Nancy Garrido Was Well-Liked Nursing Aide

"She loves the girls very much," attorney says

By JESSICA GREENE

Updated 7:53 AM CDT, Thu, Sep 3, 2009

Print Email Share TWITTER FACEBOOK

Nancy Garrido, accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard with her husband, Phillip, and keeping her as a sex slave for 18 years, worked as a well-liked nursing aide and may have helped deliver and treat Dugard's babies, according to a report.

"Just 'shock' and 'disbelief' are the two words that come to mind," Barbara Maizie, Garrido's boss at a health non-profit for adults and children with disabilities told the Contra Costa Times about the allegations.

Meanwhile, Garrido's attorney said she considers Dugard and her two children members of her family and now misses them, according to her attorney.

"What she said that I can tell you about is there came a time when she felt like they were a family, and she loves the girls very much and she loved Jaycee very much." Gilbert Maines, Nancy Garrido's attorney, told NBC's The Today Show. "That seems a little strange, given the circumstances, but that's what she said to me."

LOOK

A Glimpse Into the Jaycee Lee Dugard Mystery

Nancy and Phillip Garrido pleaded not guilty last week to 29 felony accounts, including kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment. Maines said that Nancy is distraught, scared and a bit lost. He will have Nancy undergo a mental evaluation to determine whether she is competent to stand trial.

Nancy's husband, Phillip, is accused of raping Dugard and fathering her two children. In the last week, Phillip Garrido has been painted as the villain in this creepy case, but detectives are now looking further at the role Nancy played in Authoritiesuction and 18-year confinement.

Investigators believe Nancy Garrido was the one who snatched Jaycee off the street outside her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991 when Jaycee was just 11 years old.

Authorities say she watched over Dugard for four months while Philip Garrido went back to prison for a parole violation.

Neighbors say they rarely saw Nancy during the Garridos' 18 years on Walnut Street in Antioch. But those who worked with her when she was a state-licensed nursing aide at Contra Costa ARC said were shocked that she could be involved in any crime.

"She was a good employee and she was well-liked by the people she worked with," Barbara Maizie, executive director of Contra Costa ARC, told the Contra Costa Times. "They cannot believe that this is possible. They're totally shocked."

Garrido worked at ARC from December 1994 to March 1998, and treated only adults, Maizie said.

During that period, Nancy and Phillip met when she was visiting her uncle at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, where Pillip was serving time for a 1976 rape charge.

A neighbor told the Times that she left the job to care for her bedridden mother-in-law.

Garrido's job may explain why Dugard's two babies, now 11 and 15, are so healthy when there are no records of them ever seeing a doctor. But a spokesman for California's Department of Public Health told the Times Garrido was never trained in assisting with childbirth.

See complete coverage of the case on our special section.