On June 10, 1991, Jaycee Lee Dugard, an eleven-year-old girl, was abducted from a street while walking to a school bus stop in Meyers, California, United States.

Garrido's father Manuel later stated that his son had been a "good boy" as a child, but changed radically after a serious motorcycle accident as a teenager.

[18] In later court testimony, Garrido admitted that he habitually masturbated in his car by the side of elementary and high schools while watching girls.

[19] The following year, he married his high school classmate, Christine Murphy, who accused him of domestic violence and alleged that he kidnapped her when she tried to leave him.

[22] The psychiatrist recommended that a neurological examination be conducted as Garrido's chronic drug use could be "responsible in part" for his "mixed" or "multiple" sexual deviations.

He was evaluated by neurologist Albert F. Peterman, whose diagnostic impression was that Garrido showed "considerable evidence of anxiety and depression and personality disorder.

As a parolee, Garrido wore a GPS-enabled ankle bracelet and was regularly visited by parole officers, local sheriff's deputies, and federal agents.

Dugard, who was 11 years old at the time,[27] wore her favorite all-pink outfit as she walked up the hill from her house, against traffic, to catch the school bus.

Cassette tapes of the song "Jaycee Lee", along with T-shirts, sweatshirts, and buttons, were sold to raise money for poster materials, postage, printing, and related expenses.

The kidnapping case attracted nationwide attention and was featured on the June 14, 1991, episode of the Fox television show America's Most Wanted.

During her first week in captivity, Dugard remained in handcuffs, her only human contact being Garrido, who sometimes brought her fast food and talked to her.

Garrido would occasionally go on days-long methamphetamine binges he called "runs", during which he would force Dugard to keep him company by performing sexual favors and engaging in various other activities with him.

[28] Seven months into her captivity, Garrido introduced Dugard to his wife, Nancy, who brought the child a stuffed animal and chocolate milk and engaged in the same tearful apologies to her.

[43] Dugard took care of her daughters using information learned from television and worked to protect them from Garrido, who continued his enraged rants and lectures.

Ben Daughdrill, a customer of Garrido's printing business, claimed that he met and spoke by telephone with Dugard and that she did excellent work.

[52] These were among several missed opportunities for rescue which later led to criticism of authorities: On August 24, 2009, Garrido visited the San Francisco office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and left a four-page essay containing his ideas about religion and sexuality, suggesting that he had discovered a solution to problem behaviors like his past crimes.

Officer Ally Jacobs ran a background check and discovered that Garrido was a registered sex offender on federal parole for kidnapping and rape.

Although she indicated that she was aware that Garrido was a convicted sex offender, she stated that he was a "changed man", a "great person", and was "good with her kids",[6][64] comments that were echoed by the two girls.

When pressed for details that would confirm her identity, Dugard became "extremely defensive" and "agitated", demanding to know why she was being "interrogated", and subsequently stated that she was a battered wife from Minnesota in hiding from her abusive husband.

[74] Abduction survivor Elizabeth Smart has stressed the importance of focusing on the future with a positive attitude as an effective approach to accepting what has happened.

[87] Police agencies from Hayward and Dublin, California, conducted searches of the Garridos' property for evidence pertaining to missing girls from those communities but did not find any.

[88] In July 2011, Hayward police announced that Garrido has not been eliminated as a suspect and is still a person of interest in the abduction case of Michaela Garecht.

[90]Garrido repeatedly told the reporter how he "filed documents" with the FBI on August 24, 2009, which, when they were published, would cause people to "fall over backwards", and that he could not reveal more because he "had to protect law enforcement", and "what happened" ... was "something that humans have not understood well".

On August 28, 2009, FBI spokesman Joseph Schadler confirmed that Garrido had indeed left the documents with the agency, as he had claimed, but declined to discuss further details.

[93][94] At the September 14 hearing, Phimister also granted a request from Garrido's attorney to have a psychologist or psychiatrist appointed to conduct a confidential evaluation.

According to a posting on the court's website,[97] the decision occurred in a review of "confidential evidence" that has not been disclosed to the public, and details of the proceedings were kept sealed.

Gellman did not elaborate on her claim in the courtroom but said outside that she had questions about the racial and geographic makeup of the grand jury that originally indicted the Garridos in September 2010.

El Dorado, California District Attorney Vern Pierson said he did not think the complaints about the grand jury would ultimately derail the case against the Garridos.

In a 2–1 decision authored by Judge John B. Owens, the court ruled that the federal government's sovereign immunity was not waived because the U.S. is only liable "in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances" under state law.

[4][112] In November 2022, Phillip Garrido's former parole officer, Edward Santos Jr., who had retired in December 2021, broke his silence by speaking to Sacramento's KCRA-TV.