Lawyer: Garridos Confess to Kidnapping Jaycee Dugard, Keeping Her Captive for 18 Years
Feb. 28, 2011— -- The California couple accused of kidnapping 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard and keeping her prisoner in their home for 18 years made "full confessions" to police, a defense attorney involved in the case said today.
Stephen Tapson, the lawyer representing Nancy Garrido, told reporters that she and her husband Phillip Garrido admitted last month to snatching the girl off the street near her home South Lake Tahoe in 1991.
"Essentially they confessed to kidnapping and told where all the bodies are buried," Tapson said on the steps of a California courthouse following a hearing today.
The lawyer described the admission as "full confessions."
Despite the alleged confession Nancy Garrido, 55, hasn't changed her plea. She pleaded not guilty last November to 18 felony counts that include false imprisonment, rape and child pornography.
Phillip Garrido was due to enter a plea today, but his public defender asked that the arraignment be postponed to March 17. His lawyer Susan Gellman did not return calls for comment to confirm whether her client also confessed.
Tapson told reporters that Dugard was present during one of Nancy Garrido's interviews with police. That meeting was apparently the first time the two women had seen each other in person since the couple was arrested in 2009.
Nancy Seltzer, spokeswoman for Jaycee Dugard, would not confirm her client's presence at the interview or comment on Tapson's announcement.
Also today, the judge ruled that Phillip Garrido's psychological records could not be made public. Earlier this month he was ruled mentally competent to stand trial.
The Garridos were arrested in August 2009, when Jaycee, then 29 and living under an assumed name, accompanied Philip Garrido to a meeting with his parole officer.
Garrido had been called in to meet with his parole officer after acting suspiciously on the campus of the University of California-Berkeley.
Dugard brought along to the meeting two young children that Garrido had fathered with her. Under questioning she broke, dropping the façade Garrido had forced her to use for 18 years and admitted she had been kidnapped.
Investigators later uncovered a secret encampment guarded by a 6-foot-fence in the Garridos' backyard, in which Dugard was kept captive.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
