A SEX offender accused of fathering two children with a girl he kidnapped in 1991 was detained by police after he was spotted with two children as he tried to enter the University of California, Berkeley, campus to hand out religious literature.
Phillip Craig Garrido and his wife Nancy
According to this report, police officers said that Phillip Garrido, 58, was acting suspiciously toward the children. They questioned him and did a background check. They determined he was a parolee, and informed his parole officer.
He later admitted kidnapping Jaycee Lee Dugard – and he and his wife, 55-year-old Nancy were taken into custody. Garrido was booked on charges including kidnapping, conspiracy, rape and committing lewd acts with a minor. Nancy Garrido is accused of kidnapping and conspiracy. Both are being held in lieu of $1 million bail.
Garrido  is accused of taking Jaycee Lee from her home in the El Dorado County community of Meyers when she was 11 years old.
Dugard and the children, now 11 and 15, lived in an isolated backyard compound of tents, outbuildings and a shed behind Garrido’s home on Walnut Avenue in Antioch, authorities said.
El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar added:
None of the children have ever been to school, they’ve never been to a doctor. They were kept in complete isolation in this compound, if you will.
Jaycee Lee Dugard
In a telephone interview with KCRA 3, Garrido urged people to wait for more details about what took place at the house.
Garrido operated an outfit called God’s Desire, based out of his home in Antioch. He referred to God’s Desire as a church in a telephone interview. He also runs a completely batty blog called Voices Revealed in which he claims:
The Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world.
He said in the interview:
What’s kept me busy the last several years is I’ve completely turned my life around. And you’re going to find the most powerful story coming from the witness, the victim – you wait. If you take this a step at a time, you’re going to fall over backwards and in the end, you’re going to find the most powerful heart-warming story.
People who knew Garrido said he became increasingly fanatic about his religious beliefs in recent years, sometimes breaking out into song and claiming that God spoke to him through a box.
Said Tim Allen, president of East County Glass and Window Inc in Pittsburgh, who bought business cards and letterhead from Garrido’s printing business for the last decade.
In the last couple years he started getting into this strange religious stuff. We kind of felt sorry for him.
During recent visits to the showroom, Garrido would talk about quitting the printing business to preach full time and gave the impression he was setting up a church, Allen said.
He rambled. It made no sense.
Garrido would talk about holding events at UC Berkeley and mentioned the names of important people as if he knew them. Allen said he had no inkling of Garrido’s criminal record.
We never thought anything bad about the guy. He was just kind of nutty.
Garrido was paroled from a Nevada state prison on June 8, 1999. He served time in federal custody in Nevada for sexual assault.
HAT TIP: Sister Talitha, of LandoverBaptists, which has more on the story.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
August 29th, 2009 at 2:50 am
He's a lunatic who should be locked away forever.
August 29th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Okay, so this nutter was religious, some nutters are not.
Are you suggesting that no child has ever been kidnapped or abused by somebody who does not believe in God?
There's nothing "free thinking" about about trumpeting every instance that supports your views and then ignoring the news that doesn't. By all means dig out some statistics and make some rational arguments, but this sort of blog post amounts to "this religious person did something bad, therefore religion is wrong".
That sort of bad logic doesn't help anyone to think freely.
August 29th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Garrido and his wife should both be locked away until they die, his wife must have had a part in this.
BTW, notice how the Bible Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] has kept quiet about this guy being a religious maniac – can't upset the xtains can they, as they employ so many.
August 29th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Maybe someone should take a peek in Tom Esticles shed.
August 29th, 2009 at 8:57 am
If those of a religious bent weren’t forever banging on about how morally, intellectually and ethically superior they were to non-believers, we would be less inclined to highlight their crimes. Back in May, let me remind you, the outgoing Archbishop of Westminster ,Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor – who earlier claimed that secularists and atheists were “not fully human” – blamed atheism for war and destruction, and suggested it was a greater evil even than sin itself. (See http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/.....2%8…
This is breathtaking hypocrisy from a man who represents one of the most morally bankrupt institutions on the planet – a crime syndicate better known as the Roman Catholic Church.
August 29th, 2009 at 9:29 am
In adition to the Freethinker I used to subscribe to the US journal Freethought Today. The format was similar in shape and size to a tabloid newspaper, though with fewer pictures and smaller writng, it came out every two months. A regular feature was called Black Collar Crime Blotter, this consisted of two, sometimes three pages of very basic and short reports on crimes committed by the clergy, mainly stories from the US. The stories usually split about fifty fifty between financial fiddles, embezzlement tax evasion and the like and child abuse involving either sexual abuse or excessive physical punishment.
August 29th, 2009 at 10:27 am
That's a fair point., however, in the very rare occasions an athiest does commit a crime they do not try to wangle out of it by blaming their 'invisible friend'.
August 29th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Granted, there are an appalling amount of non-religious psycho/sociopaths out there, but how often do you hear them insist that they are only instruments of a higher power; that their evil acts are for the Greater Good, that they are the ones in the right? That's what makes stories like this a little different.
In the minds of people the world over, anything from suicide bombing to execution via stoning to paedophilia to domestic battery of uppity women to large-scale fraud can be committed with a clear conscience as long as one has God/ Allah/ deity of choice on side.
August 29th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
It looks like this trial is going to be televised – there is no getting around the fact that he committed the crimes & will be punished, but it will be interesting to hear his defence in court, especially if it turns out to be some sort of religious defence; although I can't help feeling that those blogs are the beginnings of an insanity plea….
August 29th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
That is as maybe but ten pounds says that this so called 'heart warming story' has a huge chunk or religion mixed in there!
August 29th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
As if a kidnapper/ rapist having the demented temerity to claim on radio that people will be in awe of his story rather than aghast by it mightn't already be enough for the defence team to hit ground running with an insanity plea. However, they may have to ascertain as to whether Garrido was insane when the most severe of these crimes took place all those years ago.
August 29th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
I agree, Rog. Sexual predators who target kids are manipulative and cunning. The god defence is a powerful one in America, not least because it's a land of religious politics and an elected judiciary. I'm sure he is a religious nut to some degree, but so are millions of Americans – it's good protective camouflage. I found the BBC's report from a clinical psychologist interesting. This guy was careful not actually admit to doing anything, and he and his wife have now entered not guilty pleas. Oh, and I notice the cops are now investigating unexplained murders of prostitutes, so this one could run and run.
August 29th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I think the issue is what Avril Sime was quoted as saying just a few days ago.
"Ask anyone who has been in prison and become a Believer … so burdened with guilt nothing would take it away … only when they became Christians were they set free …. one of the great blessings of believing in Christ is that we are set FREE, free from fear, free from guilt, free to live with HOPE"
What we are seeing here is a man who has been set free from the guilt of crimes he is still committing. Taking away someone's conscience is not a good thing.
August 30th, 2009 at 4:25 am
Barry, I'm a bit disgusted by the fact that you only seem to care about these atrocities when they are done by those who claim God.
To be fair, I know this isn't the case, I'm sure you are disgusted by all violence of this magnitude. I just don't know why you keep acting like Christians are the only ones who do this sort of thing. I say this sincerely, you seem like a very good writer, and this type of stuff seems beneath you.
I can't wait to see how my words will be twisted.
August 30th, 2009 at 8:10 am
"Set free from the guilt of crimes he is still committing." Very good, Harry! I used to be an evangelical fundamentalist, but I can attest that in my case I was in continual bondage, constantly racked by guilt over even the smallest things, and have never been happier or freer than since I escaped from this enslavement. Many of them, though, enjoy the same blissful freedom from reality that this man seems to. They are also freed from reason and logic, and the need to ever use critical thought, as we have seen in some of their comments on this site.
August 30th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Tom, I believe I adequately answered this criticism in my reply to James above, and others have elaborated further.
August 30th, 2009 at 9:18 am
The guy can't read, Barry! One of the big planks in the argument for religious belief is that it gives people a "moral compass". What a shame that in many cases the North is pointing due South!!
August 30th, 2009 at 10:21 am
…"I just don't know why you keep acting like Christians are the only ones who do this sort of thing."
They're not. It's also Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs…blah, blah, blah. The believers in the gods and their so called moral codes are far more likely to commit an atrocity than a rational person.
How many time have you heard a defendant plea… 'AC Grayling made me do it'.
Me neither.
August 30th, 2009 at 10:32 am
bj. I am of the opinion that most people do have an innate moral compass, unfortunately religion acts like a bloody great magnet preventing them from taking the right direction.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Precisely. Brutality in the name of Islam is one of the most regular topics on here, yet all he sees is Christianity being picked on and solely blamed. Well, many Christians do like to cherry-pick.
August 30th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
"How many time have you heard a defendant plea… 'AC Grayling made me do it'. "
he did say that ridicule of religious belief was a good thing
August 30th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
LOL.
September 1st, 2009 at 3:12 am
What I'm concerned about is just how has his religious nonsense effected Jaycee and the girls; I am holding out hope that he hasn't turned them into religious freaks for life. When looking at the photos taken in the backyard compound, there was one of a book titlled "Self Esteem A Family Affair" by Clarke. Fearing the worst, I checked for it on amazon.com and it turns out to be–as far as I can tell–a secular book. I feared that the author would be some religious wacko–not so.
It was difficult to make out the titles and authors showing in a photo of a book shelf although I was able to see 13 books by Dean Koontz whom I'd never heard of although he's a bestselling author.
BTW, Garrido had something like a 50 year sentence for kidnapping and rape but ending up only serving around 11 years of it. Count on it; people are angry and there will be a look into why this guy was put back out on the street.in 1988 which is 3 years before he kidnapped Jaycee. As I understand it, he went back in jail in 1999 for 5 months for a parole violation.
Sadly, I saw the stepfather confirm that the two girls thought Jaycee was their older sister.
September 1st, 2009 at 3:59 am
I'm keeping my powder dry on the issue of how and when religion was involved in this. In my view, religion needs and perpetuates a culture of unreason and that fact surely has an influence on crime stats.
The madness we've already seen could get worse. There are several cold case murders of women that the police are investigating and several cases of girls within 20 miles of where he lived that are still missing. The ages when the girls disappeared are about the same as Jaycee's when she was taken.
Link: the stepfather on CBS News: I think this makes clear at least some of the damage that's been done.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/w.....8;a…