aside so that forensic technicians could take a look at the tapes later.
VHS videotapes were sent to Richard Pesce, who was an El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office investigator. He testified that he went down to Aerospace NASA in the Los Angeles area to try and restore what was on the videotapes.
The tapes had been partially destroyed by a chemical that “melted” the plastic housing and encased the actual videotape. By a very tedious and time-consuming process, using various techniques, Pesce was able to “unspool the tapes and put them into new housing so that the contents could be watched.”
Pesce and his team were able to recover about 60 percent of the images videotaped on the original tape. And then pages 125 through 140 were blanked out by orders of Judge Phimister. These pages included material concerning what had been found by investigators on the videotapes that were made by the Garridos.
By page 141, a glimpse of what had occurred on the videotapes could be ascertained. Pesce said in direct testimony, “Crotch level of this little girl, and the camera was stationary. And the little girl noticed the camera was recording. She asked Nancy about it. And Nancy deflected and said, ‘I don’t know anything about a camera.’
