By John Simerman
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 09/02/2009 05:16:13 PM PDT
Updated: 09/02/2009 06:11:48 PM PDT
If she helped strip a young girl of her innocence and perpetrated a heinous, 18-year-long crime that has shocked the world, Nancy Garrido never showed it when she arrived at work to help people who couldn't help themselves.
Nancy Garrido worked as a state-licensed aide for a respected nonprofit agency that serves 1,000 adults and children with disabilities, mostly in Contra Costa County, even as police say she helped Phillip Garrido keep Jaycee Dugard isolated and under sexual attack for years, authorities say.
She worked full-time for Contra Costa ARC from December 1994 until March 1998, arriving with stellar references as a nursing aide and physical therapy aide, said Barbara Maizie, the agency's executive director.
"The people who received services through her, they liked her very much. She was a good employee and she was well-liked by the people she worked with," Maizie said. "They cannot believe that this is possible. They're totally shocked."
Maizie said Nancy Garrido worked with adults only. She arrived with a valid California Nurse Aide license, a history of nursing home work and a long résumé with both in-state and out-of-state references dating to 1981, Maizie said.
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When Nancy Garrido first came to work at the Martinez-based agency, Dugard was in her teens and having the first of two girls that Phillip Garrido fathered, living in a hidden backyard lair of tents and shacks behind the Garridos' Walnut Avenue house in unincorporated Contra Costa County, police say.
Among the 29 felony charges that El Dorado County prosecutors leveled against the couple last week is a count of forcible rape against Nancy Garrido from the month she began work at the agency, and six other counts of forcible rape against Nancy or Phillip Garrido during her tenure.
Both pleaded not guilty on Friday and are being held without bail.
Maizie declined to detail Nancy Garrido's personnel file, citing privacy concerns. She said the agency ran a state background check when it hired Garrido; it came back clean.
"Just 'shock' and 'disbelief' are the two words that come to mind," Maizie said of the allegations.
Maizie would not to say why Nancy Garrido left the agency. But a neighbor, Helen Boyer, 78, told The Associated Press that she stopped to become the primary caregiver to Phillip Garrido's bedridden mother, Patricia Franzen.
Boyer said she knew Franzen for more than 30 years and often saw Nancy Garrido.
Nancy Garrido's training could help explain how Dugard could deliver two babies and now have two healthy daughters, ages 11 and 15, even though authorities said none of them had seen a doctor.
A spokesman for the state Department of Public Health said Nancy Garrido was certified as a nurse assistant in California beginning in March 1989, until she failed to renew her license in 1995. Her training did not include assisting with childbirth, said spokesman Ken August. more at link:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_13255972