Last week I discussed Philip Garrido, a psychotic and psychopathic individual who allegedly with the help of his wife kidnapped Jaycee Dugard at age 11 and held her 18 years. This week I would like to discuss the some of the details of Nancy Garrido’s life that have been reported by reliable news sources.
The Details
Nancy Garrido is 54, her maiden name is Bocanegra. She was born born in Texas, the second child of a family of five or six children. She has been married to Phillip 28 years. According to the New York Times, “Gail Powell, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Public Safety, said Nancy Bocanegra was visiting an incarcerated uncle when she met Mr. Garrido, a tall, lanky and deep-eyed sex offender who was serving a 50-year sentence for the 1976 rape and kidnapping of a casino worker from South Lake Tahoe, Calif.”
The couple married in the prison and did not live together until Phillip’s release 7 years later. Nancy never had children, but is reported to have been a caregiver. She cared for Phillip’s elderly mother and worked as a nurse’s aide.
Several people who knew Nancy described her as submissive, depressive and quiet. Others said she appeared kind and caring.
Nancy’s employer reportedly said this about her work with developmentally disabled adults, “The people she worked with really liked her.”
Questions
The same employer also questioned “How could it be that this other situation was happening at the same time? It’s impossible to understand.”
People are also asking why Nancy participated in this crime. They are questioning whether she was under “the spell” of her husband, and whether she was “brainwashed.”
My questions
I wonder why we allow sex offenders to marry in prison. He had a history at least one other arrest, “It seems likely that Ms. Garrido knew all too well of her new husband’s sexual history and proclivities. In addition to his rape and kidnapping conviction, Mr. Garrido had also been arrested in a 1972 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Antioch, Calif., the Bay Area suburb near where he had grown up and where he and Ms. Garrido would settle with his mother after his release from prison in 1988,” said the New York Times.
Is there any legal reason why sex offenders or other psychopathic felons should be allowed to marry while they are in custody? They can’t vote, why should they marry? I think we allow these offenders to marry because some still believe that “love” can rehabilitate them; that marriage makes it less likely they will reoffend. (Lawyers reading this please comment!)
I contend that this marriage facilitated his re-offense and that sociopaths often could not do what they do without the help of witting and unwitting accomplices. The best thing for society is to isolate these people. We are more likely to be suspicious of an offender who lives by himself. Marriage and family just give them the false facade of normalcy.
There is data showing that generally speaking marriage prevents re-arrest of felons. We don’t know if that applies to psychopathic sex offenders. We also don’t know if marriage protects against re-offense versus just re-arrest. My suspicion is that married psychopaths just get away with more.
Why would a woman marry such a man? Many serial killers have a following of women and other women have married offenders serving life sentences. It is noted that Nancy had an uncle in the same prison, and that is how she met Phillip. Perhaps the presence of other antisocial individuals in her life desensitized her to their dangerousness.
Many have questioned why Phillip was released after serving only one fifth of his sentence. I wonder if it had anything to do with this marriage and the fact that Phillip’s mother allowed the couple to live with her after his release.
All family members who render aid to psychopathic offenders have moral culpability to any subsequent crimes they commit. When you do something nice for a psychopath, a perverse reverse Karma is created. The psychopath will use the “nice” to perpetrate evil on someone else or even you. In this case, a kindness bestowed upon a psychopath will result in bad Karma for you.
The fact that sociopathy/psychopathy is a spectrum as opposed to an absolute category is confusing for people. In the same way, the spectrum that defines the spouses, family members, and associates of sociopaths/psychopaths is also confusing. Let’s be open to the real likelihood that Nancy is also psychopathic and selected Phillip for that reason.
What about the caretaking behavior? What about Nancy’s assertions that she loves and misses the victims? This week I came across another important statement regarding psychopathic individuals and love. It came from a book chapter written by three psychopathy experts:
“they (psychopaths) may also be prone to express intense affiliative impulses directly. Because such attractions are not based on empathy (for) or a mature appreciation of another person, these positive affectional links are often likely to be fleeting, tenuous, and based on illusory perceptions of others” (emphasis added).
To translate the difficult vocabulary, psychopaths do experience affection and intense impulses that feel like “love” to them. It is not all just a sham or a lie. That is why psychopaths are able to fool people. It is not that victims and family members are always so gullible that they fall for the lies. Sometimes the people in a psychopath’s life correctly read the “positive affectional links” and “intense affiliative impulses”.
What we all need to understand is that the presence of these impulses and feelings doesn’t tell us anything about a person since even psychopaths have these. What tells us most about Nancy’s inner world is the crimes she is alleged to have perpetrated.
Please if you are in the life of a psychopathic person, particularly an offender or sex offender consider carefully what I have said here.
Sources for this blog
LA Times
NY Times
The Clinical and Forensic Assessment of Psychopathy: A Practitioner’s Guide (Personality and Clinical Psychology Series) by Carl B. Gacono (Editor) Chapter 8
skylar
Pheonix
there are books that help but don’t use the word spath.
“Why does he do that? Inside the minds of angry men” by Lundy Bancroft
“Why is it always about you? the seven deadly sins of narcissism” by Sandy Hotchkiss
the phoenix
Skylar- The triangulation of which you speak, makes sense to me now. The vortex tries this with me and his mother or sister, whichever one is present at the time.
Spath’s sister is a case study in and of herself and has tried her hardest to bait me into fights. I have granted her the one “Free Pass” and told her to consider the fact that there are things she doesn’t know about, before taking another jab at me again.
The vortex’s mother is one of his biggest enablers, yet there are ways of prying she stills tries to use on me. Avoiding it is quite easy at times. Simple direct answers- yes or no- no further explanation needed. Just stare back at them and blink. You have no clue anyways, further talk will only add to their cashe of ammo for later…
Answer their questions with another question. This is an old Jewish mother trick.
Why do you ask?
What business is it of yours?
If they ask if you are concerned about or for someone- Should I be?
Why did ____ do this? or not do this? I’m sure they have their reasons… Why do you need to explain things for someone else?
They will usually give up pretty easily when they figure out they aren’t getting anywhere talking to you.
the phoenix
Ana- I look at him and repeatedly ask Why? He explains something. I ask Why? He says something else. I ask Why? Why? Just lather, rinse, repeat as necessary as long as you wish to play the game. It gets really annoying, really quickly.
He tries doing it to me and I just tell him to fgure it out for himself after the first or second Why?.
the phoenix
Skylar- thank you for the book ideas. Problem is, he would read them when I am not around, just to be nosy, but then apply the new found knowledge and tactics.
The vortex is home a few days a week, while I am the one with a job, working to pay the bills. Plenty of time for him to snoop, while I am kept on a rather short leash. Yay Me!
skylar
Pheonix,
Ah! I’m sorry I forgot you were still in the house with him.
It’s hard keeping everyone’s stories straight. You are so right, it’s best not to let him know what you are thinking.
When I was 17 and had just met the spath, I was flummoxed by how much he lied. Never met anyone who just lied and lied and lied about everything. I got a book from the library: The people of the Lie, by Scott Peck. But I felt, for some reason, compelled to keep it hidden. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand the book, because I was only 17 and the book talked about evil. Having been raised catholic, I looked at spath, didn’t see a tail or horns or cloven feet, so I just thought : this does not apply.
I love how you answer a question with another question.
I did this too, not on purpose, it’s just how my mind works: gather more data before I answer.
IT DROVE HIM NUTS!! LOL!
the phoenix
OMG! Mine can do something, you can watch him do it, he will tell you he has done it and it is still tough to believe him because he lies so damned much! It’s almost laughable at this point.
He lies to everyone and lies so much, he doesn’t know when to stop or who NOT to lie to. He lies to his parents, anyone around him, people on the internet, people he has known all his life, people he doesn’t know at all…. His lips move- he’s lying. He’s breathing- it’s a lie.
His lies are right up there with his financial managment skills. He went as far as bouncing a check for $10 to the police department for registering our home security system with them. He cares not, who he hurts or what kind of crap he stirs up.
I put nothing past him and expect nothing from him. This way I will never be let down by him.
I have no idea how he keeps the lies straight, but if you ask him about them- he doesn’t remember anything. Of course not! That is their easiest way out of anything.
I have answered the questions with questions and also bluffed on some things. He lies, I can too! I deny knowing anything about whatever he is trying to pin on me next.
I have also twisted his words effectively through an alternative perspective. They do it- we can too! He told me once that by working on something, it created problems for him.
Really? HOW? By making him look like a worthless, lazy sod? You’d better believe it honey!
Then a while later, he asked me to help him with the same thing. WHAT?
Um, no. Not even if you ask me to, I won’t lift a finger to help you. By doing this, I am creating problems for you. Not wanting to create problems- I won’t help. There you go, problem SOLVED! I turned around and walked away.
He doesn’t recall saying it caused him problems (of course not!) and why would I say that? Because I made you look bad… That would be my guess anyways. Oh well, problem solved- not going to deal with it, it’s all his now. Perspective can be an amazing thing to help preserve our sanity.
superkid10
Oxy and Sky thank you both. I need to think about this.
SK
superkid10
Phoenix
I read your posts to/from Skylar – I had to laugh out loud – I was just so shocked at how much my spath lied – i was pissed off when he lied to me – then surprised when he lied in front of me to colleagues – oh my !! – and wanted me to PARTICIPATE in the lies. It just blew me away. I never met anybody like that.
Is it raining? “No” when it was coming down in sheets!
What day are you traveling? “Wednesday” when the airline ticket said Tuesday.
I mean, it was just unending, unbelievable, pointless, to anybody everybody all the time about nothing.
Made him feel superior, I guess.
Ox Drover
Sk, I can’t even remember how far back I dubbed her the “egg donor” because the term Mother is EARNED by how you nurture the child, not by giving it your DNA and I decided she didn’t earn the title “mother” I just fell into the habit of referring to her that way. LOL
Safeguard
Yeah…I use some of spath’s own crap, on him too. I don’t like doing it. I don’t want to be anything like him, but as a matter of survival these are handy tools.
Spath does this thing, where if I ask him something, he’ll give me an answer, but not quite what I asked:
Me: “so what time are you going in to work tomorrow?”
Spath: “*Long sigh* my alarm’s set for 6:00am.”
Me: “wow that early huh? Well I was thinking of bringing Lil’bit into the city to shop, maybe take her to see your new store…”
:spath “that would be cute.”
Me: “Do you think we should take the train in, might be quicker?”
Spath: “Yeah it would.”
And so I stupidly babble on, planing my day. Totally unaware that spath WASN”T even PLANNING, on going to work the next day. Notice he never SAID he was.(just said what time his alarm was set for!), It sounded like he answered my question, but he didn’t.
I’ve used that one…Like if he asks me how my job is going…Me: “Well you know, it’s a balance…” LOL!