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,
I have 3 sons, the middle P-one is in prison for murdering a girl he was involved with in illegal activities in 1991. She “ratted” him out to the cops, so he killed her.
My oldest son C was married to a P, who became involved with the TH-P, who was sent by my P-son to “infiltrate” our family as a “friend” by renting a house from me and being really “nice to us”—he moved in as a live-in caregiver with my elderly mother, started an affair with the P-DIL, and was trying to find an opportunity to kill me (due to some inheritence issues that would have benefited my P-son if I died BEFORE my elderly mother.) Since I got wind of what was going on (a friend found him on a sex offender web site) and couldn’t convince my egg donor that he was even a criminal, much less a pedophile, so took off and secretly moved into hiding until my DIL (now X) and he were arrested for changing their plans and stealing money from my egg donor AND trying to kill my son C. They wouldn’t have “gained” anything by the murder except I fully believe she hated my son so much SHE was the one who wanted him dead, not the BF.
In any case, thank GOD that they were not successful, but my egg donor continues to send money to my P-son and “disbelieve” he was involved, even though I HAVE TONS OF LETTERS SHOWING HE WAS INVOLVED AND GIVING THE TH-P DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO “MANAGE” US. I am NC with my egg donor for lying to me and for sending him money, and breaking other promises etc. My two other sons are also NC with her too. Sorry, I know it is a long, convoluted and confusing story. That all took place only a few months after my husband was killed in a small plane crash, and my beloved step father died of cancer after 18 months of me caring for him, so I got the “TRIPLE whammy” of stress during all that time. I am doing very well now, especially compared to what was going on then, so am pretty well over my chaos and pity party and working on living a good life day by day with my two wonderful sons. It’s been a long, difficult and hard road but I am stronger each day and each step I take in healing myself. It is now about ME—not them. They are the losers. TOWANDA!!!
Thanks for taking the time to explain your situation. I find it incredible that they can cooperate with each other as much as they do. I mean, how is it that your son never knew he had a p-wife? Did the trojan-p bring it out of her? was her p-ness dormant before?
Oh goodie, another case of “just not gettin’ it.” Now they ordaining cloaks of respectability.
http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=11122881
http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/community-support-groups-2
Wow, this column really nails all the issues right on the head. if you are new to LF or confused about your relationship, read this link.
http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_091409WAB-mother-son-murder-plot-TP.17dda0c6b.html
This woman was going to kill her abusive husband but her son turned her in first. Thank God.
Quote from King5News:
“Detectives say the mother admitted to planning the murder after a “very hurtful statement” by her husband. The document says she made the chilling statement to them that “living in prison for the rest of her life was better than the prison she lived in with her abusive husband. ”
The student allegedly gave details about how his mother planned to drug his father and then stab him to death with a knife.
She allegedly told detectives she planned to commit the murder, call her children with the news then call 911 to surrender. ”
When my xP belatedly remembered our 25th anniversary (a month late), he asked, “isn’t there something you’re supposed to get after 25 years?”
I answered, “Parole?”
The look on his face was frightening.
I think this was the final narcissistic injury that unraveled his mask. My sarcasm knows no bounds.
skylar: I used to say killers got parole before the number of years I served. Good to see others say these things too. 😉
“They see how situations trigger an emotion, and they see that this emotion causes us to act in very specific ways. And they use us as pawns in their games of power. Luckily, if we can learn to differentiate between real emotion and manipulated emotion—to become free from those parts of ourselves which control us—we can then become free from the rule of those external tyrants which control us. We can cease to be pawns in someone else’s game.”
I often said my PX was like an accomplished chess player….he was always at least several moves ahead of the play. But, after years of being with him and seeing him as he is….I can predict his moves now as well as he can play them. I could very well the last year of our marriage [all the while I was socking that money away to leave on] and he absolutely hated it….it drove him crazy. Many times I’ve seen him just drop the con and the anger and quit. Course he’d just think and try to come back with another ploy, but after you wise up….you will see the next move. They are all alike. in some ways.,.they do the same things and they have a certain number of cons depending on the P….they are actually pretty predictable once you see thru the mask. Isn’t that ironic?
Yeah TB, it is ironic.
Here’s even more irony: they believe that they are the most unique individual that ever lived, but they are all cookie cutter images of each other. The games might vary here and there, but when we compare notes, here at LF, its like reading a page from the same playbook.
Their limited emotions don’t allow them to live truly creative lives. They are always looking to con, manipulate, lie and decieve so they never produce anything real.
I can’t remember what the situation was but I anticipated his choice and later he asked me how I knew what he would do. Without even thinking, I said, “I know you always pick the easiest path.”
skylar: True, true, true!!!!
skylar – I love it – “after 25 years – parole”
And yes, the playbook is the same – once you see what gets them you can play with them and they have no clue half the time – watching my ex when I caught on to his games and stopped being a foil for his games – his shock and kind of like a rat that thinks he knows the way to the cheese and it has been moved – he kept running back through his various routines trying to see which one might work again – and once in awhile he would hook me but never for more than 15 minutes and then it would ht me – aha – he is playing me again… I would have to laugh at my malignant hope and his ability to arouse it.
Seeing over time that he was incapable of growth or change, that is what let me cut myself loose. I just finally one day saw it all writ large – this will never change for the better – he doesn’t want it to – and I was done – in one moment. It still hurt after that but I was done. It was a pivotal moment over something so small.
Yay for me – I’m free!!!!
The experience with my Sociopath has be convinced, that in at least his case, there was absolutely no love whatsoever, there was only great acting. In fact, he stated he always wanted to be an actor, and he was certainly the best actor I have seen and every day was a stage for him.
So I would strongly disagree with the statement, ““psychopaths do experience affection and intense impulses that feel like “love” to them. It is not all just a sham or a lie.
I believe Sociopaths are entirely incapable of love or human emotions (other than pity for themselves). The only way they feel or exhibit affection is in the desire to attain sex.
Peggy