Bone found in California kidnap case likely human

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A bone fragment found near the northern California property of the man accused of holding Jaycee Dugard captive for 18 years is "probably human," and its DNA will be compared with a state database of missing persons, authorities said on Wednesday.

The small piece of bone was found in a yard neighboring that of Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy, who are charged with abducting Dugard in 1991 and holding her for 18 years in a squalid complex of sheds and tents behind their home.

Dugard, who is now 29, resurfaced last month after Phillip Garrido, 58, aroused the suspicion of police while trying to proselytize at the University of California at Berkeley.

The case prompted police to spend several days digging around Garrido's home and a surrounding property, hunting for evidence connecting him to a series of unsolved murders. The sliver of bone was found during that search.

"We looked at it here at the coroners office and then had a forensic anthropologist look at it and she did say it was probably human," Contra Costa County Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said.

"Based on that we've decided to take it to the state DNA lab and have them look at it to see if they can develop a DNA profile and compare it the profiles in the database," Lee said.

Garrido, who served 10 years in federal prison for the rape of another woman, at one point lived in a shack on the property where the bone fragment was found.

Lee cautioned that it was not uncommon to find Native American remains in Contra Costa County, east of San Francisco, and that further tests would be required to determine the bone's age.

Phillip and Nancy Garrido, 54, have both pleaded not guilty to 29 criminal counts that include kidnapping for sexual purposes, forcible lewd acts and rape.

The couple is accused of snatching Dugard from a street near her South Lake Tahoe home on June 10, 1991, when she was 11, and keeping her captive in the makeshift compound behind their home for nearly two decades.

Authorities say Phillip Garrido fathered two girls with Dugard, who were also kept hidden in the warren of tents and sheds.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)