Police: Jaycee Dugard Questioned About Other Kidnappings
Jaycee pleads for her pets; Garrido property search continues.
Sept. 18, 2009— -- Jaycee Dugard misses one aspect of her life in captivity - her pets.
The woman who was kidnapped and forced to live in Phillip and Nancy Garrido's backyard for 18 years had a menagerie of pets and wants them back.
Contra Costa County animal services Lt. Joe DeCosta told the Associated Press that an advocate of Dugard has indicated that she wants her five cats, two dogs, three cockatiels, a pigeon and a mouse back in her possession.
DeCosta said the animals were taken into custody when police arrested the Garridos and Dugard and her two children fathered by Phillip Garrido were reunited with her mother. The animals were placed in temporary foster homes.
The pets were in good condition, DeCosta said, and officials were working on reuniting them with Dugard.
Dugard made a plea for her pets as it emerged that police has been questioned about other missing children, but her answers did not yield conclusive information.
Investigators from several agencies are now several days into their search, which they hope will yield clues in the 1988 abduction of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht and the 1989 disappearance of 13-year-old Ilene Misheloff. Both cases, they have said, bear similarities to the 1991 kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard.
On Friday, investigators found a bone while removing debris but have not yet determined whether it is animal or human.
Garrido and his wife Nancy, who are accused of keeping Dugard in their backyard for 18 years, have not yet been interviewed by police in the other two cases. Hayward Police. Lt. Chris Orrey, whose department is investigating Michaela's kidnapping said it would be premature to do so while the search is still ongoing.
There has not yet been any evidence that conclusively links the Garridos to any cases other than Dugard's, but investigators have bone fragments that have not yet been determined to be animal or human. Cadaver dogs "indicated" at a spot in the backyard on Thursday and archaeological dogs will be brought in to search for older bones.
"We have recovered numerous pieces of evidence that we want to look closer at and examine," Dublin Police Lt. Kurt Von Savoye said.
Though the lack of hard evidence doesn't give the families closure they want, Orrey said, it could mean the girls are alive somewhere.
"It's a mixed blessing either way," she said. Both lieutenants said that if it turns out the Garridos were not involved with the girls' abductions, they hope the attention brought to their cases will yield tips that could lead to a resolution.
Orrey said the search could continue into next week, though it will be suspended over the weekend both to cut costs and to give investigators a much needed break.
While police in California have seen enough similiarities between the Jaycee Dugard and two other missing girls to warrant the massive search of the Antioch, Calif. property, the woman who saw Michaela Garecht get pulled into a car 21 years ago has her own reasons to suspect Phillip Garrido.
Katrina Rodriguez was 9 when she saw her friend grabbed off a street in 1988. She saw the man who grabbed Michaela and was startled when she saw pictures of Garrido after he was arrested, recognizing something in his eyes.
"I see that same intensity," Rodriguez said. "That creepy look that I don't think I'll ever forget."
She is hopeful investigators combing through Garrido's Antioch, Calif. property will turn up evidence.
"I am certain that he should be looked at as a suspect because of my reaction to his photo and all the other similarities in the cases," Rodriguez, now a grown woman, said in an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America."
"I want closure so badly that I would love for it to be him," she said.
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