A scathing report issued by California authorities said Phillip Garrido's parole officers missed numerous opportunities to rescue Jaycee Dugard from the registered sex offender's backyard lair.
(Getty Images/People)
The report also noted several general shortcomings in the system that "transcend parolee Garrido's case and jeopardize public safety."
Among the department's shortcomings in the Garrido case:
Failure to adequately classify Garrido, who had a history as a sexually violent predator, and supervise him accordingly.
Failure to obtain key information from federal parole authorities.
Failure to train parole agents to conduct parolee home visits.
Failure to talk to neighbors or local public safety agencies.
Failure to act on information clearly showing Garrido had violated parole terms.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation took charge of Garrido's supervision in 1999 after he was released from federal supervision. Garrido was convicted in the 1970s of raping and kidnapping a California woman.
Recommendations include more training on search techniques to look for clues for potential parole violations or criminal behavior and contacting neighbors for information on parolee behavior.
Shortly after Garrido was arrested in connection with Dugard's rape and kidnapping, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation official hailed the parole agents who had been assigned to Garrido's case, saying that Garrido had complied with his parole conditions and never received a violation.
But the report indicated that while Garrido had never been issued a formal violation from the state of California, he committed several violations in the past several years. The report did not list those specific violations.
The state began investigating the handling of Garrido's supervision "almost immediately" after Dugard was found, Shaw told ABCNews.com in September.
Shaw said it is believed that Garrido had five or six parole supervisors assigned by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in the past 10 years.
The investigation, he said in September, was to see if there had been any misconduct on the part of a state employee and to determine whether improvements could be made to prevent a similar situation from occurring again.
State parole officers and police are known to have paid Garrido and his wife, Nancy, visits to their Antioch, Calif., home. As recently as 2006, an officer with the Contra Costa Sheriff's Office was called to the house on a complaint from a neighbor that there were people living in the backyard.
The officer met with Garrido in his front yard, determined there was no threat and left.
At a press conference in August, Sheriff Warren Rupf took responsibility for the incident and noted that they were not aware of Garrido's sex offender status.
"He did not enter or request to enter the backyard. This is not an acceptable outcome. Organizationally, we should have been more inquisitive, more curious and turned over a rock or two," he said at the time. "I cannot change the course of events. But we are beating ourselves up over this and will continue to do so."
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Gordon Hinkle said the 2006 incident was cause in itself for review of communications between the state and local jurisdictions. Garrido's parole officer at the time was never notified of the complaint.
In the weeks after the Garridos' arrest, much of the blame seemed to rest on manpower: overwhelmed police officers and parole officers who have dozens or hundreds of felons to check on in a state that has been besieged by budget shortfalls.
Hinkle said parole officers are assigned to sex offenders on a 40 to 1 ratio statewide, unless the offender has been designated as a "sexually violent" predator, in which case the ratio shrinks to 20 to 1.
Garrido, he said, was not classified as a sexually violent predator.
In addition to the Garrido case, the supervision of sex offenders has come under fire in other states recently, most notably in the case of Cleveland predator Anthony Sowell, a registered sex offender who was charged with murder Saturday. Authorities have so far found 11 bodies hidden in his home.
Sex offenders were also at the forefront of the search for whoever kidnapped and murdered 7-year-old Somer Thompson in northern Florida last month. No arrests have been made in her death.
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