Lost and Found (23 page)

The FBI were convinced that a frenzied serial killer was on the loose. Although hundreds of local men were interviewed by investigators, there is no known record that convicted kidnapper and rapist Phillip Garrido was ever questioned.

Jaycee Lee Dugard should have graduated high school in 1998, and her former classmates were determined to remember her anyway. Now students at South Lake Tahoe High School, they were still haunted by their beautiful friend, who had vanished so mysteriously seven years earlier.

“Thoughts of Jaycee followed me everywhere through school,” said her old friend Kristina Rhoden. “Her name would come up or I’d read about another kidnapped child, and I’d wonder, ‘Where is she now?’ ”

So it was arranged that a photo of Jaycee be printed in the 1998 class yearbook, alongside the caption, “Even though you may not be walking with us down the graduation aisle, you will always be walking with us in our hearts—From the Class of 1998.”

27

“
A PRODUCTIVE CITIZEN
”

In March 1998, Nancy Garrido quit her job at the Contra Costa ARC to look after Phillip Garrido’s mother full-time. Pat Franzen, now seventy-seven, was suffering from the early stages of dementia, requiring round-the-clock nursing. So Phillip had decided Nancy should became primary caregiver, also allowing her to help out with the printing business.

Phillip Garrido’s old beat-up van was now a common sight doing its daily rounds up and down Highway 4. He and Alyssa worked hard and his printing business was easily turning a profit, with little overhead and no wages to pay.

To the outside world, the convicted felon now appeared to be successfully rehabilitated back to society, and a fine example of the parole system at its best.

On March 9, 1999, Phillip Garrido was officially discharged from federal parole, receiving a certificate of early termination from the U.S. Department of Justice.

“You are hereby discharged from parole,” read the certificate signed by U.S. Parole Administrator Raymond E. Essex. “By this action, you are no longer under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Parole Commission.”

The letter lauded him for his good behavior and what he had achieved over the eleven years he’d been under federal parole supervision.

“After a thorough review of your case,” it continued, “the Commission has decided that you are deserving of an early discharge. You are commended for having responded positively to supervision and for the personal accomplishment(s) you have made. The Commission trusts that you will continue to be a productive citizen and obey the laws of society.”

After his early discharge from federal parole, Phillip Garrido was officially returned to the jurisdiction of the Nevada parole board. The Nevada Department of Public Safety, Division of Parole and Probation now requested that California assume parole responsibilities for Garrido, under the terms of the interstate parole compact—which had only been written into law a month earlier. Under the compact, which runs in all fifty states, the receiving state can take over the parole duties of visitation and supervision if the parolee resides and works there.

When the interstate compact authority refused to assume responsibility for Garrido, Nevada’s Division of Parole and Probation appealed, urging them to reconsider.

“Since granted parole,” wrote Julie Johnson of the Division of Parole and Probation, “the subject has complied with parole requirements and displayed a stable lifestyle.”

She wrote that Parolee Garrido was a “legitimate and successful” self-employed design artist and printer, who had been granted an early release from federal parole because of his “positive” performance.

“Ordering the subject to return to Nevada to await acceptance from your state,” wrote Johnson, “would be disruptive and unproductive for the subject who has managed to change his behavior. Please reconsider your decision.”

That same day, Assistant Supervisor David M. Albright sent a memo to Johnson, telling her to have Phillip Garrido report to the Concord, California, parole office the following afternoon at 1:00
P.M
. for his first meeting with his new California parole agent, Al Fulbright.

On June 9, 1999, on the way to meet his new parole agent for the first time, Phillip Garrido finally registered as a sex offender with law enforcement, under penal code section 290. From then on he would register each year without fail, as the law required.

When he met Parole Agent Fulbright, Garrido angrily complained that a serious mistake had been made. He explained that after the federal government had released him from parole, the Nevada authorities should also have discharged him from all parole supervision. He said he had only signed the official transfer forms to California under duress.

In his official report, covering that first meeting, Agent Fulbright noted that Garrido was now “seeking counsel of an attorney.”

Straight after the meeting with Agent Fulbright, Phillip Garrido wrote to the Nevada Parole Commission, demanding to be released from all parole supervision. And he even claimed that continuing parole supervision would prove psychologically detrimental to him.

This letter is to inform the Parole Commission that I Phillip Garrido was released from the Federal Sentence and all supervision completely.

The reason for my release 26 years early, was due to the complete recovery and successful reorientation back into the community. Years of hard work went into this recovery. At this point every professional involved in my case recognized any further supervision would no longer be of any benefit to me, and so I was released back into the community under no supervision.

At this point it is obvious to me and the professionals handling this case that I will receive no benefit from continued supervision, but in fact is nothing more than a poor reminder of what I have been told to put behind me, thus psychologically and realistically is of no benefit to my success.

I sign under duress, because the threat that Nevada would for no other reason violate my parole.

Bottom line is if Nevada would have been the one to supervise my parole it is now becoming obvious that they do not have the resources nor the desire to truly help people orientate back into society for under your present system I would have fallen through the cracks. On the other hand the Federal Government has the resources and stayed off my back until they were able to isolate a bi-chemical problem.

So now after all this you’re informing me the reason for this continued supervision is to help me back into society. Frankly your laws are outdated and need to be reviewed by professional psychologist [sic] and the Federal Government.

Five days later, Agent Fulbright filed a progress and conduct report for his new parolee, noting he was “stable” and his “prognosis of success is good.”

Over the next five months, Parolee Garrido kept the parole agent busy with all his objections, so he had no supervision whatsoever.

That November, the California parole department recommended that Nevada discharge Phillip Garrido from parole. In the five months since taking over the case, parole agent Fulbright noted Garrido had made “good parole adjustment,” advising that he be reduced to minimum risk—the lowest level for a sex offender—until his discharge date.

But under the California parole department policy, Garrido should have been classified as high control for a minimum of a year, because of his earlier convictions for kidnapping and rape.

In his November 9 report, Agent Fulbright noted that Garrido lived with his wife, Nancy, and mother, Pat, and was the self-employed owner of a full-service printing shop.

“Garrido has completed over 10 years of Federal Parole Supervision,” wrote Fulbright, “and was successfully discharged on 3/09/1999. He is available for supervision and in compliance with his conditions of parole. Recommendation: Discharge from parole supervision.”

This would be the first of four official recommendations from California over the next nine years that Garrido be discharged from parole. But Nevada turned a deaf ear to all of them, continuing to enforce his parole.

In late 1999, Phillip Garrido hooked his Printing For Less business computer up to the Internet, allowing Alyssa to deal with their clients online. She was a busy working mother, with Angel now five years old and Starlit two.

Alyssa had been with the Garridos for more than eight years and felt part of their family. And she had long become used to living in tents outside in the hidden backyard, where she was raising her daughters as best she could.

Most nights Phillip Garrido would arrive in the back garden and take Alyssa into his soundproof shed, where he would force her to have sex. Often Nancy would babysit the little girls, before Phillip and Alyssa joined them for dinner.

Printing For Less was doing so well that Phillip Garrido decided to expand, buying new camera and printing equipment. He also took on a number of new clients.

“All of a sudden he appeared with his business cards,” remembered Cheyvonne Molino, owner of J & M Enterprises—an auto-wrecking yard—in Willow Pass Road, Pittsburg. “And he started doing our printing.”

Around the same time, Maria Christenson, who owns a recycling center in Pittsburg, happened to mention to a friend that she was looking for a printer.

“And the next morning,” recalled Christenson, “Phillip was here waiting for me.”

So she started placing orders with Printing For Less, and liked the quality of work and rock-bottom prices.

“At first he seemed like he was always in a hurry and looked kind of jumpy,” she said. “But he was very, very businesslike at the beginning.”

For the first few years, Christenson hardly ever saw Garrido in person. She would call his office and place her print orders. Then a few days later she would arrive at work, to find it waiting outside the front door.

“The only thing that was odd,” she said, “was that he would deliver at strange hours. I’d come in and there was a pile outside the door. He probably brought them in the middle of the night or early, early in the morning. The only time I saw him was when he came to pick up the check.”

Antioch realtor Deepal Karunaratne, who also ran a marketing business, hired Phillip Garrido after a recommendation from a business contact.

“Phillip came to my house,” recalled Karunaratne. “He told me that he has a home-based printing press and showed me some work he has done. Very good quality work. So I started trying him out and it worked very well. I gave him a lot of work and I referred him to a lot of other clients.”

Over the five years they had done business, Marc Lister had developed a good relationship with Phillip Garrido. In fact, one day he was invited to visit 1554 Walnut Avenue for a business meeting with the company design director, Alyssa.

“I went inside the house,” he remembered, “and [Alyssa] was sitting across the table from me.”

Nancy was busy dusting and cleaning the old furniture, while Angel and Starlit played in the corner. Then with a dramatic wave of his hand, Phillip Garrido introduced his wife and two fair-haired daughters, leaving Lister under the impression that the pretty blonde Alyssa was his wife, and Nancy his cleaning lady.

“I sat across the living room table,” recalled Lister, “and talked to [Alyssa] about what I wanted on my cards—color changes. She made a couple of suggestions.”

Over the next few years, Lister would often visit the house, forming the impression they were a happy family.

On December 9, 1999, seven-year-old Xiana Fairchild was kidnapped from a bus stop in Vallejo, California, thirty miles west of Antioch. Her disappearance triggered a massive police hunt around Northern California, with hundreds of volunteers scouring the countryside for the little girl.

Child safety advocate Janice Gomes, founder and president of the National Community Empowerment Programs, Inc., was appointed a search team leader. So she decided to update the group’s child safety fact sheet, going to her printer Phillip Garrido’s house to brief him on the project.

“We had just been talking about Xiana Fairchild, who was abducted from a bus stop,” said Gomes. “And he said, ‘Next time you might want to add a couple of things. You know children should never walk to a bus stop alone, because they’re no match for an adult.’ ”

He then declared it was a myth that children were safer traveling around in groups.

“If an adult approaches a group,” Garrido told her, “they all scatter and you just grab one. That’s all you want anyhow.”

Gomes said she would consider his advice, but his strange comment raised no red flags.

“Phillip was strange,” she explained, “but you wouldn’t put him under the category of rapist, murderer or kidnapper. He told me he had A.D.D. but I felt he had A.D.H.D., because he was definitely very hyper.”

After their meeting, Garrido went into his backyard, handing a rough copy of the new child safety fact sheet to Alyssa to typeset and print. As she typed it into the computer, she would have had to read the copy.

“The predators victimizing people today,” stated the fact sheet, “are using methods never heard of before. There is a need to apply safety awareness and survival knowledge to children of all ages.”

And under the “Reported Facts” section, it stated there are approximately 850,000 children reported missing each year. Out of those, 4,600 abductions are by non–family members, and three hundred of those unfortunate children either disappeared for long periods or were murdered.

“Remember,” ended the fact sheet, “everyone is someone’s child and crime can victimize you at any stage in life. Let’s get together to make a safer future for our children today!”

In 2001, Xiana’s remains were found in a reservoir in Santa Clara County. Four years later, drifter and self-confessed serial killer Curtis Dean Anderson pleaded guilty to kidnapping, molesting and murdering Xiana. He was sentenced to fifty years to life in prison—the same sentence Phillip Garrido had received twenty-five years earlier.