Sex slave tip-off: 'girls stared into my soul'

Two American policewomen say they became suspicious of accused kidnapper Phillip Garrido when his young daughters' behaviour caused them to feel "weird and uneasy".

Garrido, 58, and his wife Nancy, 54, pleaded not guilty yesterday to 29 alleged offences including kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment, following the discovery of Jaycee Lee Dugard on Wednesday.

The blonde schoolgirl was snatched outside her home in 1991 aged 11, and was imprisoned for 18 years.

During her captivity Garrido fathered two daughters, aged 11 and 15, with Ms Dugard.

The police officers saw Garrido with the two young girls at the University of California at Berkeley on Wednesday (local time).

Garrido was trying to hand out religious literature propounding claims he was able to channel the voice of God.

Allie Jacobs says something about the girls did not feel right.

"They were extremely pale. In comparison to Phillip they were extremely, extremely pale," she said.

"[They had] bright blue eyes just like him, and I just got a weird uneasy feeling.

"I was looking at the younger daughter, who was sitting across from me, and she was staring directly at me.

"It was almost like she was looking into my soul - that's how her eyes were so penetrating."

Ms Jacobs says the girls told her they did not go to school, but were given lessons at home.

She says the younger daughter sounded robotic and rehearsed when she explained a bruise around her eye as a birth defect.

Garrido was subsequently summoned to a meeting Wednesday with his parole officer.

The parole officer, having previously visited the Garrido home, found it strange that in addition to his wife Nancy he brought along two girls and a woman he called "Allissa."

Ms Dugard's real identity emerged during the course of the meeting and Garrido and his wife Nancy were detained.

Garrido is now also being investigated over the deaths of prostitutes in the 1990s.

However, questions are now mounting about how Garrido was able to hold Ms Dugard captive for 18 years, along with the two girls she bore him, despite neighbours' warnings to police that something was amiss.

Secret garden

Ms Dugard was confined in a makeshift prison of sheds and tents in what police have described as a "backyard within a backyard" at Garrido's home in Antioch, around 80 kilometres east of San Francisco.

Police in Contra Costa County admitted on Friday that they had received a tip in November 2006 and failed to follow it up properly.

Sheriff Warren Rupf issued an apology over the missed opportunity to rescue Ms Dugard, saying law enforcement officials were distraught over their failure to discover Garrido's crimes earlier.

"I can't change the course of events, but we are beating ourselves up over this and are the first to do so," Mr Rupf said.

Mr Rupf said the sheriff's deputy who responded to the tip never entered the house or checked the backyard, missing an opportunity to rescue Ms Dugard.

Others of Garrido's neighbours said they had no idea that anything was wrong.

"It's kind of embarrassing to be here this long and not know what's going on. How could that go on under all of our noses?," one neighbour, who gave his name only as Steve, said.

New details suggested that Garrido was able to cultivate a normal public persona, taking on jobs and even allowing Ms Dugard to interact with other people.

A man who once hired Garrido for a printing job told The New York Times on Saturday that he had met, exchanged emails and regularly spoken on the phone with a woman who was introduced as Garrido's daughter Allissa.

Ben Daughdrill said the woman never suggested that she was being held captive or tried to identify herself as Ms Dugard.

Her stepfather Carl Probyn said Ms Dugard appeared to have formed a relationship of sorts with her abductor.

"Jaycee feels that she has real regrets for bonding with this guy," Mr Probyn told reporters outside his home in Orange, south of Los Angeles.

Mr Probyn said Ms Dugard, who was reunited with her mother and half-sister on Friday, was struggling to come to terms with what had been inflicted upon her and experts said it could take years for her to recover.