Dugard says Garridos stole her life; couple sentenced in kidnap, rape of S. Tahoe girl
By Maria L. La Ganga, Los Angeles Times
PLACERVILLE — Nearly 20 years after Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted while walking to a school bus stop, the couple who pleaded guilty in her kidnapping and rape were sentenced Thursday to prison terms that could keep them behind bars for the rest of their lives.
Phillip Garrido, a 60-year-old convicted rapist, was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison. His 55-year-old wife Nancy was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison.
Jaycee Lee Dugard not long before she was abducted in South Lake Tahoe.
In recommending that Garrido receive a sentence of 431 years to life in prison, El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson described the serial rapist as “a sexual predator who stole the childhood and innocence from an 11-year-old child. Defendant Garrido’s actions caused her mother Terry Probyn to have to endure an 18-year-long nightmare.”
Before the Garridos’ sentencing Thursday in a Placerville courtroom, a tearful Probyn addressed the court. “How could someone take away the one person in the world I loved so deeply? Where is she? Is she hungry? Is she cold? Is she hurt? My baby was gone and all my dreams turned to nightmares. She was a vulnerable child and I was unable to help her.
“During 18 years away, I could hear her crying, not with my ears, but with my heart. I could feel her pain, not with my body, but with my heart…. I lived in hell on earth. It was you Nancy Garrido and Phillip Garrido that broke my heart.”
Probyn then read a statement from her daughter, who did not attend the hearing: “To Phillip Garrido, I hated every second of every day of 18 years because of you. To you Nancy, I have nothing to say.”
Before sentencing Phillip Garrido, Judge Douglas C. Phimister said the “defendant lacks a soul. What you have done is beyond horrible. May you think long and hard about what you did.”
Earlier I posted something about no one being held accountable for $7mil. being played with in the City’s Treasury. In this far more serious and sad matter, it is galling that I assume Garrido’s Parole Officers are still getting their pensions?! The state paid Ms. Dugard as it should!! But did the people that screwed up chip in at all??
I hope for however many years the Garridos are on this planet, their prison/cell mates make them regret that they didn’t get the death penalty!!! But that no one is being held accountable in this tragedy, even though people were paid to watch and check on Garrido, shows that bureaucrats, rather than being concerned with results, are concerned with covering for each other!!!
Last Saturday at the library I stopped and looked at the tree and plaque that was planted and dedicated in rememberance of Jaycee Lee. I was there in 1991 at that somber ceremony, it’s hard to believe now almost twenty years ago.
It was a surreal to think that Jaycee was found alive after all these years but to also having to imagine the horrors she and her family had to endure. I have no words to describe that confusion, I can only take joy in her life and the reunion she and her family have enjoyed.
Blessing to their entire family.
This guy and his deranged wife ravaged this community for decades. To this day I don’t like my kids walking home from the bus stop because of him. Like a bad man in a movie you hope dies, this guy should be hung be the nutsack and killed. I hate this man… I feel for the dugard family… No apologies or money can make up for lack of oversight of this madman.
What a great letter she wrote to the court in what I can only imagine was a heartwrenching moment for all in attendance. I am so proud of Jacyee Lee in her growth and maturity and her survivor skills! My heartfelt love to the family.
Pleading guilty and sparing Jaycee Lee the pain of having to testify against them was the best thing the Garridos could have done. That is probably the only good thing anyone can say about them. I hope, as the judge said, that they “think long and hard about what they did”.
I hope this gives Jaycee a modicum of closure and she can move forward with her life and that her life is filled with happiness.
The only reason it happened at all was because he was a rapist freed from jail 40 years early after he claimed he’d “found God.”
As usual though, God failed to give a damn about the victim, and about all those other little innocents still missing, and the authorities who swallowed his outrageous ‘discovery’ will pay no moral price either.
The only revenge anyone might obtain from this is when Phil finally leaves jail after 431 years, he will most certainly pass God on his way downstairs.