Monday, August 31, 2009
AFP - Tuesday, September 1SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - - Police and sniffer dogs have scoured the California home of a convicted sexual predator accused of holding a girl captive in his backyard for 18 years and fathering two children with her.
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Police refused to describe the nature of Sunday's search at the home of Phillip Garrido, 58, but US media reported that investigators are looking for potential links to other crimes in the area.
Garrido and his wife Nancy, 54, were arrested last week and charged with the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard, nearly two decades after the blonde schoolgirl was snatched outside her home in 1991 when she was just 11.
Dugard, now 29, was confined in a makeshift prison of sheds and tents in what police have described as a "backyard within a backyard" at Garrido's home in Antioch, around 50 miles (80 kilometres) east of San Francisco
Scores of police, helped by sniffer dogs, combed the backyard and a neighbour's property on Sunday.
Jimmy Lee, the Contra Costa sheriff, confirmed to reporters that the dogs were being used in the search.
"We'll have them go through the backyard," said Lee.
"Too early to say what we're looking for. Anything that may be linked to some open cases that we have. At this point, we're going thoroughly through both backyards. It's just too early to say what we might come up with."
Police searched Garrido's home at the weekend in relation to a series of prostitute killings in the 1990s, as other bodies had been found close to where he worked, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Neighbours described Garrido as a religious fanatic who grew more and more strange, and who lately was intent on spreading his confounding beliefs widely, sometimes accompanied by his two girls.
News reports Sunday said the two daughters Garrido fathered with Jaycee, who are now 11 and 15, have been told that their mother was kidnapped by their father.
Her stepfather Carl Probyn told news media that the girl's mother told him that Jaycee is "fragile" and does not think she ever tried to escape.
On Thursday, police said Garrido, a convicted rapist and registered sex offender, had abused Dugard and fathered her two daughters who had also been kept in the compound.
The Garridos both pleaded not guilty on Friday to 29 charges including kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment.
But many are questioning how the case went unsolved for so long, even after neighbours alerted police that children appeared to be living in the complex of tents behind his home.
Police in Contra Costa County admitted Friday that they had received a tip in November 2006 and failed to follow it up properly.
Dugard was reunited with her mother and half-sister on Friday, but was struggling to come to terms with her ordeal and experts say it could take years for her to recover.
Dugard was found after police reported Garrido acting suspiciously at the University of California, Berkeley, where, with two young girls, he was trying to hand out religious literature propounding claims he could channel the voice of God.
Garrido was summoned to a meeting Wednesday with his parole officer who, having previously visited the home, found it strange that in addition to his wife Nancy he brought along two girls and a woman he called "Allissa."
Dugard's real identity emerged under questioning from police and Garrido and his wife Nancy were detained.
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