kidnap/rape investigation. The experienced forty-year-old robbery/homicide detective had been sleeping when he’d received the call. He immediately drove to Reno Police headquarters to be briefed by Officer Clifford Conrad.
“I was called out in the middle of the night,” recalled DeMaranville, “and asked to lead the investigation.”
A few blocks away at Washoe Medical Center, Katie Callaway was undergoing forensic rape tests by Dr. Boss of the Reno CSI unit.
Her wrists were carefully photographed, as well as the numerous scratches and bruises all over her body. And a cutting of what remained of her pubic hair was taken.
After the forensic testing was completed, Sergeant Saunier drove her to Reno Police Headquarters. At 5:40 A.M . she was interviewed by Detective DeMaranville and his assistant, Officer Carolyn Jean Carlon. And over the next two hours Phillip Garrido’s victim described her terrible ordeal at his hands in graphic detail.
She told the investigators how she had unwittingly given him a ride the previous evening in South Lake Tahoe, after he’d said his car had broken down. Frequently bursting into tears, she described how he had lured her to an empty lot before taking her prisoner.
“He told me all he wanted was a piece of ass,” she said. “And if I did all that he asked I wouldn’t get hurt. He said that he had come to Lake Tahoe specifically for the purpose of abducting a girl.”
She then detailed her long, terrifying ride to Garrido’s warehouse in Reno, and how he had boasted of spending weeks preparing for her arrival. The detectives took notes as she described the six hours of almost nonstop violent acts of rape she had endured.
“It was a sexual fantasy that he had planned,” she told them. “He held my arms down to the bed with the weight of his body.”
She said Phillip Garrido had raped her both vaginally and anally, as well as using his fingers and a vibrator to penetrate her.
“He just kept doing the same things over and over,” she sobbed. “He drank quite a bit of wine and he became somewhat intoxicated, and when he became intoxicated he became more forceful and mean.”
And she told investigators she was certain that Officer Conrad’s timely intervention at the warehouse had saved her life.
Toward the end of the interview, Detective DeMaranville asked her if Garrido had ever mentioned doing anything like this previously, or taking girls to his warehouse. Katie said he had admitted doing something similar to two other girls, saying he had not harmed either one.
“He said he was very happily married,” she told them, “and that he was a musician and that only his wife knew where he was, and that if she had to come bail him out of jail in the morning, she would know why.”
At 7:30 A.M ., Detective DeMaranville turned off the tape recorder and concluded the interview. The still distraught Katie Callaway was then taken to the office of Washoe County deputy district attorney Mike Malloy, where she gave an affidavit statement to support a search warrant. Then finally she was released to her parents.
But just a few hours later, she had to relive her ordeal, when Reno FBI agents reinterviewed her. As the alleged crime crossed state lines, the case would also be going to a federal grand jury.
Meanwhile Katie Callaway’s blue Ford Pinto had been towed to the Reno Police Department Crime Laboratory. After being first processed for fingerprints, the vehicle was thoroughly searched and photographed.
On the floor behind the driver’s seat, investigators found the key to the Master padlock of Phillip Garrido’s unit 39 warehouse. This supported Callaway’s evidence that her attacker had broken into his warehouse after losing his key.
Investigators also found the strap Garrido had used to tie up his victim on the passenger front seat. And there were beer batter stains on the seat that had spilled from Katie’s crock pot during the attack. Other traces of the batter
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