Garrido dogs scent human remains

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Two dogs trained to hunt for human remains have found a possible scent at the California home of kidnap suspect Phillip Garrido, US police say.

Ground-penetrating radar will be used to search the spot identified by the cadaver dogs, a police spokesman said.

Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy are accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard when she was 11 and holding her captive in their backyard for 18 years.

They are also being investigated over the disappearance of two other girls.

Investigators have been carrying out an extensive search of the Garrido property in Antioch, north California, to try to find any evidence of links to Ilene Misheloff and Michaela Garecht, who disappeared separately in the 1980s.

Last month, police uncovered a hidden compound where Jaycee Dugard is alleged to have been kept, along with her two children who are believed to have been fathered by Mr Garrido.

Phillip Garrido , 58 - a convicted sex offender - and his wife Nancy, 54, both deny kidnap, rape and false imprisonment.

Bones found

Sgt JD Nelson, of Alameda County Sheriff's Department, said the dogs were trained to sniff for human remains, but warned that it was possible for them to give "false positives".

"They picked up a scent that may or may not be a sign of some remains," he was quoted by the AP as saying.

The Garridos have denied charges relating to the kidnap of Jaycee Dugard

"The first dog was very tentative on its indications. The second dog was more direct and indicating directly."

Sgt Nelson said high-tech radar equipment would be used on Friday to scan the site, and if it yielded results then the digging would begin.

Bones were found both at the Garrido residence and at an adjacent property on Wednesday, but it is not known whether they are animal or human and they are currently being analysed.

Michaela Garecht, nine, was abducted from outside a grocery store in Hayward, California, in 1988. A year later, 13-year-old Ilene Misheloff vanished in nearby Dublin.

Both areas, on the outskirts of San Francisco, are about 50 miles (80km) from the Garridos' home.

Jaycee Dugard was walking to catch a school bus from outside her home in South Lake Tahoe, close to the Nevada border, in 1991 when she was dragged into a car.