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
My post was written before I read your last one. good for you. You have a handle on all this!
Sky, I agree with the comments, he goes on and on and on about what YOU did to HIM, what a joke, the campfire of love, what a dick, he just wants you to pity him and feel bad, and then he launches into what he really wants: CONTROL over what happens to the property, let the cats live where they grew up, what a scream. OMG, he might have to put up a deck and repair the kitchen! Then he tries to act like he is concerned about your retirement and income strategies and is being “selfless” !! You do what’s best for YOU!!!
Shabby,
I wish he’d put in the deck and repair the kitchen and the roof! Then I could rent it or sell it for more.
But I think that’s just a lure. I’ve seen him lure other landlords – including me – with the promise of repairs and upgrades.
skylar,
With his manipulating “play” on words, such as his email suggest I don’t think you can AFFORD to have him fix anything that belongs to you.
I think the price you would pay would be very high. (and nothing to do with $$$) Plus I would bet the “project” would never be finished (if it even ever got started) because there is not enough in it for HIM.
He would rather just be “paid off” as he “graciously” (NOT) suggested in his email.
He is a con and wants his share even if it isn’t his share at all. He believes he is entitled.
Skylar, I think I remember that he was much older than you when you met him at age 17, is that correct? Do you know anything about his life before you?
As you mention his “underground” life with you, I’m very suspicious that he is hiding from something in his past. Have you checked into his background? It might be helpful.
Yeah, if he builds a deck and repairs the kitchen you’ll be the one paying for it. Maybe it should be sold “as is” (I’m not a realtor, don’t want to “give” incorrect advice!)
SC & Witsend,
you’re right, any repair would have a hidden horror or a trap door.
Lily,
he was 28 and he sold drugs but I have investigated him and he has always been too slippery so there is no police record. His credit record is a joke, though.
I just talked to the girlfriend of his “supply”, a millionaire that he keeps close to. I just told her everything I know about him. I’m worried that the millionaire is also a P, because his xwife “killed herself” with a shotgun. The gf is a doctor and I’m worried about her safety. He fixes the millionaire’s aircraft but has the licensed mechanics sign off on it, so the millionaire is also in danger, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t a P. Anyone can end up a P when you get close to a P, look at Nancy Garrido. If you don’t know what you are dealing with they can talk you into doing anything.
There is one thing that I did because of the P that I’m ashamed of. I will tell you all here because it pertains to this topic:
My wonderful dog, a black german shepard had been ill for many years and was dying. We had kept him alive long past when he should have been euthanized. One night he whined and whined and wouldn’t let us sleep. He was outside but we could hear him. Then the P got up, raging. I followed him and he went out and hit my dog. Then I, in a delirium of sleep deprivation, also hit my dog. I felt sick the moment I did it, but I couldn’t even condemn myself because then I would have had to condemn the P for his behavior – something that I would never do. Because the P was never judged as bad (because I loved him so much), I could do whatever the P did and still be good. It is a sick way of understanding, but it is true. That is why children end up doing what they see their parents do.
Obviously, that was one of the first things that woke me up to the P being less than perfect because after a few moments of thought, my conscience let me have it. After several years, it has really let me have it. This post is the first time I’ve ever mentioned this incident to anyone. It’s time for it to come out.
Sky, we’ve all done things we’re ashamed of, I’ve done plenty of things on my own, with no P around, that I regret. I understand where you are coming from… at the time you were not able to condemn the behavior, but you felt sick the moment you did it, you still feel bad about it, I had a dog I still feel bad about leaving her outside all the time, I guess we learn about ourselves and what we will never do again. I wish I had a chance to do so many things over again, and I’m not talking about relationshits. You are a wonderful person who made a mistake, you have courage to write about it.
Dear Skylar,
His e mail should be used as an EXAMPLE of BULLCHIT FOG (fear, obligation and guilt)—he is trying to get you to accept BLAME for “putting out the fire of his love” ROTFLMAO You can’t “put out” a fire that never burned.
He is telling you (threats really) that if you don’t do as he says there may be some “negative stuff” come out about YOU (and possibly him) so he is trying to get you to HUSH up and not make a “fuss.”
He is absolutely trying to TRICK you in to not fighting him, and yes, you will lose more money than if he was rEASONABLE but we KNOW HE IS NOT reasonable, so you might as well count on a fight.
I would not let him work on the house as he will DESTROY it if he gets a chance so it will never sell.
There are appraisers who make a living doing apprasials, and when went to sell mine I paid an appriaser (licensed) not a Real estate agent to set the price (ther eis a formula they use plus their experience etc) it is WORTH it to get a reasonable and REAL estimate of what the house(s) are/is worth. Usually a court will accept a licensed appriaser’s work as IMPARTIAL.
He talks about the pet cemetary needing to be moved, another guilt trip and the cats living out their lives where they were raised—guilt trip too.
Oh, my goodness, (tongue in cheek) I can’t understand with such a wonderful guy as him and what a witch you are why you aren’t begging on your knees to take this PSYCHOPATHIC JERK BACK! THAT’S A JOKE!!!!!
A lawyer may be “expensive” but I guarentee that without one it will cost you more!!!!!
The way to tell if he is lying is—ARE HIS LIPS MOVING? Is he writing you an e mail, leaving you a text message, or is he breathing? If any question is “yes”—he is LYING. ((hugs)))
LOL Oxy,
you’re right, I must be DELUSIONAL not to want that sweet campfire love back.
I doubt he will hire lawyers, he has too much to hide to go to court.
I’ve already spoken with 3 women friends of his (wives and gf of 3 friends. I will speak with another soon. I may just arrange an INTERVENTION. Wouldn’t that be fun?
The response I’m getting from these women is not entirely disbelieving. They are shocked and reserved in judgement, naturally, it is impossible to believe that they have been welcoming a sociopath into their homes for 2 decades, but they also know how strange he has always been and are finally beginning to understand why. I’ve recommended the books to them and soon they will all know…