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Jaycee Lee Dugard police dig up bone in garden
David Gardner in Los Angeles1 Sep 2009
Police have revealed that they found a bone fragment on property next door to the house where Jaycee Lee Dugard was imprisoned as a slave for eighteen years.
The discovery has heightened fears that kidnapper Phillip Garrido may be a serial killer.
Detectives are now linking at least two unsolved cases of schoolgirls who went missing at about the same time that Jaycee, who is now 29, was snatched from the street on her way to school in 1991 when she was just eleven.
They also believe Garrido, 58, may have murdered another 15-year-old girl and up to ten prostitutes from the same area in northern California.
The convicted rapist acted as a caretaker of the property adjoining his Antioch home until a tenant moved in three years ago.
Police said Garrido lived at one time in a shed in the neighbouring yard and used outbuildings as an extension to the secret back garden compound where he kept Jaycee and her two daughters.
Contra Costa County Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said the bone was found during the weekend search, which involved the use of cadaver dogs, and is now being tested to see if it is human.
A police source said Garrido shows a striking resemblance to a photofit drawing of the man who kidnapped nine-year-old Michaela Garecht from a car park in Hayward, California, in November 1988.
The abduction happened just one hour's drive from Garrido's home and the blonde schoolgirl looked similar to Jaycee.
Thirteen-year-old Ilene Mischelof vanished from Dublin, another town in the same area of California, on her way to an ice skating lesson in January 1989.
Neither girl has been seen since and police are now treating Garrido as a possible suspect' in both cases.
Detectives also confirmed they are investigating the death of 15-year-old Lisa Norrell, whose body was found in an industrial site close to where Garrido used to work in 1998 and the murders of as many as ten prostitutes who were also killed during the 1990s in the same town of Pittsburgh, California.
The latest twist in the case emerged last night as a woman who was kidnapped and brutally raped by Garrido 33 years ago told of her ordeal.
Katie Hall was 25 when she agreed to give Garrido a lift in her car after he pretended he had broken down.
She was handcuffed and taken to a warehouse in Lake Tahoe – the same area where Jaycee was abducted – and repeatedly raped before a police officer became suspicious and came to her aid.
“I have lived in fear of him ever since. I don't think I will ever get over what he did to me,” Katie told CNN's Larry King.
Katie, now married and living in Las Vegas, said Garrido set up a mini-warehouse where he took his victim as a sex lair, covering the walls and floor with carpet.
“I thought I was dead,” she said. “Allowing him into my car was the worst decision I have ever made. He grabbed my hand from the steering wheel and pulled out some handcuffs.
“He also took a leather strap from his hair and tied my head to my knees and took me to a storage warehouse.”
After being sexually attacked over an eight-hour period, she said she ran out naked begging a police officer to help her after he heard a noise from inside the warehouse and quizzed Garrido.
Katie testified at Garrido's trial where he was found guilty of rape and kidnapping and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.
But just eleven years later she said he turned up at the casino where she was working in Lake Tahoe and tried to intimidate her.
“I got on the phone on my break and I was told that he had been released.
“I spoke to his parole officer who said that they were pretty sure he could do it again and was still a sick puppy. But he said they didn't think he would do anything to me.
“I have lived in fear ever since he was released in 1988, especially in the first five years. I just knew that he was hunting me and I decided to leave Tahoe altogether and disappear.
“I was so relieved when I heard he had been arrested,” she added.
Garrido's ex-wife also described her suffering at Garrido's hands.
Christine Murphy said Garrido tried to gouge out her eyes with a safety pin after he saw another man flirting with her.
“He took a safety pin and went after my eyes,” said Murphy. “He left a scar on my face.”
Murphy said Garrido smacked' her around during their short-lived marriage.
And she told US news show Inside Edition that she became his first kidnap victim when she tried to break free from his controlling clutches.
“I was always looking for a way to find out how to get away. But he always told me he'd find me whatever,” said Murphy, who worked in a casino while Garrido was trying to launch a musical career as a singer/songwriter.
When she finally made a bid to escape, she said Garrido “found me”.
“He pulled up, turned around and forced me back into the car,” she said.
Murphy, who has remarried and is now a mother-of-four, said she was relieved when Garrido was locked up for kidnapping and raping a 25-year-old woman in 1976.
Calling him a “good manipulator” and “monster”, she said it made her “sick to my stomach” after hearing her ex-husband had abducted Jaycee.
“He's pretty much capable of anything,” she said.
Reader views (1)
"sentenced to 50 years to life in prison."
But was out in 12? Sounds like American justice is almost identical to ours.
- Bob, Cheam, 01/09/2009 15:05
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