Fragments of bone in Dugard yard search

SIGNS of disturbed soil and the discovery of bone fragments on the property where Jaycee Dugard was held captive for 18 years could indicate something is buried on a site where authorities have been searching and cadaver dogs earlier picked up a scent.

Authorities have spent days combing the land to see if Dugard’s alleged captors can be tied to two other abductions from the late 1980s, but they also have cautioned that it’s still too soon to know whether a soil “anomaly” and found bone fragments could mean any previous digging on the property was crime-related.

Hayward and Dublin, California, police are investigating to see if there are any links between Phillip Garrido and the 1988abduction of nine-year-old Michaela Garecht outside a Hayward market and the 1989 disappearance of 13-year-old Ilene Misheloff in Dublin.

Garrido and his wife, Nancy, have been charged in the 1991 kidnapping of Dugard, who was reunited with her family last month after authorities arrested the couple. Prosecutors say they hid Dugard in their Antioch backyard. The Garridos have pleaded not guilty.

While Hayward and Dublin authorities have not directly interviewed Dugard, who was abducted outside her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991, they have asked other law enforcement agencies involved in the case to ask questions for them, Orrey said.

Dugard has not supplied information to indicate the Garridos were involved in the kidnappings of Garecht or Misheloff.

For five days, authorities have searched the Garridos’ land and a neighbour’s yard for clues. They expect to resume their search today.

They have removed 19 truckloads of debris from the yard and searched inside the Garridos’ house.