He had her for 18 years. We had her for just 11

The woman was Jaycee Dugard,the authorities say,and on Friday,Garrido,58,and his wife,Nancy,54,were arraigned on more than two dozen counts of kidnapping,rape,false imprisonment and other charges in connection with Dugards abduction in 1991. She was 11.

Dugard and her two daughters both fathered by Garrido had been living in a squalid compound hidden behind the single-storey house. Her seemingly normal interaction with customers of Garridos printing business was just one of the many revelations on Friday in the bizarre and unfolding story about her life over the last 18 years.

Dugards stepfather,Carl Probyn,who had been watching from a distance when Dugard was abducted near their home,said that Dugard had told her mother,Terry Probyn,that her rescue had unleashed a tangle of emotions. Dugard was reunited with her real family after revealing her identity to Garridos parole officer on Wednesday,but she has not spoken publicly.

Jaycee expressed some regret,like guilt when she saw her mother,that she hadnt escaped, Probyn said. She is feeling guilt for having bonded with this guy the way she did. He had her for 18 years. We had her for 11.

According to the authorities,Dugard,29,and her children,11 and 15,lived in a dirt-floor compound about the size of a tennis court and consisting of several ragged tents,hand-built sheds and small efforts at creature comforts: a set of wind chimes and a dingy couch.

Probyn said Dugard had told her mother that she sometimes was forced to live in a box,and the police said that at least one of the sheds was soundproof. As investigators prowled the compound this week,a wire cage could be seen next to a tent.

Even as Garrido a convicted sex offender who had recently taken to posting religious rants on the Internet and his wife pleaded not guilty on Friday in the kidnapping case,the police searched their home for clues in a string of nine murders. The killings,from 1998 to 2002,involved mostly prostitutes,many of whom were sexually violated,said Capt Daniel Terry of the investigations unit of the Contra Costa County Sheriffs Department.

Investigators said the victims bodies had been found in industrialised areas of the cities of Pittsburg and Bay Point,which are near Antioch. Captain Terry said that the method of killing was similar in many of the murders,and that the police believed that Garrido once worked at the location where several of the bodies were found.

In a news conference on Friday,Sheriff Warren E Rupf of Contra Costa County offered a blunt assessment of his departments performance,saying it had not adequately investigated a 911 call in 2006 reporting that Garrido was a psychotic sex addict who was housing children in tents in his backyard.

How Dugard and her children lived outside in a lot surrounded by other homes without detection for nearly two decades,as the authorities suspect,remains one of the questions in the case.

With a criminal record dating to the 1970s,including convictions for rape and kidnapping,Garrido was on federal parole. His arrest on Wednesday came after he attracted attention from the campus police at the University of California,Berkeley,two days before,when he wanted to hand out religious pamphlets.

The way that the backyard was arranged,he basically cut the property in two, said Gordon Hinkle,a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Hinkle. It was very camouflaged with trees. It was a very stealth operation.

Neighbours and acquaintances said they knew all too well that Garrido was an eccentric character his nickname in the neighborhood was creepy Phil but had little clue as to the depth of his alleged depravity.