‘Creepy Phil’ a religious zealot who neighbours heard bursting into song

PHILLIP GARRIDO was a religious zealot with a dark secret neighbours never guessed.

Garrido lived quietly with his wife, Nancy, and what neighbours believed to be their children in a house in Walnut Avenue in Antioch, California.

To some he was a friendly, if eccentric, man with a love of opera, and unusual religious views.

However, they reportedly nicknamed him “Creepy Phil”.

They did not know he was a convicted sex offender and rapist on lifetime federal parole.

The search of Garrido’s property “revealed a hidden backyard within a backyard”. It included several sheds no taller than 6ft, two tents and several outbuildings “where Jaycee and the girls spent most of their lives”.

The “secondary” backyard was “screened from view”. One of the sheds was soundproof, he said.

“The way the backyard is set up, you could walk through the backyard, walk through the house and never know that there was another set of living circumstances in that backyard,” he said.

Neighbours were vague about basic facts such as how many children he had, and even his parole officer who visited him inside the compound never guessed at the existence of a network of tents and sheds concealed behind shrubs in which Jaycee Lee Dugard spent the past 18 years, alongside her two children.

Residents remembered hearing him bursting into passages of opera from inside his house, according to reports.

He occasionally handed them handmade religious tracts and, when asked about the children, said he had traditional ideas about bringing them up.

Neighbours in the semi-rural area say they always thought he was bizarre, and even suspected something fishy was going on with the girls he called his daughters – but they thought authorities were keeping tabs on it all.

The neighbours and other acquaintances said Garrido conducted religious revivals in a tent, claimed to hear the voices of angels and God, and said he had developed a device through which he could control sound with his mind.

Haydee Perry, 35, who lives next door, said that when Garrido helped her jump-start her car a month ago, he had a young girl clinging to him in a manner that struck her as strange.

“She stayed close to him at all times. It wasn’t normal behaviour. She had a blank stare on her face.

“Now it seems like a cry out for help,” Ms Perry said.

Garrido had a printing business, making business cards for J&M and others in the area. Tiffany Tran, who runs Furniture Gallery in Brentwood, said she had done business with “Phil the printer” for six years, as recently as last week.

She recalled Garrido as being “a little different” and said he constantly talked about religion and showed her a device through which he claimed he could control sound with his mind.

“Some people have a story behind their smile, some don’t – he did,” said Ms Tran.

“He was happy-go-lucky, but you knew there was a story behind it.”