US AUTHORITIES yesterday released harrowing transcripts from the 1977 rape trial of Phillip Garrido, the California man charged with kidnapping Jaycee Lee Dugard when she was 11 years old, and holding her as a sex slave for 18 years with the complicity of his wife Nancy.
Ms Dugard gave birth to two daughters in captivity, now aged 11 and 15.
Garrido served nearly 11 years in prison for the 1976 kidnapping and rape of Katie Callaway Hall.
In an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live show, Ms Hall said she lived in fear since Garrido was released in 1988, but that his incarceration in the Jaycee Lee Dugard case “closed a chapter” in her life. Ms Hall met with Garrido’s parole officer after his release, and said he told her Garrido was “one sick puppy” who was likely to commit sexual assault again.
Police found a bone fragment in the house next door to the Garrido home in a suburb of San Francisco, but said it would take weeks to determine whether the bone was human, and how old it was. Garrido acted as a caretaker for the house for several years.
Ms Hall said she started screaming when she learned of Garrido’s arrest: “Oh my God, oh my God, it’s him ... I don’t have to hide any more. I don’t have to live every day of my life wondering if he is looking for me. I am finally free from the fear I have lived with since the day I learned he was paroled.”
It took Ms Hall several years to overcome fear so powerful it prevented her going outside, and she feared it would be worse for Ms Dugard. “I can’t imagine what Jaycee is going through,” she told CNN. “He had me for eight hours. He had her for 18 years. I was an adult, with instincts that helped me deal with the situation. She was a child. This is going to be with her for the rest of her life.”
Despite her joy that Garrido (58) is likely to die in prison, Ms Hall added: “I want to scream from the depths of my soul. Scream because my fears turned out to be justified – he struck again.”
At his trial, Garrido admitted to rape fantasies about girls as young as seven, to having masturbated and exposed himself to girls outside schools, and to voyeurism.
One evening in 1976, Ms Hall was driving out of the parking lot of a grocery store, where she had just bought dinner for her boyfriend, when Garrido tapped on her car window. He said his car had broken down and asked for a lift. Garrido overpowered Hall, handcuffed her and drove her to a shed next to a warehouse which was filled with pornography, sex toys and a mattress. He raped her for five hours before a policeman who had seen the car parked outside banged on the door, freed Hall and arrested Garrido.
Garrido said his sexual urges were increased by the use of cocaine and LSD. He didn’t think he hurt Hall, though he handcuffed her and gagged her with tape before raping her. “I don’t go breaking into people’s houses,” he said. “I don’t go to hurt anybody.” He was “getting closer to God” with the help of a minister in jail.