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 would be somewhat leary of sharing to much information with the wives & gfs.
As much as the actions/behaviours of an S/P/N are obvious once you “get it”….There are still way more people out there who don’t get it than those that do.
Although they have known him for 20 years as you say and know that he is “strange” it still might be hard for them to grasp onto the S/P/N info. They might know him but they don’t “know him” like you do. They didn’t live with him.
The problems of sharing with them as I see it is they may go back and tell their husbands and then it gets back to your X.
Skylar, it’s really ironic that you told your dog story and I woke up to find it this AM. I have a dog story, too, from 29 years ago that still haunts me. It’s funny that last night I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep because I kept thinking about it. It makes me feel so bad, and I know I will always feel the guilt and regret of it.
My first P husband and I saw an add in the paper for a 3 mo. old dobie pup. We went to get it, and a young girl, about 13 was heart broken because her parents were making her give it up. I promised her that I would take good care of her puppy. Everything went well for about the next 2 years, but when the xP and I split up, I left the dog. I was 21 with 2 small children, had to go home to my parents house. They owned cats they had babied for years, had no fenced yard etc.
At one point my xP told me he would no longer feed the dog. Unfortunately I didn’t take him seriously, so I didn’t really make it a priority to find the dog a home. Well, eventually I did find him a home with a young kid I had just met.(about 16.) When we went to pickup my dog he was skin and bones. He was starving. I called a week or so later to ask if they had the dog, and the kids father said no. He asked if I knew the dog was starving. I never asked what happened to the dog, and I still don’t know. I feel soooo awful about that. Still.
I guess it’s true confessions day. I want to get it off my chest. Thanks,LF for being here.
Skylar, as much as it hurts, I guess we should be grateful we feel remorse. It means we’re human.
Skylar, I have to agree with Oxy and shabbychic. I gotta say his letter was very entertaining and revealing. Forgive yourself and keep the lawyer. The difference between you and him is that you have remorse for your actions and he probably never will. That said, I am concerned for your safety.
Only you can make the decision on how and when to move on but my gut tells me from what you’ve written is that any interaction with your ex and his circle of friends is very risky either physically, emotionally or both. The sooner you distance yourself from his world the better.
Staying engaged with this type of personality directly or indirectly through common acquaintances can only fan the flames (of that ridiculous campfire). Metaphorically speaking, it’s still burning, certainly not of love but more the loss of his losing control. He obviously he still has an agenda that’s not in your best interest.
Mixing threats with concern for your well-being…and the cats??? Can this narcissist really care about where the cats live or a pet is buried?
This guy is so transparent, he doesn’t want lawyers involve because knows he can’t manipulate them they he thinks he can manipulate you. You say he keeps his identity hidden and his name doesn’t appear on the deed – it sounds like there is a lot more to his story that could cause some real problems for him in a courthouse.
A good lawyer has experienced in dealing with these people/situations and can offer objective advice and help protect you (i.e. restraining order) and make sure that you don’t get taken advantage of when dividing the assets. Controlling to the end…he gives you a 10 day deadline to respond or he’ll instruct the attorney.
I’m curious, is this the attorney you hired? Or his attorney?
Having his only contact to you done directly through a lawyer could be just as entertaining since he’ll probably continue with his amateur tactics.
That said I hope you spend your time and energy getting your life back and moving on and thank goodness there aren’t any children involved.
I agree—KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT TO EVERYONE ABOUT YOUR PLANS—-because is is LIKELY any information you share with ANYONE (especially pe9ople who don’t GET IT 110%) will gossip abou tit and the information will get back to him. YOU NEED TO KEEP YOUR CARDS CLOSE TO YOUR CHEST so he won’t be able t ofind out your tactics until you spring them on him. DON’T give him anyway to plan ahead of your “suprises” in court.
I know it is tempting to share this and validate all this with “friends” but I can tell you FROM EXPERIENCE, you need to keep this kind of information to yourself.
KIM: two words: FORGIVE YOURSELF!
Kim,
I’m pretty sure the dog was reincarnated as my cat, Jasper.
Long story, but there are so many coincidences between the two: his carriage, his mannerisms, likes and dislikes, even the injuries to his ears occuring at the same stage of life. The 100lb dog always wanted to be a little cat because my sick little orange cat got all the cuddling and attention. So he came back as an orange cat, Jasper. Jasper loves me and feared my xP.
Applehillbill,
I do hate lawyers and would rather just leave them out. I haven’t hired any attorneys. My xP is desperate for money. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on. I will tell him to stop spending money on lawyers and that I will not be selling the house until i have the money to fix it and get top dollar for it.
My xP is really deranged and living in a world of delusion. I hadn’t realized that until now. Like a child, I think he miscalculated what “freedom” would be like. He isn’t just wanting money, I think he wants attention and since I don’t respond to the other stuff, now he is using threats.
I’m going to have to face him eventually and bring out my “inner-P” to do it.
Oxy,
Oh, I don’t tell anyone except LF my plans. I just tell them the truth about him. I tell them what is happening and then I tell them to read the books. By the time I’m done talking to them they are so afraid and they don’t know what to think, because they know how dangerous he is but it’s hard to accept. So I think they go NC.
I told the doctor gf to keep everything to herself until she can ascertain if SHE is safe. Her millionaire bf lives on the side of cliff! literally, the back yard ends in a cliff that looks over the columbia river. I also advised her not to fly in any of the aircraft. She admitted that she was always very skeptical of my xP when he would find all these potentially fatal flaws in the aircraft that no one else could see. Now, I’ve pointed out that this is a typical con-game. and that my xP is a con man. She will go NC too. Even if her millionaire bf is a P, he will soon see that he is a mark too, then he will go NC.
In all of my conversations with them I am completely honest about my opinion and my feelings: I tell them that I’m afraid of him and also I feel sorry for him.
Dear Skylar,
I just wanted you to be careful becuse I HAVE HAD IT HAPPEN and I know others who have as well, ANY information you pass out on them comes back to BITE you in the end.
Others are not so apt to believe the truth as you might think, just CAUTION, even with other victims.
Even with PROOF they don’t always believe it. (head shaking here) I hope you can get it all settled easily and be out and away from him ASAP!!! (((hugs)))))
Yes, I remember about the minister not being much help to you, but I never actually understood what you were asking him to do.
I also remember about your egg donor. She sounds like she loves chaos so her intent is just to keep the chaos going.
Dear Skylar,
EXPOSURE of her lies is about the ONLY thing my egg donor is afraid of. I know this particular minister was a “close friend” of hers, and if there was ANYONE she would NOT want to know about her lies, he is ONE of those, so I was hoping he would have back bone enough to confront her about her lies, but obviously (even with documented proof and witnesses he knew would not lie) he was obviously not willing to help.
I was hoping he would help me STOP her from sending money (and therefore resources) to my P son—who needs resources and money to mount another murder attempt on me.
I don’t think he ever thought I was “holy” enough to be of much value…LOL…oh, well..it was WORTH a shot, but was stressful on me…but you know, I wasn’t disappointed when I got no help, because I didn’t let myself expect too much!
Ah yes, the exposure thing. I know that one well from my P-parents. They ARE hardworking people, not like most P’s but they have created all the P children by their abuse and they are very aware of it. They have a perfect home, perfect reputations, everyone loves them but each of their children is a disaster. Now 2 of us are living in their basement. LOL.
The church thing is really starting to disgust me. I think if you want something from a minister, you have to have deep pockets or the appearance of it. Your mom, as a P, is probably very aware of it. She probably hinted at the possibility of a donation to his church in her will.
There’s a reason why they call their congregations a flock and themselves a shepard. They see us as sheep to be fleeced.
I watched “Doubt” last night with Meryl Streep. Very good movie.
(spoiler alert)
In the movie, she lies ONE time, to get the truth from the P and it works. That is what I’m realizing now: nothing works with P’s except lies. When dealing with them, you need to find YOUR inner-P, come up with a good lie and manipulate away!