THE VERY STRANGE MIND OF PHILLIP GARRIDO: More on the Saga of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

THE VERY STRANGE MIND OF PHILLIP GARRIDO: More on the Saga of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

In a true-life story that is the very definition of ‘stranger-than-fiction’ the actions of Phillip Garrido, ex-offender, currently accused serial-kidnapper, and suspected serial-murderer continue to make the news and confound rational thought.

The case broke after Garrido, with two children in tow, was spotted on Tuesday, Aug. 25th, trying to enter the University of California, Berkeley, campus to hand out religious literature. Campus security decided he was acting suspiciously toward the children, so they questioned him, ran a background check, determined he was presently on parole, and phoned his parole officer about him.

Garrido appeared before his assigned office the next day, with Jaycee Lee Dugard (whom Garrido is now accused of kidnapping from in front of her home in South Lake, Ca, 19 years earlier), his wife and two children. During questioning, corrections officials said he admitted kidnapping Dugard, who was going under the alias Garrido had given her, Allisa. Although it is not the policy of the California Department of Parole and Probation to discuss such matters, it is very unlikely that Mr. Garrido had his lawyer with him at the time of his admission.

According to jail records, Garrido and his wife, 55-year-old Nancy Garrido, were booked into the Contra Costa County jail in Martinez later that same night. Besides the automatic charge of violating the terms of his parole, Phillip Garrido was booked on charges including kidnapping, conspiracy, rape and committing lewd acts with a minor, for a total of 29 new charges, according to the records; Nancy Garrido is accused of kidnapping and conspiracy.

After their collective arraignment hearing, both are being held in lieu of $1 million bail.

According to the California state operated website that lists sex offenders and their histories, Garrido was paroled from a Nevada state prison on June 8, 1999; before that, he served time in federal custody in Nevada for sexual assault.

Phillip Garrido has a business called God's Desire, based out of his home in Antioch. He referred to God's Desire as a church in a telephone interview.

In a conversation with California radio station, KCRA 3, Garrido urged people to wait for more details about what took place at the house.

"You are going to be completely impressed," he said. "It's a disgusting thing that took place with me at the beginning. But I turned my life completely around and to be able to understand that, you have to start there."

The man on the California sex offender registry and accused of fathering two children with a girl he kidnapped in 1991 now claims his life "has been straightened out" and implored the general public to wait until they hear the entire story of what happened at a Bay Area home over the past 18 years.

Phillip Craig Garrido, 58, is accused of taking Ms. Dugard from her home in the El Dorado County community of Meyers when she was 11 years old.

Dugard and the children, now 11 and 15, lived behind Garrido's home on Walnut Avenue in Antioch, in an isolated backyard compound of tents, outbuildings and a shed, authorities said.

"None of the children have ever been to school, they've never been to a doctor," El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said. "They were kept in complete isolation in this compound, if you will."

Garrido also claimed that he left important documents with an agent at the FBI office in San Francisco.

Garrido told KCRA 3, "What's kept me busy the last several years is I've completely turned my life around, and you're going to find the most powerful story coming from the witness, the victim -- you wait. If you take this a step at a time, you're going to fall over backwards and in the end, you're going to find the most powerful heart-warming story."

Among the few people who admit they knew Garrido, some have said he became more and more fanatic about his religious beliefs in recent years, sometimes breaking out into song and claiming that God spoke to him through a box.

Tim AllenTim Allen, president of East County Glass and Window Inc. in Pittsburgh, who bought business cards and letterhead from Garrido's printing business for the last decade said, “In the last couple years he started getting into this strange religious stuff. We kind of felt sorry for him."

Three times in recent years, Garrido arrived at Allen's showroom with two "cute little blond girls" in tow, Mr. Allen allowed.

During recent visits to the showroom, Garrido would talk about quitting the printing business to preach full time and gave the impression he was setting up a church, Allen recalled, adding, “He rambled. It made no sense."

Garrido would boast about holding events at UC Berkeley and mentioned the names of important people as if he knew them; Allen said he had no inkling of Garrido's criminal record.

"We never thought anything bad about the guy," Allen said. "He was just kind of nutty."

As for the effect Garrido’s actions had on Jaycee’s blood-family, it was both profound and destructive.

For instance, Carl Probyn, Dugard’s stepfather, who now lives in Southern California, said Thursday that Dugard's mother, Terry Probyn, called him the previous afternoon and told him the FBI had contacted her to say they may have found her daughter.

By Thursday morning, Probyn said, "I'm running around the house like I've had six cups of coffee,"

Dugard's family reported at the time of the abduction that a vehicle occupied by two people drove up to the girl and abducted her in view of her stepfather. The girl was walking to a bus stop when a gray, two-tone, late-model sedan was seen making a U-turn onto the Dugard’s street. According to one version of the original attack described on a website maintained by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the car approached the child and a woman described as about 30 years old with long, dark hair pulled her inside; a man was seen driving the car, but almost no details about him emerged later.

Probyn recalled, “As soon as I saw the door fly open, the driver's door, I jumped on my mountain bike and I tried to get to the top of the hill (to follow the car) but I had no energy, I rode back down and yelled at my neighbor, 911!"

He told how his then-wife was distraught by the kidnapping, and never fully accepted the loss. He went on to describe how, as much as 10 years after the crime, she would take a week off work at Christmas and on the anniversary of the abduction and just spend the time at home, crying.

Employees of the Lake Tahoe Unified School District (some of whom had known Jaycee personally those many years ago), huddled around television sets and computers to watch the news conference; their tears of joy that Jaycee was alive became tears of horror and anger when details of her abduction and long captivity were recounted by the reporters.

"Oh my God," murmured Superintendent James Tarwater.

Resident Angie Keil said the Lake Tahoe community rallied around the family, holding candlelight vigils, and in the early days organizing searches.

"Jaycee has always been in our minds, all these years," she said, her eyes moist with tears.

Mr. Probyn himself became a major suspect in the case, mainly because the police investigating would not let go of the idea that the stepfather must have had something to do with the girl’s disappearance. In spite of the fact that they would never find enough evidence to act on their suspicions, the mere hint of involvement became a virtual cloud over Carl Probyn and everything he did, everywhere he went. Add this to estrangement from his wife, the shriveling of his social-life as supposed friends withdrew those friendships, choosing instead to keep their distance, it is no wonder that he felt compelled to move from the area.

Probyn eventually lost hope that he would ever see his stepdaughter alive. Now, he said, he was struggling to understand why Dugard didn't come forward earlier.

"I don't know if she was brainwashed, I don't know if she was walking around on the street, I don't know if she was locked up under key for 18 years, I have no idea."

The mother and daughter met Thursday morning at an area hotel for the first time in nearly twenty years; the press was not informed of the meeting until after it had taken place.

Ms. Dugard retains custody of her two children, authorities said, for the time being; a DNA test has been conducted to confirm her identity beyond question.