Garridos plead guilty in Jaycee Dugard kidnapping case

A married couple charged with kidnapping Jaycee Dugard when she was 11 and holding her captive for nearly 20 years pleaded guilty to their crimes Thursday under an agreement that calls for life sentences.

Phillip Garrido, 60, and his wife, Nancy, 55, entered their pleas in an El Dorado County courtroom. They faced 29 charges of kidnapping and sexual assault.

Phillip Garrido repeatedly raped Dugard and fathered two daughters with her while confining her to a backyard warren of tents and soundproof sheds in their rural home in an unincorporated section of Antioch.

Under the plea deal, Phillip Garrido will be sentenced on June 2, with a maximum possible sentence of 431 years to life in prison. Prosecutors said he waived his right to appeal.

Nancy Garrido, who helped snatch the girl in 1991 and later helped deliver the babies her husband  fathered with Dugard, pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of 25 years to life, in addition to 11 more years. Nancy Garrido pleaded guilty to kidnapping and one count of rape by force in addition to other charges.

“The enormity of the defendants’ actions has caused tremendous pain and suffering to Jaycee, her mother Terry Probyn and their family,” El Dorado County Dist. Atty. Vern Pierson said in a written statement. “With a guilty plea by both defendants, Terry, Jaycee and her children can now be spared the grief and trauma of having to be dragged into the court process to testify at a jury trial.”

The plea deal makes Nancy Garrido eligible for parole in 31 years, but Pierson said he was "confident she will spend the rest of her life in prison." Nancy Garrido pleaded guilty to the rape charge under the theory that she aided and abetted the sexual assault, Pierson said.

Dugard and her children were discovered in August 2009. The state later awarded the Dugard family $20 million in response to charges that state officials failed to properly supervise Garrido, who was on parole for another rape when he kidnapped Dugard.

State parole agents visited the Garrido home several times without searching the backyard encampment where Dugard and her daughters were living.

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Garridos confess to police in Jaycee Dugard kidnapping and rape case

-- Maura Dolan

Photo: Nancy and Phillip Garrido wait before the start of their Feb. 3 hearing at the El Dorado County Court in Placerville. The two pleaded guilty to kidnapping Jaycee Dugard. Credit: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press

Comments

[Kathyo]

One day, we will look back on our relentless pursuit of drug crime and say: How could we have spent so many precious resources on pot smokers, and leave people like this creep to prey on others?

[Gomes]

Lock them up until they are 90.. then release them in Death Valley

[Jim S.]

Is it just me or was this an extremely one-sided plea deal? They received life sentences for their guilty pleas so it doesn't seem like there was anything in it for them. I don't think eligibility for parole at age 86 is much of a carrot.

Were they somehow subject to the death penalty in a jury trial? That might explain the plea deal.

[Mad White Amaerican]

White privilege at its Best.... The State Pays for a White Crime for a White Man...Leaving the Tax Payers in Limbo..If He were white the cops would of shot him and called it self defense and the child would have never received a cent.... Priceless

[Mark Sailors]

"One day, we will look back on our relentless pursuit of drug crime and say: How could we have spent so many precious resources on pot smokers, and leave people like this creep to prey on others? "

A-FREAKIN-MEN

[Chris Kent]

California has the most screwed-up criminal justice system in the USA.

You let out a rapist, completely mis-supervise him, he commits one of the most destructive and heinous crimes I have ever heard of, and then costs the citizens $20,000,000! What the hell is wrong with you people?

I started noticing the outrageous repeat offenders in Cal back when I read the horrible story of Polly Klaas years ago, killed by a scum that should NEVER have been let out, and never would have in a state with common sense.

[Andres C. Alvarez]

While I would have preferred that they string up these two bundles of garbage, I will settle on them being in prison for the balance of their respective lives so they are not able to hurt anyone else. What they did to this child turned woman is an outrage and even with the $20,000,000.00 that they were paid by the state can she regain her time as a child or her young adulthood. These two monsters robbed her of these things and for this reason they should rot behind bars. While it pleases me that she was able to reunite with her family, this is still a case where there we no winners; very sad.

[bob]

“The enormity of the defendants’ actions has caused tremendous pain and suffering to Jaycee, her mother Terry Probyn and their family,”

ya think?

[Lizbeth]

Their court days may be over but they will have eternal hell to deal with from the other inmates for they've done to that poor child (woman).

[Leilani24]

This story honestly gave me a nightmare. It sends a chill up my spine to think that the woman would go along with it! I mean the wife! What kind of human being could do this?