Madness of wanting to be normal: Nancy Garrido’s make-believe family

In his first 90-minute interview with Nancy Garrido, the wife of Phillip Garrido, her lawyer Gilbert Maines reported: "She has said to me she misses the girls, that she loves them and her feeling was they had become a family. They acted like a family. It seems strange given the circumstances but that's it. She's distraught, frightened, and appeared to be a little lost."

The 'circumstances' Maines refers to are the discovery last week that Phillip and Nancy Garrido had abducted 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard in South Lake Tahoe in 1991, and held her captive in ramshackle tents and sheds at the bottom of their Californian garden.

The 'family' consists of Jaycee Lee Dugard's two daughters, 15-year-old Starlet and 11-year-old Angel, fathered by Phillip Garrido and raised as if they were Nancy's children and Jaycee Lee Dugard was their older sister.

The dispute now is whether Nancy was a victim of what Maines describes as her husband's "suppressive control" or whether she was a willing accomplice. Whatever the ultimate verdict, Nancy is named in the 29 felony charges, including forcible rape, that have been made against her husband and herself.

Neighbours describe Nancy as very quiet, depressed and anxious looking, and in the shadow of her husband, deferring to him when asked any questions. Phillip Garrido's brother described Nancy as a "robot" who was "under his [brother's] spell" and would do "anything he asked."

There seems to be no doubt that Nancy's compliance towards her husband was extreme. There is also a striking resemblance between Nancy's "robotic" mindlessness and the mindlessness presented by the two daughters, who had never gone to school, never seen a doctor and were rarely seen outside their sound-proofed tent.

Nancy’s choice of husband indicates that she had a powerful capacity for denial

This mindlessness was maintained within the restricted family environment that allowed only minimal contact with the outside world. Typical to children who have grown up being abused, this was their only experience of being in a family and being cared for and, as such, perceived as "normal".

On the other hand, Jaycee Lee Dugard had not grown up in this kind of environment and was forced to assimilate the madness of her new environment in order to survive both physically and mentally. While Jaycee Lee Dugard was "brainwashed", as a new member of a tyrannical and perverse regime, her daughters, and possibly Nancy, had never known anything different.

Nancy is thought to have been actively involved in Jaycee's abduction and subsequent incarceration. She is suspected of being in the car and physically kidnapping Dugard while her husband was driving. She witnessed her husband's sexual abuse