CA- Jaycee Dugard case: Tipster in 1992 reported seeing abducted girl eyeing missing-child flier of herself

10-6-2009 California:

An anonymous caller in 1992 reported seeing a girl he thought was Jaycee Dugard staring at herself on a missing-child flier at an Oakley gas station, then returning to a yellow van, but the tipster disappeared and an area search came up empty, a Contra Costa County sheriff's official said.

The van, which the caller described as possibly a Dodge, could be a match to an old yellow Dodge junker that authorities removed last month from the property of Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, near Antioch.

The tip, which came less than a year after Dugard's 1991 abduction from her South Lake Tahoe street, is among myriad details that El Dorado County prosecutors are gathering as they aim to build a leakproof case against the Garridos, who remain held without bail in a Placerville jail. They face 29 felony counts in Dugard's kidnapping and what authorities call a childhood of sexual bondage while confined to a hidden backyard warren of tents and shacks.

It seems to add little, however, to what authorities already know, said William Clark, chief assistant district attorney for El Dorado County.

"It's not something we've really said is dynamite. We pretty much know where she was in 1992," Clark said. "We've got clairvoyant tips, we got a whole tip line on (the case). To be honest, we're overwhelmed with just trying to get the mass, the core of the case together."

Authorities believe the Garridos spirited Jaycee directly from her South Lake Tahoe street to the house on Walnut Avenue, at first keeping her locked way in a shed. The next year, a deputy who arrived at the gas station found no sign of them, and no witnesses, said Contra Costa sheriff's Capt. Daniel Terry. Sheriff's officials forwarded their report to investigators in El Dorado County, who continued to pursue the case for years.

"We made all the necessary efforts. We did an area check. We looked for witnesses, canvassed the area. We were never able to prove there was any validity to it, or whether it was a hoax," Terry said. "The problem we have here is, you don't have a person to call or talk to, saying 'Can you be more specific?' We acted on it like it was legit. We were never able to confirm who the reporting party was or find any independent witnesses."

A tip from UC Berkeley officers led Phillip Garrido's parole officer to call him into the Concord parole office Aug. 26. Garrido brought his wife, Dugard and the two girls he fathered with her, police say. Once separated, Dugard, now 29, revealed herself under police questioning.

Today, better technology would allow investigators to check local registered sex offenders against ownership records on vehicles matching the description, Terry noted.

Still, there is no evidence that Phillip Garrido registered as a sex offender until 1999, when he transferred from federal to state parole supervision. He was first on federal parole from a 1976 conviction for kidnapping a South Lake Tahoe casino worker and taking her to Nevada to rape her in a storage shed. He transferred in 1999 to state supervision, under a lifetime parole term on his Nevada conviction for the rape.

If true, the report that Jaycee was seen by herself, at least briefly, supports what authorities have said: It appears she never tried to escape her captors.

"If it was a proper sighting, it would indicate he had at least taken her out of the house in a car," Clark said. "I'm sure psychologically she couldn't leave."

Later, Dugard gave birth to the two girls and became the creative force in his home printing business, former customers say. She is cooperating with authorities, said Clark, who declined to elaborate.

"She's talked to us. She hasn't said, 'I don't want to be around these people,'" he said. "She's happy to have her daughters. It's kind of, I guess, a blessing in disguise, in a way. It's not the normal way anybody wants to have children." ..Source.. by John Simerman, Contra Costa Times