Cops eye case similar to Jaycee Dugard's

HAYWARD, Calif., Sept. 2 (UPI) -- California authorities are examining similarities between the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard and another child who was kidnapped around the same time in 1988.

Dugard, now 29, was found alive imprisoned in the backyard of Phillip Garrido of Antioch, Calif. Police say Garrido held her there for 18 years and fathered two children by her, and they're eyeing possible links between Dugard's kidnapping at age 11 in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., and the 1988 abduction of a 7-year-old girl in Hayward, Calif., the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News reported Wednesday.

Hayward Police Lt. Chris Orrey said that like Dugard, Michaela Garecht had long, blond hair and was yanked from the street into a stranger's large sedan.

"The fact both kidnappings happened in broad daylight, the similarity of the car, the area, the fact (Garrido) was released from prison a few months before Michaela was taken," Orrey told the newspaper. And, "if you look at the pictures of Jaycee and Michaela, they could be sisters."

Orrey said Garrido, who has pleaded not guilty to charges he abducted Dugard, was living in Oakland at the time of Michaela's disappearance, only a short distance from Hayward.