by John Glatt
That would be Nancy’s first and only entry on “Talent Revealed.”
Three days later, retired police officer turned private investigator Ralph Hernandez arrived at 1554 Walnut Avenue, to meet his new client. For the enterprising Phillip Garrido had decided to patent his black box invention, to finance his God’s Desire Church. So he had contacted Antioch-based Aardvark Investigations & Consulting company, which he found in the Yellow Pages. He then hired the sixty-one-year-old ex-cop to interview his clients, who had once witnessed his demonstrations, and prepare a report to be submitted as part of his patent application.
While Phillip Garrido was expounding the unearthly qualities of his black box to the P.I., Nancy and a blonde teenage girl walked in.
“I sat in the living room,” recalled Hernandez. “It seemed a typical ranch-style house, nothing unusual for that neighborhood.”
Garrido became very “excited,” as he showed the private investigator his black box, explaining how it allowed him to talk to angels. The private eye thought him an intelligent man with deep religious convictions, if perhaps a little eccentric.
“He wanted to start a church,” said Hernandez, “or ministry.”
Garrido volunteered that he was on parole but lied, claiming it was because he had assaulted someone in an argument. Later P.I. Hernandez said he had seen nothing abnormal during his visit.
Over the next few weeks, Hernandez personally interviewed five of the eight Printing For Less clients who had witnessed Garrido’s demonstrations.
And on March 15, he submitted his confidential investigation report to his client.
“Each reaffirmed,” he wrote, “that they did in person witness Mr. Garrido’s presented demonstration, experienced its results and acknowledged playing their individual and honest signatures on their own individual Declarations.”
A week earlier Phillip Garrido had called 911, after his ailing eighty-seven-year-old mother had fallen down.
“My mom,” stammered a worried Phillip Garrido, after the emergency dispatcher asked what the problem was. “She’s not responding . . . her eyes are open and she looks like she’s breathing really hard.”
The Antioch Fire Department responded to the house to help the aged woman. It would be the first of half a dozen distress calls either Phillip or Nancy would make over the next year, as Pat Franzen’s health declined further.
On April 14, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation fitted Phillip Garrido with a GPS ankle bracelet, in line with Jessica’s Law. But given his previous assessment as a low-risk sex offender, he was placed on a passive GPS monitoring system. Under the program, Garrido had to obtain prior permission from the parole department before traveling more than twenty-five miles from his home.
Phillip Garrido would breach the “electronic zone,” which had been placed around 1554 Walnut Avenue, numerous times without any comeback from his parole officer.
The Concord Parole Department had also programmed the system to send out an alert if he left his house between midnight and 7:00 A.M. And over the next fourteen months, agents received fourteen alerts that he had broken his electronic curfew. But no action was taken on any of them.
Betty Upingco, whose daughter had discovered Garrido was a registered sex offender, says she often saw her neighbor out late at night, prowling around the neighborhood.
“I’d see him walking down the street at eleven o’clock at night,” she recalled. “I don’t know what he’s doing. Sometimes I would see him come back and sometime I never saw him again. Then I started freaking out.”
On April 24, Phillip Garrido officially registered his Church of God’s Desire as a nonprofit religious organization, with him as company president. The incorporation papers were officially witnessed by Debra Bowen, the Secretary of State of the State of California, and an official state seal was affixed to the certificate.
“God’s Desire,” wrote Garrido on his blog that day, “is an established incorporation and is protected under the constitutions [sic], first amendments rights.”
One of the first people he told was his older brother, Ron, boasting that his new church was going to make him rich. He also sent his church’s articles of incorporation to his newly assigned parole agent, Juan Castillo, informing him that he would now be working full-time on church business.
“If my family needs me to assist in the printing business,” he told the agent, “I will provide deliveries from time to time.”
He wrote that he would now be devoting himself to “preparing the body of knowledge” and “the principles behind the creators’ desires and qualities to be presented by my church.”
Then along with the letter to his parole agent, he enclosed his vehicle registration slip.
He also told Tim Allen he was getting out of the printing business, so he could preach full-time.
“He rambled,” said Allen. “It made no sense.”
On May 5, Phillip Garrido posted investigator Ralph Hernandez’s report, as well as a copy of his clients’ affidavits, on the Internet. After pointing out his investigator was not affiliated with his black box project in any way, Garrido warned of possible legal action against anyone who publicly spoke out against it.
“Please consider it slanderous and malicious in nature,” he wrote, “to speak against this truth as it would be misleading to the public and a serious violation of our civil rights . . . a person can and will be held liable.”
On May 15, California parole agent Juan Castillo paid his first visit to 1554 Walnut Avenue to check on his GPS monitoring strap. Agent Castillo visited again on May 30, when he was told by Nancy that Phillip was out.
When Castillo came again at 7:17 A.M. on June 6, there was no answer when he rang the doorbell, so he left one of his business cards on the front door. The following day he returned at 7:44 A.M.
“[Garrido] was acting very strange,” he later wrote in his report, “weird to say the least by ranting on about God and loudly singing songs. Other than that, nothing out of the ordinary.”
When Agent Castillo next visited at 8:53 A.M. on June 17, he was surprised to see a young blonde child there. He asked who she was, and Phillip explained it was his brother’s daughter, and he was taking care of her.
“[The parolee], wife, 12 year old female niece and mother present,” the agent wrote in his report. “[I] conducted a visual cursory search by walking around the entire house with negative results. [I] questioned [parolee] about young girl whom he states is his brother’s daughter.”
The next time Agent Castillo visited Walnut Avenue, at 6:56 P.M. on July 17, Nancy was armed with a video recorder, and Phillip told him she would be videotaping everything that happened.
“[Parolee’s] wife was present,” Castillo reported later. “She states she is going to video tape and record me.”
The agent then carried out a “brief visual cursory search” of the Garrido house “with negative results.”
Four days later, Phillip Garrido came to the parole office in Concord at midday, where he was fingerprinted and his DNA taken.
Agent Castillo’s next visit to Garrido’s home was at 8:13 A.M. August 5, where he saw Phillip and Nancy Garrido and Pat Franzen. Once again Nancy videotaped him conducting another “visual cursory search,” with the same negative results as before.
On August 15, Agent Castillo reported an early morning visit, writing how Phillip Garrido “displays real strange behavior.” On his next visit at 9:16 A.M. on September 10, he wrote that Garrido “is really weird acting.”
And when the agent arrived at 7:36 A.M. on September 26, he found Garrido outside in his driveway drawing oil out of his car.
“No changes,” he later reported, “but displays strange behavior.”
That summer Phillip Garrido started taking Angel, now fourteen, and Starlit, almost eleven, with him on his client rounds.
“He brought them in a few times,” recalled Tim Allen. “I met them. I shook their hands and everything.
They were very, very beautiful . . . with bright blonde hair and striking blue eyes. And their facial expressions and everything were just perfect.”
The two girls always wore unfashionably long dresses that fell below their knees.
“They wore clothing that looked homemade,” recalled Allen. “Their hair was washed and combed and they didn’t look dirty. They were very polite. A little bit shy but not like they were scared.”
Whenever they arrived at Allen’s showroom, Garrido would park his old gray Dodge van outside in the lot, and then walk in with his daughters. The younger, Starlit, had a birthmark on her forehead she always covered with her blonde bangs. She also stayed close to her father, holding his hand, while Angel stood just behind him.
“They were two well-mannered little girls,” said Cheyvonne Molino. “They would come in my office and use my computer, while Dad was on his errands. The little one was very, very talkative. The big one was quiet.”
During the hot weather, Garrido started bringing bottles of water for his customers, sending one of the girls to collect them from his van and then leave them on the client’s counter.
“All of a sudden he started bringing the water to all his customers,” said Cheyvonne. “It was something that he was teaching them. He never went into details.”
One day the girls proudly told Cheyvonne that their father had started a church in the basement. She asked how many church members there were.
“There are five of us,” replied Angel. “Our dad is the minister.”
While Nancy stayed at home with Alyssa, Phillip Garrido began taking his daughters on outings to the San Francisco Aquarium, followed by meals at the Hometown Buffet in Concord. He also took them to the library, the beach, and to see movies at a nearby mall.
And according to Deepal Karunaratne, Alyssa also took her daughters out for day trips while Phillip stayed home, working on church business.
“Sometime when I call Alyssa is not there,” he said. “And Phillip answers and says today is the girls’ day out. They go out to the movies, shopping and eat out and come back.”
Once Deepal received a call from Phillip Garrido, asking for a ride, as his car had broken down in Concord. As the realtor was in Brentwood at the time, he asked Garrido to take a bus and meet him halfway.
“So I picked him up from Pittsburg,” recalled Deepal. “And the whole family were there so I gave them a ride.”
Angel and Starlit were now often seen shopping with their father at Kmart, a few blocks away from his home.
“The older girl was very clingy with him,” recalled Kmart cashier Survitrius Honeycutt. “And neither one would say anything. They didn’t have an expression.”
Honeycutt also remembered that Garrido occasionally came in alone, buying lubricants and other sex aids.
On several occasions, Deepal Karunaratne and his wife Mala would see Phillip and his daughters shopping in various stores on Deer Valley Road, Antioch.
“And I asked, ‘Hey Phillip, are they your kids?’ ” said Mala. “He said, ‘Yeah,’ and then he walked away.”
On July 10, a special task force, composed of several Costa County law enforcement agencies, did a sweep of known sex offenders in Antioch. Several deputies arrived unannounced at 1554 Walnut Avenue, searching every room of the house. Then they went in the backyard, not venturing past the eight-foot high back fence, as they had no idea the Garrido property line extended back any farther.
The officers later reported finding nothing suspicious at the house, and that Phillip Garrido, who had last registered as a sex offender three months earlier, was in full legal compliance.
On Saturday, July 19, Phillip Garrido staged an hour-long lecture and black box demonstration on the Berkeley campus at People’s Park. Two months earlier he had informed parole agent Castillo about the event, claiming he was exercising his constitutional rights to practice his religion.
“This presentation will gain national attention,” he told his parole officer, “bringing scientists, physicists, psychologists, educators and religious leaders from around the world, turning their attention toward California.”
He boasted that once the media printed his religious message, the state of Nevada would be engulfed in such a “public and political crisis,” he would be released from any further parole conditions.
He had invited the FBI and several University of California, Berkeley, departments to attend his Berkeley event, and was disappointed when none turned up. Ultimately it was less than earth-shattering, with Nancy, Alyssa and his two girls handing out pamphlets and bottles of water to the homeless and several curiosity seekers who wandered in.
When he returned home to Antioch, he posted a stirring account of his latest black box demonstration.
“I publicly disclosed new information,” announced Garrido on his Voices Revealed blog. “And provided a live demonstration. The lecture was designed to raise the awareness of the general public . . . to undermine the ignorance that prevails concerning voices and begin saving lives.”
Two days later, the new president of the God’s Desire Church held what he called a “Cultural Trance” for the skeptics who still refused to believe in the powers of his black box.
In his blog, he likened the nonbelievers to people who once believed the earth was flat. He urged them to forget their conditioning and preconceived ideas, so they could hear what they never heard before.
“In the days of Columbus,” he wrote, “everyone knew the earth was ‘flat.’ Today everyone knows it is not possible to produce voices for others to hear as experience clearly marked it as not possible.”
He also advised anyone “under the influence of illegal drugs, or if you think you are being led by voices,” to seek professional help immediately.
One afternoon Polly White, who shared her back fence with the Garridos, was spraying weeds in her garden when she looked through some broken boards in the fence and saw a little blonde girl, playing by the pool.
When the girl looked up and saw her, Polly said, “Hi, how are you?”
“Fine,” replied the girl.
“Are you getting ready to go swimming?” asked the pensioner.
“No,” said the girl.
Then Polly asked how old she was, and the girl replied ten.
“I have a little grandson that’s your age,” Polly told her. “Maybe you’d like to come over and play with him sometime?”
“No,” said the girl, shaking her head.
When Polly asked her name, she turned around and ran off.
The next day the fence had been boarded up. The Garrido backyard was no longer visible.
That October, parole agent Eddie Santos was assigned the difficult Phillip Garrido case. He first visited 1554 Walnut Avenue at 3:30 P.M. on November 26, meeting Garrido and his mother, finding “no new info” to report.
Later that day, he prepared a case review of Parolee Garrido. He found that Garrido, who was initially paroled on June 8, 1999, for rape, had a “stable residence,” lives with his wife and is unemployed. He advised he be kept at the “current level” of supervision.
From now on Agent Santos would visit Garrido’s home twice a month, as well as seeing him occasionally in his office for group meetings and drug testing.
That Halloween, Phillip Garrido dressed up in a gorilla costume and took his daughters trick-or-treating. At Christmas, he visited Deepal and Mala Karunaratne’s home with Nancy and Alyssa to exchange holiday gifts. Mala said Alyssa had visited their home on numerous occasions, but always with Nancy or Phillip. Phillip usually sat in the middle of the carpet, and started preaching from his Bible or singing his songs, much to the Karunaratnes’ annoyance.
A few months earlier, when their daughter had gotten married, Alyssa had done all the invitations for the shower and the wedding. So that Christmas they wanted to thank her.
“Alyssa had done so much printing for me,” recalled Mala, “so I thought I should give her a gift. She’s the most sweetest girl
that you ever could meet, so I told her to come.”
When Mala gave Alyssa her present, she opened it and became very emotional.
“She hugged me,” recalled Mala. “She said, ‘You don’t have to do this.’ I said, ‘I have to do more than this because your prices are so low.’ ”
35
THE SECOND COMING
As 2009 dawned, Phillip Garrido became obsessed with the Second Coming of Christ and the pivotal role he would play in it. He started preaching with a new intensity.
“He’d talk about the Second Coming,” recalled Lorenzo Love. “He said God’s coming back and will save people who do drugs and forgive them for their sins.”
Every couple of weeks he would arrive at Love’s towing company, and deliver an impromptu sermon.
“He believed that God did not judge you as you are,” said Christine Meacham. “He told us he had drugs, gambling and sex problems but through his church he was found and reborn. That the heavenly father was going to save him.”
But when no one appeared to be taking his message seriously, he became more and more upset.
“Phil was not getting the reception that he had anticipated,” said Marc Lister. “He was getting frustrated because people were just blowing him off. A lot of times he’d talk to me and he’d come to tears, as he kept saying, ‘You’ve got to believe me! You’ve got to believe me!’ ”
Lister now believes that all the years of smoking methamphetamine and taking other hard drugs were taking their toll. Although Lister says he has no firsthand knowledge that Garrido was manufacturing meth in his backyard, as later reported, it was easy enough to get in town.
“Every other house has dope in Antioch,” he said. “The place is a shithole. I mean you can buy it next door.”