Calif. police expand search in kidnapping case (AP)

[Yahoo! News]

AP - Armed with rakes, shovels and chain saws, about 20 officers on Sunday combed the backyard of a couple charged with kidnapping and raping Jaycee Lee Dugard and used cadaver dogs to search an adjoining property where neighbors say one of the suspects once served as a caretaker.

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Sheriff's deputies and prosecutors from two counties and officers from two city police departments were using the dogs, shovels and other tools to inspect the neighboring yard, which sits behind an off-white house with a chain link fence.

"We do consider it a crime scene," said Jimmy Lee, a spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department.

Lee would not elaborate on what kind of evidence investigators were seeking or the nature of the possible crimes involving the second property. The link to the kidnapping case is that Phillip Garrido, the man charged with holding Dugard in captivity for 18 years in his own backyard, had access to the neighboring land when the house that sits on it was vacant three years ago.

"It looks like Garrido lived on the property in a shed," Lee said.