Phillip Garrido

A woman who helped her husband kidnap a teenage girl in Utah seven years ago in one of most notorious cases in recent US criminal history pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday. Wanda Barzee and her husband Brian David Mitchell are accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart, 14, from the bedroom of her home in 2002 and holding her captive for nine months before she was eventually rescued. Smart's abduction and discovery created worldwide headlines in 2003, triggering a media frenzy comparable to the recent Jaycee Lee Dugard kidnapping case in northern California. Under a plea deal, Barzee will be formally sentenced to 15 years ... Read Full Story

Cadaver-sniffing dogs found a possible clue as investigators searched the property of Jaycee Lee Dugard kidnap suspect Phillip Garrido for a third day, police said. Sergeant J.D. Nelson said the two dogs were drawn to the same spot of Garrido's property in Antioch, east of San Francisco, where police are hunting for possible links between the convicted rapist and two young girls abducted in the 1980s. Investigators will use ground-penetrating radar on Friday to search the spot marked by the dogs after a concrete slab found in the ground is removed, Nelson said. "Given the fact that both dogs indicated, we want to move ... Read Full Story

The man accused of abducting and sexually abusing Jaycee Lee Dugard testified during a previous kidnapping and rape case that he prowled through residential neighborhoods as a Peeping Tom and had strong rape desires. During his 1977 kidnapping trial, Phillip Garrido also said he leered at girls as young as seven and 10, and he admitted to exposing himself to some of them. He testified that LSD and cocaine acted as sexual stimulants, and that he frequently masturbated and often in public places including the "side of schools, grammar schools and high schools, in my own car while I was watching young females." The ... Read Full Story

Armed with rakes, shovels and chain saws, about 20 officers on Sunday combed the backyard of a couple charged with kidnapping and raping Jaycee Lee Dugard and used cadaver dogs to search an adjoining property where neighbors say one of the suspects once served as a caretaker. Sheriff's deputies and prosecutors from two counties and officers from two city police departments were using the dogs, shovels and other tools to inspect the neighboring yard, which sits behind an off-white house with a chain link fence. "We do consider it a crime scene," said Jimmy Lee, a spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department. ... Read Full Story

At least three other registered sex offenders live within a block or two of the Northern California home where Phillip Garrido allegedly imprisoned Jaycee Lee Dugard for nearly two decades. More than 100 sex offenders in all share his ZIP code in the hardscrabble, working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of this town about 40 miles northeast of San Francisco. The high concentration has raised concerns that laws to control some of the nation's roughly 686,000 registered sex offenders are pushing them to smaller communities, such as Antioch, to escape scrutiny. "We've got plenty of 'em around here," said Charles Mickelson, who lives a block ... Read Full Story