Testimony: Girl's alleged abductor had rape desire

[September 01, 2009]  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The man accused of abducting and sexually abusing Jaycee Lee Dugard testified during a previous kidnapping and rape case that he prowled through residential neighborhoods as a Peeping Tom and had strong rape desires.

During his 1977 kidnapping trial, Phillip Garrido also said he leered at girls as young as 7 and 10, and he admitted to exposing himself to some of them.

He testified that LSD and cocaine acted as sexual stimulants, and that he frequently masturbated and often in public places including the "side of schools, grammar schools and high schools, in my own car while I was watching young females."

The portrait of the 58-year-old Garrido comes from trial transcripts and a psychiatric report from unrelated case files made public Monday. In that case, Garrido was convicted in Reno, Nev., of kidnapping a stranger. He later admitted to raping her in a rented storage unit described by investigators as a "sex palace" with items for playing out his sexual fantasies.

Garrido and his wife Nancy are being held in El Dorado County on charges that they kidnapped and raped Dugard, then held her captive at their Antioch home for the past 18 years even as parole officers and police occassionally turned up at his house.

In the kidnapping trial from more than three decades ago, Garrido admitted to abducting and raping the woman he was accused of kidnapping, saying: "I have had this fantasy, and this sexual thing that has overcome me."

He testified that he did not think what he did was wrong.

"I had this fantasy that was driving me to do this, inside of me; something that was making me want to do it without -- no way to stop it," he said.

The victim testified that Garrido also discussed his sexual fantasies while driving her to the storage area, where he assaulted her for more than five hours until a police officer knocked on the unit's door after becoming suspicious of the victim's car parked nearby.

She said she was taking dinner to her boyfriend's house when Garrido tapped on her window as she was pulling out of a food market and told her his car broke down. He asked for a ride and attacked her shortly afterward, handcuffing and binding her before driving her to his Reno storage unit.

She told the jury that she asked Garrido why she was chosen, and he responded: "It just happened that you happened to be attractive, and that is a fault in this case in your case, you know, at this time."

The prosecutor, outside the presence of the jury, told the court that Garrido was suspected of attempting to kidnap another woman an hour before he succeeded. That woman escaped, according to the prosecutor.

Garrido served 10 years in a federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., before being granted parole. He then served seven months for the rape conviction in a Nevada prison before being granted an early release in August 1988. Less than three years later, he allegedly kidnapped Dugard in 1991 when she was 11.

He was returned to prison in April 1993 for an undisclosed parole violation and was released again four months later.

The court documents come from his testimony on Feb. 10, 1977, after a judge turned down his attorney's bid to declare him insane because of his heavy drug use.

Dr. Lynn Gerow, a court-appointed psychiatrist examined him in December 1976 and found him competent to stand trial. His three-page report to the judge described Garrido as tall, thin and "unkempt."

Gerow said Garrido was the second of two siblings, reported emotional conflict with his parents in his formative years, and later worked on and off as a musician and increasingly abused drugs, including LSD. He was married at the time to a casino dealer.

"He was preoccupied with the idea of sex and admitted to a history of several sexual disorders," the doctor said, adding that he believed Garrido suffered from "a mixed sexual deviation and chronic drug abuse."

"The latter may be responsible in part for the former," he said.

In a neurological report on Jan. 6, 1977, Dr. Albert F. Peterman found no hard evidence of brain damage.

"LSD made him quite aggressive, which he realizes," the doctor noted. "He had used LSD prior to his alleged offense, but remembers the details of the abduction and sexual activity quite well."

The doctor said Garrido had appropriate concern about his criminal case. "He states that he is looking forward to going to court, and has found religion and feels his life will change for the better."

Shortly before Garrido took the witness stand in his trial, the prosecutor told the judge, "We think by pointing to and questioning the defendant about prior specific acts prior to this incident, we can show he is following a pattern of attempting to kidnap and attempting to, and raping, other women." He did not elaborate.

Garrido was 25 and described himself as "very happily" married at the time. "She is beautiful," he said of his wife.

He said he started using marijuana and LSD within a month of high school graduation and that he was arrested in 1969 for drug use. He said he also used cocaine and other "uppers and downers."

He said he did not believe he was harming his victim, even though he handcuffed her, bound her and taped her mouth shut before raping her.

"I don't go breaking into people's houses," he said. "I don't go to hurt anybody."

He said he was working with a minister in jail "getting close to God." He told his own attorney that before finding God, "I couldn't feel shame," for the rape. "I didn't even realize the reality of shame for what I was doing."

He talked briefly about his upbringing, testifying that his parents never beat him and stopped disciplining him after he turned 10.

"My father never did take any restrictions of beating me or disciplining me, and my mother spoiled me," he said.

[Associated Press; By PAUL ELIAS]

Associated Press writer Scott Sonner contributed to this story from Reno.

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