Garrido couple pleads not guilty to charges

A couple accused of snatching an 11-year-old child and keeping her imprisoned for 18 years pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges including kidnap, rape and false imprisonment.

Phillip Garrido (aged 58) who is accused of fathering two children with the captive - and his wife Nancy Garrido (aged 55) are alleged to have abducted Jaycee Lee Dugard from outside her Californian home in 1991 and held her in a secret back garden compound for almost two decades.

Meanwhile forensic experts are searching the couple's property for evidence relating to the unsolved murders of a number of prostitutes.

Appearing at El Dorado Superior Court yesterday, the accused pair remained largely silent as 29 charges were laid before them. Both were both denied bail.

Meanwhile, further details began to emerge about the kidnapping of Dugard and the alleged ordeal she endured.

The woman is believed to have borne two children - now aged 11 and 15 - by her captor in a chilling echo of the case of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who fathered seven children with his daughter while she was imprisoned in his cellar.

In a rambling phone interview with a local TV station from his jail, Mr Garrido, a convicted sex offender, described the years he spent with Dugard as a "heart-warming story".

He said: "(Over the) last several years, I have completely turned my life around. You are going to find the most powerful story coming from the witness, the victim.

"If you take this a step at a time you are going to fall over backwards and in the end you are going to find the most powerful, heart-warming story."

A spokesman at the Sheriff's Department said Ms Dugard was apparently kept in a shed in the concealed area of the garden of the Garridos' house where her children were born and brought up.

She has now been reunited with her mother.

Speaking about her initial reunion, Ms Dugard's stepfather said that his wife commented that her daughter looked young but healthy

In an interview with CBS, Carl Probyn, 60, added that Ms Dugard felt "really guilty for bonding with this guy", adding: "She has a real guilt trip."

The Garridos were arrested on Wednesday after Mr Garrido - who was convicted of rape and kidnap in Nevada in 1971 - admitted the kidnapping under close questioning by a parole officer.

He had been called in after being seen with two children at the University of California, Berkeley.

In a statement, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said: "The diligent questioning and follow-up by the parolee's agent of record led to Garrido revealing his kidnapping of the adult female.

"It was further revealed by Garrido that she was Jaycee Lee Dugard and that the children were his."

El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said the children have never been to school and never been to the doctor.

He also gave details of the hidden backyard compound of sheds, tents and outbuildings where Ms Dugard and the girls spent most of their lives.

"The tents and outbuildings at the back yard were placed in a strategic arrangement to inhibit outside viewing and isolate the victims from outside contact," Mr Kollar said, adding that one of the rooms was soundproofed and could only be opened from the outside.

It also emerged that police missed an opportunity to free Ms Dugard and her children three years ago when they were called to the home.

Sheriff Warren Rupf said officers were called to the Garrido home on November 30, 2006, by a caller who reported tents in a neighbour's backyard inhabited by young children.

"The caller also said that Garrido was psychotic and had a sexual addiction," he added.

Officers went to Garrido's home but did not go inside and reported no evidence of criminal behaviour.

"We should have been more inquisitive, more curious and turned over a rock or two," Sheriff Rupf added.

The house in Antioch remained cordoned off last night as it was searched by FBI agents and the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.

Forensic experts are looking for evidence relating to the murders of a number of prostitutes.

Several of the bodies in the unsolved killings were dumped near an industrial park where Mr Garrido worked during the 1990s.