Ever since Phillip Garrido was arrested in the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard, the public has wanted to know: How was he able to hide her from state and federal parole agents for so many years?
Media organizations are trying to answer that question. But a pair of parole bureaucracies — one federal and one state — are standing in the way. They are refusing to release public documents that might shed light on the decisions and actions of parole agents.
The first of these is the U.S. Parole Commission, which discharged Garrido from federal parole supervision in 1999. As we know now, that was eight years after he is alleged to have kidnapped Dugard, who was 11 years old at the time.
Garrido had been convicted of kidnap and rape in Nevada in 1977, was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison (with a concurrent state sentence of five years to life) and was released from prison in 1988. Upon ending his parole supervision eleven years later, a federal administrator lauded Garrido in a document for "having responded positively to supervision," even though the convicted kidnapper had committed three drug offenses while in federal custody.
To read the complete editorial, visit The Sacramento Bee.