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
What about sociopaths that has children, I’ve seen mine display so much love for his children that made me think this such a wonderful man. But my daughter brought it to may attention she said didn’t you think something was wrong this man he got 5 kids and not with any of the baby moma’s. This is from the mouth of a sixteen year old. It make me wonder are they capable of loving there children. He seem like he loved to be needed, almost like he had to be incontrol of everyone life.
luv716:
IMHO (in my humble opinion) it is acting with the children. Sociopaths are all about power/control, money, and sex. A fourth component that is very important for them is appearances. They always want to “look” good, i.e., the mask of goodness. They are incapable of love, in any shape or form, other than self-love. Yes, there is definitely something very wrong with them!
Peggy
Luv716 and Peggy,
I think its down to really understanding what’s going on in front of you.
The S/P I knew made himself out (and still does) as a devoted father (its a great hook for women; how many of us coo at a man with a baby) but his behaviour with the kids just didnt ‘feel’ right, it didnt add up to his professions of love and devotion to them (his weird sexual behaviour,cheating, porn addiction didnt add up with his ‘family man’ facade either but hey..;). Even when he was doing ‘fun’ things with them, it didnt feel natural, it felt like he had read somewhere that this is what you ‘do’ to appear like a doting dad, all very controlled, and usually filmed so he could put ’em up on his web sites to make him look good… then after an hour or so he couldnt hide his irritation with them…didnt film that though lol!
It IS acting. Their children are ‘tools’ just like everything else.
And you know, I SAW it and felt it. A few months ago I might have said ‘and I ignored it’ … but it DID register…I did question it, I just didnt know what it was or what it meant at the time.
If I ever feel like someone is being ‘unnatural’ with their kids to create an impression again…even if its just an aquaintence, I will make my excuses and get the hell out of the situation. BIG RED FLAG.
Wow! It’s very scary to hear people talk about getting caught up in a sociopath’s games.
It’s obvious that Nancy sought out Garrido and just didn’t fall for his “games” but wanted a partner that matched her own twisted view of the world.
There was no reason for her to get out of the situation. She is just as guilty as him, just as sick and just as evil…just as much a sociopath.
That Garrido controlled Nancy is like saying Hitler controlled Goebbels – They both had equal parts but different roles. The only victums were the children.
Sure, msome people get sucked into relationships with sociopaths but if they have just a little humanity in them the recognize it and oppose it.
I use the Hitler analogy because there was an equally sick and evil mindset. But not everyone joined the SS. Some risked death than take part either actively or passively.
Nancy sought out someone who fit the bill for her and found him. But somehow I’ll bet she gets a lesser sentence playing the role of victim.
People on this post talk about “their” sociopath and how they were manipulated but they forget this blog is not about Philip Garrido but Nancy. She was not manipulated in any manner she didn’t want to be. It took two to pull this off and her role was just as important and equal as his…for many, many years.
Dear Applehillbilly,
You have a great point!
At the same time, playing devil’s advocate—WHY WOULD ANY WOMAN WANT A CONVICT? What made her so desperate for a man that she was attracted to a man she knew was a criminal?
Look at all the women who write “fan” mail to various serial killers and “fall in love” with them over the course of years of writing to these “poor innocent men” on death row? WHY!!!!!
Nancy was there to visit her uncle when she met her husband, so we know she came from a family in which criminal behavior and incarceration didn’t “invalidate” a person as a member of the family. A family or a woman loyally waiting for X to get out of prison was obviously the kind of background she came from, and her later years prove that she fell into the “role” completely with Philip.
Is she also a victim? Of her family background? Of her husband? Of society? of her genetics? of Stockholm syndrome? Of all of the above? OR is she by background and genetics “as bad as her husband?” Just as guilty of kidnapping?
Is Philip a “victim” as well of all of the above mentioned things? Should he NOT be punished because he was “raised that way?” Should she NOT be punished because she was raised that way?
How about a woman who kills her abuser? Is she guilty? or is she a victim also? Or both, victim and guilty?
Solomon himself I don’t think could solve these questions of what is going on in a man/woman’s mind or what is ALWAYS “justice” and who “deserves” “mercy” and “compassion” from the law.
Ox Drover, I tend to agree with you. Are you familiar with the Stanley Millgram experiment having to do with obedience to authority? Very, very interesting, but also a little scary. This experiment suggests that “most” people will be obedient to an authority figure even if it involves inflicting pain on others: even if they are extremely uncomfortable doing so.
The question here is if this was the case with Nancy, and if so, what predetermined this mind set? Also, the other night I stumbled upon a program about ancient machines of torture.
Human history is full of the spectacle of torture, complete with cheering masses. How can we explain that? Have we evolved away from this sort of thing, or do humans as a species, somehow need this sort of punishment in order to feel that justice has been served. Does it also function to assuage our own guilt, or perhaps to dissuade us from participating in the same sort of crime? I think there’s the potential for evil in all of us, although, I think in some it is more pronounced, and I think those that start life out as
“handicapped,” so to speak, are more likely to exhibit evil behavior.
I know all this is probably not a particularly popular opinion, and maybe it is too phylosophical for this forum, but it’s food for thought. It doesn’t mean the Nancy, and Philips’ shouldn’t
be held accountable for their dispicable deeds.
I guess I’m just wishing there was a cure for it!!!
Oh please, let me explain what I meant by “handicapped”. I meant those people who come from very dysfunctional backgrounds, as well as those who are genetically predisposed. And I’m pretty sure even that is an over-generalization. I’m not sure how to word what I mean. Any comments?
This discussion gets more into the realm of philosophy I think in some ways, but our philosophies are how we view the world, how we think it should be run….so I think it is germaine to the subject.
What was Hitler’s “philosophy?” Well, of course we all pretty well know that. That was how he “ran” the country, consistently with that philosophy. He convinced at least some if not most of the German people that this philosophy was “right” and “good” and for the “good of the country.”
Of course, after the war when the “war trials” were going on many people who had done horrible things to others used the “excuse of” “I was JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS” as a way to excuse themselves from the blame and responsibility for what they had done.
What would have happened to them if they had REFUSED to follow those orders?
Were they really to “blame” for following orders to do bad things, or were they “guilty” and “responsible” for the acts they committed?
The war courts seemed to think that they WERE responsible for what they did, even following orders.
Sometimes in our own armies, men have been prosecuted for their ACTS when they were “following” orders as well.
War is “Not a nice thing” and Civilians and others die in war.
A soldier, by definition, has no choice but to ‘follow orders” or suffer consequences, even death, for failure to follow those orders.
How about the Jewish people in the camps who became “trustee” guards and persecutors of their own people in order to try to survive themselves? Were they guilty of crimes? At what point does the decision to SURVIVE become where one must be punished for trying to survive?
Dr. Viktor Frankl’s wonderful book, “Man’s Search for meaning” written after his years in a nazi concentration camp in which he lost everything EXCEPT his life and his compassion for his fellow men, is a wonderful book to consider reading to help work through some of these questions. I don’t have the “answers” after reading this book, but it at least lets me think about several of the different views.
I think (in theory at least) we can have COMPASSION for the monsters of psychopathic thinking who do such horrible things, even as we pull the switch that executes them. If that makes any sense at all.
Of course it is also natural for us (humans) to feel a need for “revenge” against people who have done such horrible things.
Since the dawn of humanity the TORTURE of “enemies” or “criminals” has been the usual way of executions and punishment, with the “public” viewing these executions and torture as “right” and “just”—-but some of us (Humans) have decided that public torture (or even private torture) is not “good”—others still view “torture” at least in some times and places as “justified” to get information for “the greater good” of a war or crime investigation.
If a criminal is holding a child, let’s say, in a sealed box where they have a limited amount of time to breathe, is it justified to save the child’s life to torture the psychopathic criminal who did this in order to get them to reveal the place the child is held and save the child’s life? Or should we call an attorney for the criminal and give him time to sit there and let the child smother to death? Which is the greater “good” for society? Abiding by the rule of law, or the child’s death?
Even with at least an attempt at abiding by the rule of law, suffering is created when psychopaths are allowed to go free because of “technical” problems with their arrests, with evidence, etc., innocent people are “convicted”—even if this is only 1%, with as many people as we have in prison in the US this is a huge number. Also, because of thsi same thing, when violent and guilty people go free or are released quickly, like Phillip, more people die, are victimized and tortured, like this little girl.
I DO wish I had an answer to all the evils of our race and our “justice” system, but I can only very sadly hang my head and say, I don’t expect perfect justice, or even in most cases ADEQUATE justice and I am glad I am not on the jury or the bench that has to make these decisions, but I wish the ones who will be on the bench and in the jury box were better educated about psychopaths.” Peace, and God bless us all.
I really am not sure that there is enough information yet known about how Nancy ended up with this man….Or if there ever will be.
On the “surface” it might appear that she is a guilty and evil as he himself is…And that might just be how the public and the press choose to believe it.
It might also be the truth of the matter…That she is as sick as he is. And as guilty as he is.
However he appears to be so EVIL and so delusional and so very ,very sick….It really makes me wonder if she wasn’t herself, from the start his victim. Maybe we will never know. If she was a victim within her own family structure and somehow persuaded/forced into marring this man….
There are many cases where a victim of really horrific abuse are also victims of mind control or brain washed to the point where they really are not making their “own” choices. They have lost their “free will” to make these choices. And do what they are “told”.
Victims of such excessive abuse also go into intense survival mode. That would include doing things that they are ordered to do that are VERY WRONG, to survive.
And this seems like it could also be possible in this particular case.
Remember the case of the “Boy called it” in California? At the time it was the worst case of child abuse ever recorded.
His siblings never showed compasion or empathy for him during the many years of his extreame abuse at the hands of his mother. His siblings never, ever did anything to help their brother because frankly they didn’t want to be the next target. There was a form of “mind control” and “fear” extended throughout the entire family. Even though these children apeared to be treated well compared to their brother they also were drawn into the severe disfunction of the family structure. And played a role in it.
Dear Oxy, I’m glad you understood my post. We as the human race have been known to promote our individual agenda’s by cying evil. One nation calls another nation evil, simply because they have opposing interests. In some ways evil is relative.
I liked what you said about compassion. It is hard to be compassionate when we deal with monsters, and maybe it’s not really our job anyway. But I don’t want to lose sight of goodness, and I don’t want to use my victimization as an excuse to promote self justified evil. Not an easy thing when you’ve been very hurt, and feel very angry.
Yes. God Bless Us All!!!
Oh, and excellant work of fiction concerning some of these questions is “The Reader,” if any one is interested.