Kidnappers Of Jaycee Lee Duggard, Philip Garrido And His Wife, Nancy, Draw 431 Years And 36 Years In Prison Sentences Respectively. Good Riddance.

Couple Sentenced to Prison in 18-Year Kidnapping Case
By JESSE McKINLEYhttp

PLACERVILLE, Calif. — The couple who kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard in 1991 and held her captive for nearly two decades were sentenced to prison on Thursday, after listening to angry and emotionally wrought statements from the victim and her family.

Philip Garrido, 60, received a term of 431 years in prison. His wife, Nancy, 55, was sentenced to 36 years to life. Both waived their right to appeal as part of their sentence.

Ms. Dugard, who was kidnapped at age 11 and held for 18 years, was not in the courtroom. But her mother, Terry Probyn, read a statement from Ms. Dugard, who is now 31.

“There is no God in the universe who would condone your actions,” Ms. Dugard wrote. “You stole my life and that of my family.”

But, Ms. Dugard told the Garridos, “you do not matter anymore.”

Ms. Probyn also spoke of her own suffering as she wondered what had happened to her blonde, blue-eyed daughter after the abduction. “I thought I was going insane,” she said, adding, “My baby was gone.”

Hands shaking, her voice rose. “It was you, Nancy Garrido, and it was you, Philip Garrido, that broke my heart,” she said, adding: “I hate you both.”

The judge, Douglas C. Phimister of El Dorado County Superior Court, was stern and scolding in a lengthy dissection of Mr. Garrido’s life as an experienced and manipulative criminal who snatched Ms. Dugard off a South Lake Tahoe street and then raped and imprisoned her. “You took a human being and turned them into chattel,” Judge Phimister said. “You reinvented slavery.”

The Garridos sat placidly in court, hands in the pockets of their orange jumpsuits, their hair grayed.

The couple had confessed to their crimes and pleaded guilty in April to kidnapping Ms. Dugard in South Lake Tahoe, about 50 miles east of Placerville, and then holding her at their home outside Antioch, Calif., a Bay Area suburb.

Mr. Garrido, a convicted sex offender, raped Ms. Dugard, eventually fathering two girls by her. Ms. Dugard became pregnant with her first child at 13, and for a second time when she was 16.

In court on Thursday, Stephen Tapson, a lawyer for Ms. Garrido, read a brief statement on her behalf, saying that while “being sorry is not enough,” she loved both Ms. Dugard and her two children. Of her sentence, Ms. Garrido said, “I deserve every moment of it.”

In August 2009, the authorities discovered Ms. Dugard after the campus police at the University of California, Berkeley, alerted the parole authorities to Mr. Garrido’s suspicious activities and statements made on campus. It was soon discovered that Mr. Garrido, who had served 11 years in prison for the rape of a Nevada casino worker in 1976, had been holding Ms. Dugard at his home and in a secret backyard compound constructed behind it.

Mr. Tapson had long maintained that Ms. Garrido did not rape Ms. Dugard but that she was aware the sexual abuse was going on, saying that both she and Mr. Garrido had become addicted to methamphetamine, and that the drug had fueled their actions.

But Ms. Garrido pleaded guilty to both kidnapping and forcible rape.

Mr. Garrido was sentenced on a larger array of crimes, which Judge Phimister outlined in exhaustive fashion on Thursday, adding that he believed that Mr. Garrido had tried to hide his crimes and play up any mental illness to avoid punishment.

The Garridos married in 1981 after meeting in a federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., where he was serving time and where she had gone to visit a relative.

Ms. Dugard, who plans to publish a memoir next month about her experience, now lives with her two children in a secret location. In July 2010, the State of California settled a claim with her and her children that state parole agents had not adequately monitored Mr. Garrido.

Susan Gellman, a lawyer for Mr. Garrido, said in court that he was also remorseful, and that he agreed with the scathing depiction of his life of depravity, violence and crime. But, Ms. Gellman said that Mr. Garrido was suffering “mental health issues,” including a desire to “tell his story,” something he gave up by pleading guilty.

In his final statement, Judge Phimister said Mr. Garrido would not feel the same desire while incarcerated, suggesting that other prisoners would not want to hear “what a wonderful story this was.”

“What you did to this child is beyond horrible,” the judge said. “May you think long and hard about what you did.”

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