Dugard kidnappers deny committing other abduction

HAYWARD, Calif. – Police have questioned the California couple convicted of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard about the high-profile abduction of a 9-year-old girl in the San Francisco Bay area more than two decades ago, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

Nancy and Phillip Garrido both denied any involvement in the case of Michaela Garecht, who was snatched from a grocery store parking lot in Hayward in 1988, police Sgt. Corey Quinn said.

The Oakland Tribune (http://bit.ly/osjgoG ) said Hayward police investigators spent more than two hours with the Garridos last week.

Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years to life in prison in June for abducting Dugard in South Lake Tahoe in 1991 and holding her captive for 18 years at his Antioch home. His wife Nancy was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison.

Not long after Dugard was discovered in August 2009, Hayward police conducted an extensive search of the Garridos' backyard compound for possible clues to Garecht's disappearance because of the strong similarities of the two cases. They didn't find anything, the newspaper said.

Hayward investigators had wanted to question the Garridos about the Garecht case, but a judge ruled that law enforcement agencies not involved in the Dugard investigation had to wait until that case concluded.

Hayward police will meet with El Dorado County authorities who prosecuted the Dugard case to discuss the Garecht case and conduct more interviews with the Garridos, Quinn said.

Before he kidnapped Dugard, Phillip Garrido served 11 years in federal prison for the 1976 kidnapping and rape of a Nevada woman, who was handcuffed and sexually assaulted in a storage shed in Reno for hours before she escaped.

A previous report by El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson's office said Garrido also was arrested and charged with the kidnap and rape of a 14-year-old girl in Antioch in 1972, and a 19-year-old woman in South Lake Tahoe in June 1976. Charges were dismissed in both those cases.

At a public hearing in Sacramento two weeks ago, Pierson said Garrido admitted to dozens of date rapes.

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Information from: The Oakland Tribune, http://www.oaklandtribune.com