San Francisco, Feb 25 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Jaycee Dugard’s kidnapper has “a serious mental illness” and “may not be competent to be a defendant,” his defense lawyer said in court papers filed on Wednesday. Susan Gellman who is a deputy public defender in El Dorado County, assessed Phillip Garrido’s fitness to stand trial. She also said that she shouldn’t ought to be banned from trying to contact Jaycee, because Phillip Gariido is not using her in order to manipulate Jaycee from jail.

“The district attorney is making the very same mistake that parole authorities made concerning Mr. Garrido for many years. He is ignoring the signs of serious mental illness. It appears that Phillip Garrido has been hearing voices of angels for years.” Gellman said, and she also added that Phillip’s acts are not manipulative at all. Gellman had filed these papers, as a retaliation to the prosecutors who want a protective order that would keep her as well as Garrido, from attempting to communicate with Jaycee, either directly or indirectly. She instead asked the judge to ask the district attorney to provide her with Jaycee’s address, or to appoint a neutral party as an intermediary between her and Jaycee.

However the District Attorney Vern Pierson said that Garrido is a “master manipulator” who wants to intimidate Jaycee Dugard, so that she doesn’t cooperate with the authorities in this case.