Anyone seeking a deeper look into the mind of Phillip Garrido, accused kidnapper of Jaycee Dugard, may get a chill down their spine when they examine the lyrics he penned while trying to make a name for himself as a singer-songwriter.
Garrido is charged with abducting Jaycee, then 11, in 1991, and then holding her captive in a squalid tent environment in his backyard for 18 years and fathering two daughters with her. His Aug. 26 arrest prompted former business associate Marc Lister to dig out some old CDs Garrido had given him three years ago in hopes of taking advantage of a connection of Lister’s in the music industry.
“I played them, and I listened very closely to the lyrics and realized he had written the songs, I believe, about Jaycee and her daughters and possibly some of his activities in the past — which is absolutely horrifying,” Lister told Matt Lauer on TODAY via satellite from Walnut Creek, Calif., Wednesday.
‘Just horrified’
“Every pretty face, in the human race, being abused, and used as devices,” went one of Garrido’s songs, played in a frantic rockabilly style. Another lyric went, “For every little girl in the world, they want to be in love, you’re just the same, go play a game, just tell me that you want me, c’mon babe, I’m just insane, I’m crying out to you.”
While Jaycee Dugard is now reunited with her family, Garrido, 58, and his wife Nancy, 54, are charged with 29 criminal counts, including forcible abduction and rape. Each has entered not guilty pleas in El Dorado County, Calif., Superior Court. Lister said in the 15 years he had known Garrido, he never sensed anything suspicious — he had even visited Garrido’s home and met Jaycee in the process. Accompanied by Garrido, Jaycee had even come by the glass repair shop Lister owned in Antioch, Calif.
But Lister listened to Garrido’s recordings with a different ear after learning of his arrest. He told Lauer Garrido had originally given him the CDs hoping to hit the big time as a singer. When Garrido was previously arrested for kidnapping and sexual assault — charges he was later convicted on and served 11 years before being released in 1988 — he listed his occupation as “musician.”
After getting no nibbles toward a recording contract, Lister tried to return the recordings to Garrido, but he told Lister to keep them, saying, “Someday they will be worth millions.”
Denies profit motive
After digging the CDs, containing 20 songs, out of storage, Lister and a friend began transcribing the lyrics. “I had really never played the songs in their entirety, nor did I try to decipher the lyrics in the songs,” he told Lauer.
What they heard made their jaws drop. “Oh little dumplin’, you know you’re something/your little butt’s cold, its cause is mental, adoring drives ’em absolutely wild,” went the lyrics of one song.
Lister stressed to Lauer that he did not consider Garrido a friend; he had done glass repair work at Garrido’s home and Garrido, who ran a printing business, had lobbied Lister for printing work on business cards.
Lister insisted to Lauer that he’s not trying to profit from the now-infamous Garrido’s songs — although the public could possibly hear some of them in exchange for donations to Jaycee’s family and other similar victims.
“My intent is not to sell the songs on the CDs or anything else,” Lister asserted. “My intention was to use these CDs, the music on them, to generate donations toward Jaycee, her family and abused women and children. The money received would not benefit myself; it would go to a foundation.”