A flood of documents made public Tuesday reveal that Phillip Garrido testified he exposed himself to young girls before he was arrested for kidnapping and raping a Reno woman in 1976, but two years later told a judge that he should be released early because "all respects of my life has changed."
Garrido, charged with abducting and sexually assaulting Jaycee Lee Dugard, testified during his Feb. 10, 1977, federal kidnapping trial that he "suffered" from sexual fantasies while high on marijuana and LSD and would masturbate in restaurants, bathrooms, schools and other public places.
He said he prowled Reno neighborhoods and schools, looking at women through their home windows and satisfying himself sexually while parked at schools watching girls between the ages of 7 and 10. At times, he said, when a girl was nearby, he would open his car door with his pants down.
In March 1978, he told U.S. District Judge Bruce R. Thompson that using drugs had caused him to lose his reasoning powers but said after a year in prison he was ready to be given a chance.
"Drugs have been my downfall," Garrido said in a neatly handwritten note. "I am so ashamed of my past. But my future is now in controle."
Garrido, 58, and his wife, Nancy, 54, are charged with abducting Dugard from South Lake Tahoe in 1991 and imprisoning her at their Antioch, Calif., home for the past 18 years. They have pleaded not guilty to 29 counts that include kidnapping and rape.
He had been arrested in 1976 for kidnapping Katherine Gayle Callaway from a market in Tahoe City, Calif., and driving her to a shed in Reno where he raped her almost continually for more than five hours, according to her testimony. She appeared this week on "Good Morning America" and "Larry King Live" to tell her story.
Garrido was tried in federal court on the kidnapping charge because he took Callaway across state lines. A jury found him guilty on Feb. 11, 1977. He later pleaded guilty in a Nevada state court on one count of sexual assault.
At his state sentencing, he told the judge that he was lucky he was arrested because his "life was in a crash course" as a result of his drug use and said his conviction has given him a chance to "find something more important than anything and that is God."
He was sentenced to 50 years in federal court and to life in prison in state court, with the sentences to run at the same time. He served more than 10 years in Leavenworth, Kan., and then was sent to Nevada where he was released on parole after seven months in 1988.
Before his trial, Garrido's lawyer sought to have him found legally insane, but the judge denied the request. A psychiatrist who examined Garrido testified that he was a "sexual deviant" and that he knew "right from wrong" at the time of the crime, despite his LSD use.
Callaway testified she was on her way to her boyfriend's house the night of Nov. 22, 1976, when Garrido tapped on her window asking for a ride because his car wouldn't start. When she tried to drop him off, she testified, he grabbed her keys and then her neck, while forcing her hands behind her back.
"If you do everything I say, you won't get hurt. I'm serious," Garrido said, according to Callaway.
She was handcuffed and forced down, while he drove to a Reno "shed" that he said he had "all prepared." Once there, she saw a mattress covered with "an old filthy fur-type blanket," a projector, a stack of pornographic magazines, an aluminum stepladder and a pair of scissors.
He forced her to undress and raped her for hours, she said. It ended when Reno police officer Clifford Dean Conrad stopped at the warehouse after seeing a suspicious vehicle. The woman cried for help and Garrido was arrested.
Garrido testified that at the time of the rape, he was a 25-year-old musician who had been using marijuana, cocaine and LSD, sometimes as many as 10 tablets at a time, since graduating from high school. Around this time, he said, he began having sexual fantasies and would masturbate at home, at a drive-in and in public.
He said he took Callaway to the warehouse because he "had this fantasy that was driving me to do this, inside of me; something that was making me want to do it without - no way to stop it."
He said during the assault, he told her his name and his wife's occupation because "she was convincing me that she was enjoying what she was doing." Garrido appealed his conviction, but lost. Once in prison, he filed a motion asking to have his sentence reduced from 50 to 25 years, making him eligible for parole in eight years.
He argued that he finished high school in prison, was preparing for college classes, was working in the carpenter shop and "could become a very useful citizen."
Prison psychologist J.B. Kiehlbach examined Garrido and reported the "prognosis for successful transition into the community is considered very good."
The report said the likelihood that Garrido would commit more crimes was "minimal" and any movement in that direction could be detected by any involvement with drugs.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Leland Lutfy objected, saying the violence of the crime demanded a full sentence.
"Garrido treated this girl no better than he would a side of beef," Lutfy wrote in a motion, "and the court's imposition of sentence was equal to Garrido's actions."
The judge agreed and denied Garrido's request.
Update at 5:20 p.m. Tuesday:
A flood of documents made public Tuesday reveal that Phillip Garrido testified that he exposed himself to young girls before he was arrested for kidnapping and raping a Reno woman in 1976, but in 1978, he told a judge that he should be released early because "all respects of my life has changed."
Garrido, charged with abducting and sexually assaulting Jaycee Lee Dugard, testified during his Feb. 10, 1977 federal trial on a kidnapping charge that he "suffered" from sexual fantasies while high on marijuana and LSD, and would masturbate in restaurants, bathrooms, and other public places.
He also said he would look in windows of homes, or park at schools to watch young between the ages of 7 and 10, and satisfy himself sexually. At times, he said, he would open his car door while his pants were down to his knees.
But in March 1978, he told U.S. District Judge Bruce R. Thompson that using drugs had caused him to lose his reasoning powers, but after a year in prison, he said he was ready to be given a chance."
"Drugs have been my downfall," Garrido said in a perfectly hand-written note. "I am so ashamed of my past. But my future is now in controle."
Garrido, 58, and his wife, Nancy, 54, are charged with abducting Dugard from her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991, and imprisoning her at their Antioch, Calif., home. They have pleaded not guilty to 29 counts that include kidnapping and rape.
He had been arrested in 1976 for kidnapping Katherine Gayle Callaway from a market in Tahoe City, Calif., and taking her to a shed where he raped her almost continually for more than five hours, according to her testimony.
He was tried and found guilty in federal court on the kidnapping charge because he took Callaway across state lines, and later pleaded guilty in state court on one count of sexual assault. He was sentenced to 50 years in federal court, and to life in prison in state court, with the sentences to run concurrently.
But he was released on parole in 1988.
These documents were obtained from the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners and are face sheets for three parole hearings and a document with amendments to release on parole for Phillip C. Garrido from 1984 to 1988, when he was released from the Northern Nevada Correctional Center (state prison) in Carson City.
Garrido spent more than 10 years of a 50-year term for kidnapping in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. He was transferred to Nevada in January of 1988 and served less than seven months of a state sentence for sexual assault.
The federal and state prison terms ran concurrently, so Garrido was eligible for parole by 1984 and had his first parole hearing in Nevada that year even though he was still behind bars in Kansas. His bids for parole in 1984 and 1986 were denied. He was granted parole on Aug. 4, 1988 and the order was amended on Aug. 16, 1988 to require Garrido to complete a "federal community treatment program."
Additional Facts
About the documents released
The U.S. District Court posted more than 50 documents that had been archived relating to the federal kidnapping case against Phillip Craig Garrido. The documents began with an indictment, and included filings by his lawyer asking that he be evaluated to see if he is competent to stand trial. They also included several psychiatric evaluations, and hundreds of pages of testimony from his 1977 trial.
South Lake Tahoe group to hold pink ribbon parade for Dugard on Sunday A South Lake Tahoe organization will hold a pink ribbon parade Sunday to celebrate Jaycee Lee Dugard, found last week after 18 years in captivity.
Soroptimist International of South Lake Tahoe will begin the parade at 11 a.m. at the El Dorado County Library, 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd. The parade will end at the South Tahoe Middle School track, 2940 Lake Tahoe Blvd.
Organizers said the parade is an opportunity for the community to come together, after a long wait since Dugard, then 11, was abducted June 10, 1991, from a bus stop at Meyers in South Lake Tahoe. Organizers ask people to wear pink, Dugard's favorite color. The Soroptimists will be selling pink T-shirts at the event, with all proceeds going to the Jaycee Dugard Family Fund. At the request of Terry Probyn, Dugard's mother, the nonprofit SISLT Foundation has established a bank account for Dugard and her family to help them with immediate and future needs. Checks may be sent to: Bank of the West- account 186153508, SISLT/Jaycee Dugard (makes checks payable to SISLT/Jaycee Dugard Family Fund), 2161 Lake Tahoe Blvd., South Lake Tahoe CA 96150.
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Nevada parole board rated Dugard kidnapping suspect Garrido as moderate risk in 1988
By Frank X. Mullen Jr.
Documents from the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners show the suspect in the Jaycee Lee Dugard kidnapping was rated as a "moderate risk" parolee when he was released in 1988, despite a record as a violent predator who could not control his sexual urges.
Once on parole, Phillip C. Garrido had few restrictions on his activities. He was required to go to California where his mother lived, maintain steady employment, submit to searches and drug tests, get substance abuse counseling and enter a federal community treatment program for sex offenders, records show.
There were no restrictions on his contact with children. Last week, Garrido and his wife, Nancy, were indicted in El Dorado County on 29 felony counts in connection with the 1991 kidnapping and sexual assault of Jaycee Lee Dugard, then 11.
In 1988, he had been released in Nevada on federal parole and relocated to California. In 1999, California Parole and Probation took over his parole from the federal system.
He violated his federal parole in 1993 and spent four months in a federal prison, but federal officials in California have yet to release any details of that violation or explain why he was again released into the community. Nevada officials said they were never notified of Garrido's parole violation, which would have allowed the state to revoke his parole.
The Nevada parole board records for Garrido, now 58, show he was released in August 1988 after serving less than 11 years in a federal penitentiary and less than seven months in Nevada state prison. Garrido had been convicted of the kidnapping and rape of a 25-year-old Tahoe City woman in 1976.
His federal sentence on the kidnapping conviction was 50 years and the state sentence was five-years-to-life for the sexual assault. The sentences ran together, which meant he was eligible for state parole after serving five years in the federal prison.
Nevada parole documents from the 1980s obtained Tuesday by the Reno Gazette-Journal, show that Garrido had three parole hearings: May 1984, March 1986 and August 1988. Garrido was still in prison in Leavenworth, Kan., at the time of the 1984 and 1986 hearings.
In 1984, the five-member parole board denied Garrido's parole application because of the nature and severity of his crimes, his previous criminal history, the fact that his crime injured another person and because the inmate failed to show he had reformed. The board further noted that Garrido's release would "depreciate the seriousness" of his criminal behavior and his release might endanger the public.
Garrido's 1986 parole hearing, again conducted in his absence, also ended in a denial of parole for the same reasons noted in 1984. In January 1988, Garrido was released from Leavenworth early based on good behavior while in prison. He was sent to Nevada state prison and appeared at his third parole hearing Aug. 4. In that instance, Garrido was graded on a "risk assessment" system and received a "moderate" risk grade.
The assessment measured criteria including prior felony convictions, the use of a weapon in a crime, whether his victim was injured and other factors. Garrido's score was a 6, with 10 being a perfect "low risk" score.
But he received 2 points for not previously serving time in jail even though he had been arrested, convicted and sent to Contra Costa County's Clayton Farm facility on drug charges in 1969.
If the California incarceration had been counted against him, Garrido would have been given a score of 4, making him a "high risk" parolee. It's unclear whether that would have made a difference to the parole board.
The board voted 3 to 2 to release Garrido. Of the five members of the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners in 1988, four are now dead. The fifth, Aybbi Kinsley, who voted not to release Garrido, couldn't be located this week.
Gail Powell, spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Public Safety, said the commissioners' notes of the 1988 deliberations in the Garrido case, even if they could be found, are not public record under Nevada law.
Newspaper articles from the late 1980s show Nevada prisons were overcrowded at the time and the parole board was coming under fire for releasing large numbers of inmates, particularly sex offenders who had served fractions of their sentences.
