Lost and Found (15 page)

Four years of prison had aged Garrido, and he had lost his youth. He now sported a Western-style mustache, his shirt unbuttoned revealing a rugged hairy chest. The newly wedded couple have their arms around each other, as Phillip stares coolly at the camera and Nancy, her hair scruffily parted in the middle, looks at her new husband adoringly.

“It’s the only picture that I have,” said Manuel Garrido in 2009. “When he got married that’s what he sent me.”

Straight after the wedding, Nancy returned to Denver, remaining in daily contact with Garrido. She was now working as a state licensed nurse’s aide, regularly making the nine-hundred-mile trip east to Leavenworth to visit her husband.

And Phillip’s unwavering confidence that it was all part of God’s plan and he would soon be free, so they could start a family, helped her get through the tough times.

In May 1984—just seven years and two months into his federal sentence—Phillip Garrido had his first parole hearing at Leavenworth. His parole application was considered by the five-member Nevada State Parole Board, who denied his request on the grounds that he was still a danger to the public. The board also took into account the severity of his crimes, that he had injured his victim, his previous criminal history and that he had not shown signs that he had reformed.

“The board finds that further evaluation of your progress is necessary,” read its report. “Release at this time would depreciate the seriousness of the crime.”

A year later, Nancy Garrido moved to Leavenworth to be nearer her husband. She easily found work as a nurse, renting a cheap one-bedroom apartment in a converted townhouse. Over the several years she lived there she kept to herself, leaving little impression.

Her Leavenworth landlord, John Saunders, barely remembers Nancy Garrido, assuming she must have been a good tenant to get her deposit back.

Nancy could now visit her husband in the federal penitentiary as often as regulations would allow, and became even more under his control. And Phillip always gave her tasks to do, ordering her around like a servant.

In March 1986, Inmate Garrido was turned down at his second parole hearing, with the board again ruling him a danger to the public.

“In the opinion of the parole board,” read the State of Nevada Parole Board report, “continued confinement is necessary to protect the public from further criminal activity.”

A few days later—on March 19, 1986—he was transferred to Lompoc Medium Security Federal Prison in Santa Barbara County, Southern California. Nancy followed him to California, moving into her mother-in-law Patricia Franzen’s home at 1554 Walnut Avenue, Antioch. She found work as a nursing and physical therapy aid for disabled patients, and was well-regarded by her employer.

The Lompoc facility lay three hundred miles due south of Antioch, and Nancy would drive her mother-in-law there for visits. On the face of it, Inmate Garrido now appeared to have a loving family waiting on the outside, ready to give him the stability he would need if he was ever released on parole.

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“
I’LL SEE YOU AGAIN, KATIE
”

On November 5, 1987, two examiners from the U.S. Parole Commission met Phillip Garrido at Lompoc Penitentiary to determine if he was ready for parole. During the thirty-five-minute prison interview, Garrido freely discussed his crime, as well as his experience as an inmate and his hopes for the future.

The thirty-seven-year-old inmate told the commissioners that he was now happily married, and, if granted parole, planned to go and live with his mother and stepfather.

Neither federal prosecutor Leland Lutfy or Garrido’s public defender attended the hearing, and it is doubtful if the commissioners were even shown Garrido’s psychiatric reports or reviewed a transcript of the trial. For apparently they knew nothing of the horrific details of Katie Callaway’s kidnapping and rape. And they seemed unaware of Garrido’s own admission at trial of being a Peeping Tom, exposing himself in public and masturbating to girls as young as seven.

The highly articulate inmate charmed the commissioners, telling them that all his troubles were the result of drugs, which were now in his past. And he persuasively spoke of his hard work in prison to earn a further education diploma before learning the drafting and carpentry trades.

He told them how he had been spiritually reborn after finding the Lord behind bars, saying his arrest had been a true blessing in disguise.

Two weeks later, the U.S. Parole Commission examiners unanimously voted to grant Phillip Garrido federal parole, transferring him to a Nevada state prison to finish his potential life sentence. Their report painted a highly positive portrait of Inmate Garrido as living proof of how the prison system at its best can rehabilitate and reform.

Ironically, federal parole was abolished that same month, with sentences becoming far longer and mandatory. But Garrido slid under the wire, as he was already serving his sentence when the far tougher regulations came into effect.

Under the old system, parole suitability was determined by a numerical formula, factoring the inmate’s age, high school diploma and history of heroin/opiate dependence. Phillip Garrido was rated category seven, actually making him eligible for parole as early as 1985, although he had been required to serve at least ten years.

On January 20, 1988, the commission officially granted Phillip Garrido parole, after serving just ten years, eleven months of his fifty-year sentence.

“Phillip Craig Garrido is eligible to be paroled,” read the U.S. Parole Commission’s Certificate of Parole. “[The] said prisoner has substantially observed the rules of the institution, and in the opinion of the Commission said prisoner’s release would not depreciate the seriousness of this offense or promote disrespect for the law, and would not jeopardize the public welfare.”

Two days later, he was discharged from federal custody.

“Before you lies the opportunity,” the U.S. Parole Commission wrote Garrido, “to plan and re-establish the course of your life toward goals approved by society and in accordance with the principles of good citizenship.”

He was then transported to a medium security state prison in Carson City, Nevada, for the life sentence he owed Nevada for forcible rape. But astonishingly he was already eligible for parole in Nevada, for his time served in federal prisons.

Two days later, on January 22, Garrido was photographed for a Nevada Department of Prisons mug shot. In the photograph he has short hair and a small mustache. He is wearing regulation prison garb, staring at the camera impassively, his eyes giving nothing away.

On August 4, seven months after his transfer to the Carson City prison, Phillip Garrido attended his third Nevada State parole hearing. And the state board commissioners now reassessed Garrido, designating him “moderate” risk. Under the Nevada State assessment criteria, he scored a six out of a possible perfect ten low risk score.

Had the commissioners known that in 1969 he had served time in California’s Clayton Farm Facility for drug offenses, it would have added two points to his score, making him a “high risk” parolee with a score of four.

After considering his case, the Nevada State Parole Board voted three to two to free Phillip Garrido from prison and into federal parole.

In the official State of Nevada Board of Parole Certificate, Phillip Garrido was granted parole with surprisingly few restrictions. He had to reside in California with his mother and maintain steady employment. He was also required to submit to searches and regular drug testing, as well as attending outpatient substance abuse sessions and mental health counseling. But there were absolutely no restrictions on his contact with children.

On August 29, 1988, Phillip Garrido walked out of the Carson City Prison, after serving just seven months and four days of his Nevada life sentence. He then traveled 210 miles west to the ECI Halfway House in Oakland, California, entering a community treatment program for sex offenders.

Garrido was now virtually free to come and go as he pleased, as long as he attended his treatment sessions. During that time he reportedly had one violation of his parole agreement, being sent to San Francisco City Jail for a short time, before being allowed back to the ECI Halfway House.

During the brief stay at the halfway house, he and Nancy visited his father Manuel and brother Ron several times in the Brentwood house where he had grown up.

“After he got out of prison,” said his father, “I saw him a few times. But then he went to live with his mother and I didn’t see him any more.”

After Phillip Garrido’s trial, Katie Callaway had tried to put her nightmare behind her, but she found herself haunted by him day and night. Even though he was serving a fifty-year sentence halfway across the country, she constantly cried and had recurring nightmares of Garrido chasing her.

“I was hoping if I just forgot it,” she said, “it would just go away. It didn’t.”

The first Christmas after the trial, Callaway sent Officer Clifford Conrad a holiday card, thanking him for saving her life. She was now back at the casino, but was wary of strangers, unable to stand within ten-foot “grabbing distance” of them.

Her relationship with her boyfriend David Wade had broken up under the pressure. And all the tension at home led to her young son, who knew what had happened, getting into trouble at school.

“He didn’t know why Mommy was crying all the time,” Callaway said later. “He acted out by going to school and getting into fights.”

In 1980, she moved to England to start a new life, but still couldn’t forget her nightmarish memories of the rape.

“I walked around like a zombie,” she recalled. “I had to tell everyone I met what had happened to me—because I didn’t feel like myself. It was as if I had to explain why I wasn’t ‘normal.’ ”

After five years abroad, Callaway, now in her late thirties, returned to South Lake Tahoe, as she missed family and friends. She found a job as a casino dealer at Caesar’s Palace, Lake Tahoe, and tried to get on with her life.

But Phillip Garrido still haunted her and in 1987 she registered with a federal victim notification program, to contact her if he was ever released. They assured her his earliest possible parole date was 2006, so she stopped worrying.

A year later on a Friday afternoon, she was working a roulette wheel at Caesar’s casino when a tall, thin man came up and sat down beside her. She immediately knew it was Phillip Garrido, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.

“He walked right up to my table,” she remembered, “and he said, ‘Hi, Katie.’ ”

The man bought a pile of chips and ordered a cocktail.

“You know, Katie,” he said, staring her straight in the eye, “this is my first drink in eleven years.”

Katie froze in fear, hearing his unmistakable voice again and realizing that her worst nightmare was coming true—that somehow the man who kidnapped and raped her had escaped from prison and was sitting just feet away.

“It was creepy,” she said. “He tried to engage in small talk but I was guarded. After he got his drink, he cashed out, leaned towards me, and said, “I’ll see you again, Katie.”

In a panic, Callaway summoned her pit boss, saying she had just seen the man who had kidnapped her. The casino security then chased the man down, checking his driving license. But as he was not carrying Phillip Garrido’s ID, so they let him go.

“I’m sure it was him,” said Callaway. “I’m convinced he came back to see me.”

Still shaking with fear, she resumed her shift at the roulette wheel. On her twenty-minute work break she dashed to the nearest pay phone, calling Lompoc Penitentiary. She was told Garrido had been released to San Francisco City Jail, pending parole. Appalled that her attacker could possibly be out on parole so soon, she then called San Francisco City Jail, which informed her that he was now living in an Oakland halfway house.

When she contacted the halfway house she was given Garrido’s parole agent’s phone number, so she called and made an appointment. A few days later she met with his parole agent, who told her Garrido had gotten a degree in psychology in prison, teaching classes to other inmates.

“That’s how he got out so early,” she said. “[I was] scared to death. I was terrified.”

According to Callaway, the parole agent described Phillip Garrido as “a sick puppy,” saying he was certain to reoffend, although he didn’t think she was in danger.

“He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else,” Callaway says the parole officer told her. “And the thing is when he doesn’t get his own way his whole persona changes.”

After the meeting, Katie Callaway returned to Lake Tahoe and tried to resume her life, but was too scared knowing Garrido was out there and knew where she was. So three months later, she packed up her belongings and moved to a small town in central California, making her friends and family promise not to tell anyone where she was living.

“I knew how dangerous this man was,” she later explained. “I had to put my invisible cloak on and disappear.”

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