18 Years of Failed Parole in Dugard Kidnapping
There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about a woman I knew only by way of polished misinformation, poorly written news stories, and a shoddy investigation that left her murderer free.
I think about the victim -- who was poor, mentally ill, and physically abused throughout her lifetime -- and it's difficult for me to reconcile the disparity between those who are blessed in any fashion, and those who seem destined to live preternaturally challenged lives, where nothing comes mercifully, kindly, or easily, not even death. This victim was one of those people. She should have been protected, but was not. Investigators should not have failed her at every turn, but they did -- and the more they failed her (and every other potential victim) the more defensive, closed-minded, and self-serving they became. The end result of that kind of arrogance is that if a suspect is ever brought to trial, barring a confession, a defense attorney will have a field day creating reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors.
Fortunately, jurors in the case of Phillip and Nancy Garrido will not know such doubt. There is no question that the convicted sex offender and his wife kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard when she was 11 years old. The Garridos brought Jaycee and the two children she bore while in captivity to a parole meeting recently where, 18 years after being kidnapped, Jaycee's true identity was discovered and Garrido confessed.
Outside of the kidnapping and multiple rapes of a child, the most unsettling thing about the Dugard case is the staggering number of times law enforcement failed in their duty to properly monitor a registered sex offender.
Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren E. Rupf did something highly unusual when he stood up and roundly criticized his own office for a failed 2006 opportunity to rescue Jaycee. A deputy who responded to a call about a "psychotic sex addict" with several tents in his backyard, who was living with children, left the scene after briefly talking with Garrido on his front porch. That deputy claims he didn't know Garrido was a convicted sex offender, even though the Sheriff's department had the information.
"I cannot change the course of events but we are beating ourselves up over this and continue to do so," Rupf told the press. "We should have been more inquisitive, more curious, and turned over a rock or two."
Rupf's office did fail, but there were many failures before that, starting with Garrido's early release after serving only 11 years -- less than one-quarter -- of a 50-year sentence for the kidnap and rape of a 25-year-old woman.
Garrido has worn a GPS ankle bracelet and has had regular meetings with his parole officer several times a month since his 1988 release. He was also subject to random home searches, and the latest of these reportedly occurred about a month before Garrido brought Jaycee to his parole meeting, which begs the questions: How thorough were these searches? How could the tents in the backyard, Jaycee, and the two children have been missed for eighteen years? Did the parole officers ever talk to Garrido's business clients, any one of whom could have informed them about the "daughters" that Garrido lived with?
The catastrophic failure of Garrido's parole wasn't even redeemed in the end. After receiving a report from two extra-diligent employees of UC-Berkeley, a campus officer and events coordinator who took it upon themselves to run a background check on Garrido when he showed up looking "weird and unstable", with two pale, "robotic" children in tow -- the parole officer did not rush out of his office to check on Garrido at home. Instead, he waited for Garrido to come to him.
What would have happened had Garrido not brought Jaycee and her children to the meeting? What might have happened had Garrido's voices told him to end his crimes in a different way? Garrido started talking about the voices profusely in 2006. In 2007, he started a website, and in 2008 he filed articles of incorporation for a religious organization he called "God's Desire". Did his parole officer know any of this? If he did, then why was he not concerned about Garrido's deteriorating mental status? And if the parole officer didn't know, how could he have missed three years of such obvious and increasing zealotry?
Garrido stole 18 years of Jaycee Dugard's life. The two daughters she bore as his victim, ages 11 and 15, have known little of life outside of Garrido's mad confines. Dugard's parents, extended family, friends, and schoolmates spent years mourning her loss, haunted by not knowing where she was or what happened to her.
Sheriff Rupf rightly criticized his own deputy's inaction, but the failure of law enforcement went much deeper than the Contra Costra County Sheriff's Department. The full-on, pervasive failure of the parole department to competently monitor a known kidnapper and rapist over the course of nearly two decades is without excuse, and it is they who need to provide answers to the public -- and to the victims of this incredibly tragic and largely preventable crime.
Follow Jane Devin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/janedevin
Stephanie Gertler: The Miracle of Jaycee Dugard
Philip Garrido is guilty of an unfathomable crime, but in what appears to be a nearly idyllic California town, who else is guilty? Did people choose to look the other way?
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I have to wonder about Garrido's mother too. Surely she knew what was going on under her own roof
and in her own backyard. She may be elderly and disabled now, but 18 years ago when her son moved Jaycee in ?
I have seen with my own eyes the lengths some mothers will go to in order to protect their sons and justify or excuse their behavior. The sons hide behind the mother and care for her in exchange for her support.
It's pretty ghastly. But very effective. Garrido probably came to the door wheeling his mother in her chair in order to look like the model son. Most males (e.g. caseworkers) would see that and not look beyond the picture being presented. It bothers me that the mother is getting a total pass on this issue.
I still can hardly come to terms with the fact that the two daughters of Jaycee is that monster. It's such a monstrous thing to carry for the rest of their life.
What about statutory rape and all the grey areas?
See Jane Devin's Profile
What about it, and what the heck do gray areas have to do with this story? I understand from your previous posts that you think sex offenses against minors are cause for debate, but this is hardly the story in which to make your rather limited case.
Actually, JD, the "grey areas" probably have a lot to do with this story.
In our country, 18 year old "men" are routinely arrested, convicted, sent to prison, and placed on a convicted sex offender list FOR LIFE, because they had consensual sex with their 16 year old girlfriends.
That's an extreme case, I admit. But think of all the thousands of then 20-somethings clogging the registered sex-offender database for having sex with teenage girls, when they may not have known the girl was anywhere near that young. Some of these teen victims are in fact prostitutes---with or without pimps.
Don't get me wrong---I'm not condoning teen sex, prostitution, or teens dating boys and men over 2 years older than they are. Far from it. We wouldn't let our daughter date at all until she was 16, and we ran off one would-be suitor who was in his 20's.
But, when we clog our system with so many people who don't belong there, not only do we ruin their lives forever, it makes it much harder for authorities to identify and watch the true sexual predators and pedophiles like this guy Garrido .
Good point, dnpv51.
The insurance corporations are standing to lose big money if the public option is passed. This story will serve the purpose of drawing attention away from the healthcare debate and creating fear which serves the interests of the right. There are people in inner cities who dssappear every day, but because they are not white, female and attractive they don't get front page headlines. This story is being pushed for a purpose. Pass the kool-ade, please.
See Jane Devin's Profile
Really? You think America is so myopic that they can't see but one story at a time? You think all news should be shunted to the side while the health care debate rages? And that there's some conspiracy in favor of the insurance industry when other news is presented?
There's no Kool-Aid here -- which by the way is an extremely derogatory term to those who survived the horrors of Jonestown -- but there is some compassion for a girl who lost 18 years of her life, and two children who were raised in captivity, particularly since it was highly preventable.
I'll tell you why a violent convicted rapist/kidnapper monster was let out of prison after serving one-fifth of his term.
They probably needed the cell space for a nonviolent drug offender.
Yep, see, violent crime in many jurisdictions, doesn't carry mandatory sentences (all of which are LONG), but drug crimes, even non-violent ones, do.
So the 20-something kid arrested for possession of marijuana goes to prison for his entire young adult life, maybe getting out when he's middle-aged or elderly. By the time they release him, he'll be skill-less, hardened, bitter, institutionalized, mentally ill, and probably carrying STD's and other chronic debilitating diseases he caught in prison. He'll probably end up right back in prison within a year or two.
Instead of treating this kid for drug addiction for a few months and releasing him to some sort of supervised halfway house/job training/education program, they keep him incarcerated and release this predatory sadist monster of the type studies show can't be "fixed".
Makes lots of sense, doesn't it, our 18th century judicial system held together by the moral and logical equivalent of baling wire and duck tape?
This is the fault of our criminal justice system in general. This is what happens when prison becomes a place of rehabilitation instead of a place of punishment. Maybe if we made our prison system military like, and stopped treating inmates like they are at the Hilton, giving them gyms to work out in, and TV's, and all the porn magizines they want, free medical care, free legal consult, free everything, maybe there could actually be some rehabilitation going on. Maybe the prison system would stop being a revolving door that these guys keep coming back time and time again. Maybe California would not be considering letting 27,000 inmates go back to society because they can't afford to keep them anymore. These guys go to jail and find "God" and everyone thinks they are rehabilitated. and they are let go on good behavior. My heart goes out to this young woman and her children. What does it take, and at what point do we have the sense to realize our criminal justice system does not work. It seems everything in this country is falling apart at the same time. God have mercy on us.
There's all that, which mostly makes much sense, from the "right" side, to criticize our broken system...
From way over on the left, I see that incarceration is a way to make money, and to push toward a source for "slave" labor. And that the "war on drugs," which created the idea of "victimless" crimes, has, with and in all of its manifestations and ramifications, completely corrupted the justice system, the criminal courts, the prison system... you can't make up fairy tales that allow you to imprison innocents on a grand scale, and still expect the same cops and judges and lawyers to be ABLE to defend the rule of REAL law.
You said it, Rogan. Cops, judges, lawyers---they've all been corrupted with heart-rot. They're all hollow on the inside. That's what years of sending dozens of nineteen and twenty-year old drug addicts to their living deaths will do to you.
If we fix this rotten system, we not only prevent tragedies like the one that happened to Jaycee Dugard , but we redeem countless court, justice system, and corrections workers and officers who get up and go to work every day KNOWING they are spreading so much pain and injustice, because the system is wrong.
You are exactly, utterly incorrect, bren6415.
This is what happens when prison becomes a place of punishment and cruelty and an alternate, Bizarro-world where nothing makes sense, instead of a place of rehabilitation. No, this particular type of offender can't be rehabilitated, according to current studies. He is not safe to live among us. So why was he released after serving barely 1/5 of his sentence? Because of people who think like you. Yep. "Lock'em up and throw away the key" types, who stuff prisons past capacity with non-violent drug offenders. And we won't even get into curbing (actually, eliminating) black market drug violence by simply legalizing drugs. That's another topic, but let's just say it would put the prison-industrial complex industry basically out of business.
Your comment shows you know nothing about the military or prisons. Or God, for that matter.
At least not the God I choose.
Are you kidding me? Have you ever been in prison? Have you ever been very close to someone in prison??
Because I actually volunteer at a local prison in San Luis Obispo, and pardon my french, but it is obvious you are talking from somewhere other than your mouth. You sound completely ignorant... time at a Hilton? County jail, yes that is a bit easier. State prison. Get Out!
It is a constant hostile place, often racially segregated, and people who are there for nonviolent offenses become hardened criminals... not because it's a resort, but because it is a hard, violent, and brutal place that treats people... PEOPLE... like animals.
God have mercy on us. You are so self righteous. Oh lord indeed.
The only thing I agree with you on is that "our criminal justice system does not work."
The fact that you actually think prison currently is rehabilitative is idiotic. If it rehabilitates people, then why do so many go right back? They like the bland food?
If you know so much about CA prisons, you should also know that currently 60% of CA inmates are there b/c of a drug offense, many of which are nonviolent. Before you open your mouth about something you are obviously incredibly ignorant over, you should do this thing called... read. Try it out.
What planet are you living on?
While I agree our system is broken, we in no way even try to rehabilitate. Not even children who are unfortunate enough to get in our system get anything but more mentally ill, broken, and desparate.
These parole officers have to look at this case and at themselves and ask themselves, did I do my due diligence. Did they not have the time due to extremely heavy caseloads or did they not make the time. I suspect that they could have made the time. How many other cases are not being solved because a parole officer and in this case a deputy do not exert themselves to the fullest. How many other victims are languishing in a soundproof room or a basement dungeon?
What on earth does this have to do with marijuana? This guy already had been accused of rape before his first marriage, he kidnapped a young woman and only served a few years instead of fifty. He's not alone - there are hundreds of sex offenders and rapists who either get a plea deal or some nut of a judge (maybe one who enjoys looking a little girls too?) feels sorry for them and lets them out early. If you are a woman or child in the US, beware because the court system and probation officers apparently are not concerned with your welfare. I think that sex offenders never get rehabilitated because if they didn't enjoy it, they wouldn't be doing it in the first place.He knew he was doing wrong, but he didn't care.
It took two women who actually stopped and listened, and then acted upon their gut feeling. Jaycee could have been rescued years before.
And to interject opinions about drug laws into this sad situation is rather mindless and offensive.
It has EVERYTHING to do with marijuana, Artsygirl! And crack, heroin, hash, meth, illicit prescription drugs...you name it.
Sending people who use those substances --- or even sell or make them---to prison for 20, 30, 40 years and filling up all the cell spaces we should be reserving for sadistic rapists like this one is THE reason Jaycee Dugard spent nearly two decades in pure misery.
In fact, she and her family probably have grounds for a lawsuit against the state. She is a victim of legislative incompetence and failure to serve the public in a responsible way.
It's just a real shame all the perpetrators of this crime can't be punished, and that would include all the legislators responsible for mandatory drug sentencing.
And perhaps even the low-information, mean-spirited voters who voted for it over and over, despite decades of factual evidence showing it not only didn't work, but was regressive and harmful to society.
More horrific than any summer scare flick. This is beyond tragic. Beyond comprehension.
The sheriff and the police failed because they were too busy busting people for the victimless crime of using medical marijuana. A natural and inherent right.
Thank you,
Robert Walker
Wrong Question
The question that should be asked is not, "Why wasnt Garrido monitored better?" It is "Why was he realeased in the first place?" The kind of man who siezes and forcibly rapes a woman or a child is a very violent and dangerous man. Care should be taken to ensure that they truly are guilty-careless or cynical prosecutors imprison or execute many innocent people.
But if they forcibly abducted and raped a woman or a child, they should hang for it. Prison is NOT going to reform them. If anything, it will make them even worse.
The author is exactly right. Parole failed in their duties. Regardless of how many cases this agent had, he had been to the house at least twice; and obviously didn't perform a thorough, competent search of Garrido's property. As a former p.o. it is mandatory to search every inch of space the parolee has access to. We stumbled upon weapons and meth. labs on a routine basis. If the reporting party who contacted the sheriff dept. had not wanted to remain anonymous, then the duputy could have spoken to this person and they could have pointed out exactly what they've been seeing and hearing. However, it is routine to contact dispatch for a background check - cops do that when they pull you over for speeding! If he had done that he would have been given the information that Garrido was a registered sex offender. And by the way, parole agents make at least $75,000 a year. No excuses about them not making enough money ect. Parolees are serving the sentence in the community. When they are in prison their cell is searched from top to bottom. The same should apply to their homes and property when they are back in the community.
It used to be that people knew all of their neighbors. It used to be that people actually cared what was going on outside their own narrow sphere of existence. But now, everyone is so insular and can't be bothered to get involved. These days, people watch car accident victims bleed in the street and walk on by, they allow women to be beaten in public by their male partners and let too-skinny children covered in bruises get away with the "I fell" excuse. And horrible things like this will keep happening until we, as a society, care more about the people around us that we do about our stuff.
Neighborhood Watch only works when the neighborhood is actually watching!!!
I live in the East Bay and here were neighbors who questioned it and the police even came to the door but they did not bother to look in the backyard. Also - Garrido built an extra fence in his yard that created a space between his yard and the next persons. So even if people looked over the fence they would not look into the yard where the tents and the shed were. Also - one of the rooms was sound proof which may explain why no one heard a baby crying. I myself thought that was pretty strange until i heard about the sound proof room.
Overall I agree with you. But in all fairness, the neighbors DID call and report strange activity and the police fell down on the job (again).
Indeed, luckily Garrido did not kill everyone, after the Parole Officer NEGLIGENTLY gave him the opportunity to do that.
However, I have to say the most unsettling thing about the Dugard case to me -- OUTSIDE of the kidnapping and rapes and the staggering 18 YEARS Jaycee was held -- is the staggering 18 YEARS the neighbors ignored what was happening next door.
Infants, babies, toddlers were crying OUTSIDE -- in the adjoining yard! You cannot stop infants from crying... how do you NOT notice that?
Children were taking showers OUTSIDE -- in the adjoining yard!
Children were growing up, day and night, OUTSIDE -- in the adjoining yard!
There is a LOT of SHAME to go around here.
And Garrido's clients are now changing their stories. One man claimed this today -- "There was nothing to suggest that Garrido was strange..." -- in the same interview in which he said Garrido claimed he could make God's voice come out of a box!
And Mrs. Morino -- whose birthday party was attended by Jaycee's daughters -- is now claiming the 2 girls acted perfectly normally at the party, even when still admitting (for example) they had never heard "rap" music before. Just three days ago, the same Mrs. Morino said the girls kept to themselves and behaved consistently with their robotic behavior on the Berkeley campus.
These people are trying to hide their shame for not caring about these girls.
We have to start caring about each other again --
It's amazing, isn't it? Like a Jack Ketchum novel...
Of course, Ketchum usually writes novels based pretty closely on "true" crime "stories" -
That is to say, this vile inhumanity, is becoming more normal, not less.
This is what comes of criminalizing such common acts as teen sex and marijuana use. Law enforcement must be able to focus on those who are dangerous instead of wasting resources on such "crimes."
reformsexoffenderlaws.org
You know, it's a little random, that I'm replying exactly here, but I feel a little better, seeing that it is not going unnoticed, among my own (online) neighbors, that the distractions provided by the "War on Drugs" are a big part of how this horrible crime could ever have happened.
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