POLICE IN EL Dorado, California have released a video of one of Jaycee Dugard’s captors luring a young girl into the back of a van, as a report highlighted failings in the investigation.
Dugard was snatched off the Lake Tahoe street where she lived in 1991. She was imprisoned by Phillip and Nancy Garrido in their back yard for 18 years and repeatedly raped, bearing two daughters. Phillip and Nancy Garrido were both convicted last month, but the report details a series of failings – including a visit by law enforcement agents to the Garridos’ residence in 1991.
El Dorado DA Vern Pierson told reporters: “The system as a whole failed, and we should all be angry about it. Had the federal parole agents been doing their job and searching the residence (and the recording studio they were aware of), then they would have found Jaycee Lee Dugard imprisoned in the back yard.”
He also made public a 1993 video tape of Garrido’s wife luring a young girl into the couple’s van, asking her to do the splits and videotaping her. Nancy Garrido later told authorities she made 10 to 20 similar videos at area parks and playgrounds for her husband’s sexual gratification.
“That’s it. Can you go all the way down?” Nancy says to the girl, who is blurred out in the video released by authorities. The girl says she can go down farther. “Let me see, I bet you can go down really easy,” Nancy Garrido said.
The report says Garrido should not have been freed from prison in 1988, where he was serving a 50-year federal sentence and a five-years-to-life Nevada state sentence for a previous kidnapping and rape. Pierson said the parole system relied too heavily on psychiatric advice in determining Garrido’s suitability for parole.
Garrido is serving a sentence of 431 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to raping Dugard and other charges. Nancy Garrido was sentenced to 36 years to life for kidnapping and rape.
Video of Nancy Garrido’s interrogation and luring child into her van (Warning: disturbing content):
- Additional reporting by AP
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