UPDATE: Police Expand Search to Property of Garrido Neighbor
Here’s a first look inside Phillip Garrido’s house of horrors, where he held kidnap victim Jaycee Lee Dugard and the two children he illicitly fathered for 18 sadistic years.
PHOTOS: Inside the Lair of Horror
MORE: Traumatized Kids Could Lose their Mom
MORE: Fiend Gave FBI his Perv-Cure Manifesto
MORE: Break in Probe of Serial Killings
The filthy hellhole is a warren of tents and sheds, littered with toys, clothing, books, cardboard boxes, and cat-related ephemera — providing a glimpse into the abominable conditions Dugard endured as Garrido’s alleged sex slave.
As shocking details emerge about Dugard’s sadistic captivity, a series of disturbing pictures showing her ramshackle outdoor prison were released yesterday.
The tent has dressers overflowing with clothing, stripped-down sofas for beds and a dirty fishtank. There’s a Bible on CD, and the chillingly titled book, “Self Esteem: A Family Affair.” There’s an open box of lice treatment, four naked Barbie dolls and makeup containers.
The children had to remain within a makeshift campsite hidden from the outside world, while the their captors lived a seemingly child-free public life.
“There were zero signs of kids living there,” Sgt. Diane Aguinaga of the Antioch police said about the main home of her captors, Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy Garrido.
A running theme throughout the tent — eerily adorned with a “Welcome” sign at the entrance — is a preoccupation with cats.
There are ceramic feline figurines, copies of the magazine Cat Fancy, cat jigsaw puzzles and about 20 books about the animals, including “Do Cats Think?” and “The Cat Who Went to Paris.”
There were dozens of other, non-cat related books, with several titles from famed-suspense master Dean Koontz, science-fiction author Isaac Asimov and romance writer Danielle Steel.
One snapshot reveals a crude shrine to Garrido, depicting the onetime musician singing and playing guitar in what appears to be a suburban living room.
Dugard’s mother, Terry Probyn, raced to Northern California to reunite with her daughter and to meet her granddaughters for the first time. But there are already signs of the difficult road ahead.
Just a day after Probyn first saw her daughter after 18 years, she called her sister, Tina Dugard, in Riverside, Calif., to come provide emotional support.
“Terry’s freaked out and needs me. The child that was taken isn’t the same,” Tina’s neighbor quoted the sister as saying. “She didn’t use the word ‘brainwashed,’ but that’s how I interpreted it. She was having a hard time connecting.”
Additional reporting by Linda Massarella in Riverside, Calif.