Dugard's captors given near-life terms

PLACERVILLE, Calif. -- Phillip and Nancy Garrido were sentenced to virtual life prison terms yesterday shortly after Jaycee Dugard excoriated the pair through her mother, capping a whirlwind case that captured hearts and imaginations after Dugard surfaced and revealed she spent nearly two decades sexually abused and held in captivity in Antioch, Calif.

"I hated every second of every day of 18 years because of you and the sexual perversion you forced on me," Dugard wrote in letter, read by her mother in the packed courtroom.

Phillip Garrido, 60, received a sentence of 431 years to life in prison, while Nancy Garrido, 55, was sentenced to 36 years to life in prison, all in accordance with their guilty pleas made in April in a courtroom in El Dorado County, which encompasses the South Lake Tahoe neighborhood where Dugard was kidnapped in 1991.

At the nearly two-hour sentencing, Dugard's mother, Terry Probyn, read what is the longest and most expressive commentary by Dugard to date:

"I chose not to be here today because I refuse to waste another second of my life in your presence," Dugard wrote.

"Nancy, to facilitate his behavior and trick young girls for his pleasure is evil," Probyn read from her daughter's statement. "Phillip, I say that I have always been a thing for your own amusement. . . . For all the crimes you have both committed I hope you have as many sleepless nights as I did. . . . You do not matter any more."

Nancy Garrido sobbed as she sat in an orange jumpsuit. Phillip Garrido looked down and sat stoically.

At the hearing was UC Berkeley police Officer Allison Jacobs, one of two officers whose quick thinking when approached on campus by Phillip Garrido and the two daughters he had with Dugard led to a parole check and the unraveling of the saga.