Phillip and Nancy Garrido, the suspects in the kidnapping and rape of Jaycee Dugard, are due in court Monday for a bail hearing.
The husband and wife have pleaded not guilty to 29 felony counts related to Dugard, who disappeared in 1991 when she was 11 years old. She was found last month. Investigators believe Phillip Garrido kidnapped Dugard in South Lake Tahoe, California, fathered two daughters with her, and held her captive in a well-hidden compound behind his home in Antioch, California. Monday’s court appearance will be largely procedural. After the Garridos were arrested in August, investigators used cadaver dogs to search the couple’s ramshackle home and the surrounding rural property for possible connections to unsolved crimes. A bone fragment that is “probably human” was found near Garrido’s home, a sheriff’s spokesman said September 8. The bone was found early in September on a neighbor’s property in an area to which Garrido had access.
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The fragment, which was analyzed by an outside expert, will go on to the state DNA lab for testing, according to an e-mail from Jimmy Lee, director of public affairs for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office. “The expert has determined that the bone fragment found in the backyard of Garrido’s neighbor is probably human,” Lee said. “We will be requesting the state to see if it can develop a DNA profile on the fragment. It should be noted that it is not uncommon to find Native American remains in Contra Costa County,” he said. Police in Hayward, California, are trying to determine whether Garrido is linked to the 1988 kidnapping of Michaela Garecht, Hayward Police Lt. Chris Orrey said earlier this month. Garecht and Dugard were of similar age and appearance, both were abducted in daylight, and a sketch of a suspect resembled Garrido, Orrey said. In Dublin, California, investigators said earlier this month they were looking into whether Garrido was connected to the 1989 disappearance of Ilene Misheloff, who was 13 when she was abducted. Garrido was convicted of kidnapping and raping Katie Callaway Hall in 1976. He was released from prison after serving 10 years of a 50-year sentence. He was labeled a sex offender and put on lifetime parole.
