Phillip Garrido, the sex offender charged with kidnapping 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard from in 1991 and holding her captive for 18 years, will plead guilty Thursday and spend the rest of his life in prison, says the San Francisco Chronicle. Stephen Tapson, who represents Garrido’s wife, Nancy, said that it appears likely she will stand trial.
Tapson said prosecutors and defense attorneysare arguing over the sentence for Phillip Garrido, 59, “whether it will be 500 or 600” years. Michael Cardoza, an ex-prosecutor, said a decision by Garrido to plead guilty would probably be motivated by a desire to keep the details of the case out of news headlines, and by the hope that his plea could help his wife’s case. “When he goes off to state prison, he doesn’t want all of the information about the case to be fresh in the minds of state prisoners – they, too, watch the news and read the newspapers [ ] and one thing about the hierarchy of the state prison system is real clear: Anything to do with children puts you at the lowest level.”