The 58-year-old lived quietly with his wife, Nancy, and what neighbours believed to be their children in an unremarkable house in Walnut Avenue in Antioch, California.
To some of those around him he was a friendly but eccentric man, with a love of opera, and strong – if unusual – religious views.
But reportedly nicknamed him "creepy Phil".
They did not know he was a convicted sex offender and rapist on lifetime federal parole.
Neighbours were vague about basic facts such as how many children he had, and even his parole officer who visited him inside the compound never guessed at the existence of a network of tents and sheds concealed behind shrubs in which Jaycee Lee Dugard spent the last 18 years, alongside her two children.
Residents remembered hearing him bursting into passages of opera from inside his house, according to reports.
He occasionally handed them hand made religious tracts and, when asked about the children, said that he traditional ideas about bringing them up.
Even those nearest to the family glimpsed the girls, whom he said were home schooled, rarely if ever.
With bars on his windows visible from the outside, he said that he forbade them to watch television or venture out.
But to most they were just kind, helpful neighbours.
"If I needed something, they would be the first I would call on," said Helen Boyer, 78.
"They were real good neighbours, real nice people."
But it was during one such apparent act of kindness that Haydee Perry, 35, who lives next door, was surprised to see him with a young girl who told her that Garrido was her father and that she had older sisters.
"She stayed close to him at all times, ' Miss Perry was quoted as saying.
"It wasn't normal behaviour. She had a blank stare on her face. Now it seems like a cry out for help."
To clients of his printing business Garrido's claims about having an unusual gift about being able to to control sound with his mind had become a familiar theme.
He toured their offices and businesses demonstrating his "gift" with the help of a sound generator device and even appears to have persuaded several of them to sign declarations confirming that they too had heard the "unearthly" voices.
Tim Allen, president of East County Glass and Window in Pittsburgh, who bought business cards and letterhead from him, said: "In the last couple years he started getting into this strange religious stuff. We kind of felt sorry for him."
He added: "He rambled. It made no sense .... We never thought anything bad about the guy. He was just kind of nutty."
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