Questions are finally being asked as to how Phillip Garrido managed to hide Jaycee Lee for eighteen long years. Even though Jaycee Lee bore Philip and Nancy Garrido two children and neighbour complaints of something suspicious.

America is now asking how something as treacherous as this managed to go unnoticed for an unbelievable eighteen years. How did police miss this after an enormity of tip offs that something was very wrong in the Garrido household.

The elephant in the room remains. How on earth did this manage to go unnoticed when Garrido had to see a parole officer over his lifetime. Garrido is a registered sex offender and in 1991 managed not only to be near children but to abuct Jaycee Lee in front of her step fathers terrified eyes.

She had been confined in a makeshift prison of sheds and tents in what police have described as a "backyard within a backyard" at Garrido's home in Antioch, around 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of San Francisco.

Last saturday police were searching the Garrido house for evidence of a string of prostitute killings in the 1990's close to where Garrido worked.

It has been confirmed that Philip Garrido did father Jaycee Lee's two children, which means that he did in fact rape her more than once. Even if Jaycee Lee did consent (which I highly doubt) due to the age she was when birthing her first child (14) it is still considered statutory rape.

Jaycee Lees children had never seen a doctor or been to school. So where did Jaycee Lee give birth? Anyone who has been near a woman in labour knows that it is an extremely painful ordeal and usually the first time round, most women believe tey are going to die. Aside from the pain this poor girl went through, imagine the fear!!!! No pain killers, no doctors, just told to push and pray. This is what Jaycee Lee was forced to deal with, and the police still had not found her.

See here is the part that really bothers us all I imagine. A registered sex offender is not allowed to be in contact with children AT ALL. So how is it that when neighbours complain that they can hear children in the backyard that it is not investigated STRAIGHT AWAY?

I know how. The police had failed to do THEIR JOB and for eighteen long years, Jaycee Lee has suffered for it. To think that genuinely concerned neighbours ring to say that children are in a SEX OFFENDERS backyard, and, this goes completely ignored.

On Friday August 29th Phillip and Nancy Garrido pleaded "not guilty" to 29 counts of charges. Including false imprisonment kidnapping and rape.

 Of course the police did only what they could do. Apologise. It hardly makes up for failing Jaycee Lee the way that they have, however it is a good start.

Sheriff Warren Rupf issued an apology saying law enforcement officials were distraught over their failure to discover Garrido's crimes earlier.

"On November 30, 2006 we missed an opportunity to bring earlier closure to this situation," he admitted.

"I can't change the course of events, but we are beating ourselves up over this and are the first to do so," Rupf said.

There were neighbours who were totally unaware.

"It's kind of embarrassing to be here this long and not know what's going on. How could that go on under all of our noses?" one neighbor, who gave his name only as Steve, told AFP.

A man who once hired Garrido for a printing job told The New York Times on Saturday that he had met, exchanged emails and regularly spoken on the phone with a young woman who was introduced as Garrido's daughter Allissa.

Ben Daughdrill said the woman never suggested she was being held captive or tried to identify herself as Dugard, and she was the one who did the art work.

Dugard was reunited with her mother and half-sister on Friday, but was struggling to come to terms with her ordeal and experts say it could take years for her to recover.

Dugard was found after police reported Garrido acting suspiciously at the University of California, Berkeley, where with two young girls he was trying to hand out religious literature propounding claims he could channel the voice of God.

The pale, blond girls were wearing drab sun dresses, "like 'Little House on the Prairie' meets robots," university security officer Allison Jacobs told a press conference Friday.

"The younger daughter was staring directly at me, as if she was looking into my soul, with this eerie smile on her face," Jacobs said. "I just got a weird, uneasy feeling."

Garrido apparently boasted to the campus officers: "I'm so proud of my girls. They don't know any curse words. They don't know anything bad about the world."

Profound words. Of course the girls did not know anything of the world they were being held captive in a makeshift prison in Garrido's Backyard.

The parole office has defended itself in saying that Garrido was "stealthy" and that they had no idea that Garrido had Jaycee lee.

I truly believe that since the parole office should have been first to be aware of Garrido's involvement with children that they also should be the first to apologise.

As always feel free to comment I value it.