If we've learned anything about the abduction — and the 18-year captivity of Jaycee Lee Dugard — it's that you ought to follow your gut feelings.

Call it instinct, women's intuition, whatever. It took two University of California, Berkeley, police officers but a day to begin to unravel one of the most shocking kidnapping ordeals in years.

Others in California law enforcement — including the parole officer of convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido — didn't put the pieces together for nearly two decades, despite phone calls from neighbors that something was awry in his backyard. That enabled Garrido, 58, to allegedly hold a girl he abducted as an 11-year-old for 18 years without being detected. He and his wife, Nancy Garrido, 55, each face 29 felony charges including rape and kidnapping.

Perhaps most horrifying were the conditions under which Dugard lived for nearly two decades. She lived in tents and sheds in the Garridos' backyard. During her captivity in the hidden backyard compound, she gave birth to two girls, now 15 and 11. The Garridos told people that the children were theirs.

When police officers Lisa Campbell and Ally Jacobs encountered Phillip Garrido on the Berkeley campus last week, "Red flags went up," Jacobs said.

Campbell said she was concerned about the welfare of the girls, who were very subdued and not in school. Jacobs described the girls as "very pale." They wore drab and nondescript clothing and behaved as robots. Within a day of their initial meeting with Phillip Garrido, the officers contacted his parole officer, who was surprised to learn that the man he had been monitoring for years had two children.

Sadly, it wasn't the first time that someone had suspicions about Phillip Garrido. On Friday, the Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren E. Rupf acknowledged his department blew a chance to rescue Dugard after a complaint from a neighbor about children living in a complex of tents and sheds in the Garridos' backyard. The investigating officer dismissed it as a routine code violation.

The sheriff said more curiosity on the deputy's part could have uncovered the secret encampment where Dugard allegedly was held. There were "absolutely no excuses," Rupf said.

We may never know why the deputy sent to Phillip Garrido's home wasn't more diligent, particularly when the report concerned the welfare of children. Were there no red flags then?