Phillip Craig Garrido, 58, and his wife, Nancy Garrido, 55, who live in an unincorporated area near Antioch, were arrested in connection with the case, authorities said. Phillip Garrido was being held in lieu of $1 million bail on suspicion of kidnapping, rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor, sexual penetration and conspiracy.

Nancy Garrido was being held on suspicion of conspiracy and kidnapping. Her bail was also $1 million. Both were initially booked into the Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez, but have since been moved to an undisclosed site.

Authorities were searching the Garridos' home today. Neighbors and other acquaintances described strange behavior by Phillip Garrido, who conducted religious revivals in a tent and said he had developed a device through which he could control sound with his mind.

The Garridos were arrested Wednesday after they walked into a state parole office in Concord with a woman and two small children, officials with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said. Phillip Garrido, a registered sex offender, had been summoned because someone reported suspicious activity involving him and the two children the day before at UC Berkeley, officials said.

"Diligent questioning" and further investigation by state authorities and Concord police revealed that the woman was Dugard and the children were Phillip Garrido's, officials said in a statement.

Officials said Garrido served time in Nevada for sexual assault and was paroled in June 1999. It was not immediately clear where Dugard may have been while Garrido was in custody.

Federal records also show that Garrido has a separate kidnapping conviction in 1980.

Dugard's mother and stepfather were joyful at the news their daughter had been found.

"I gave up hope for 18 years, just went into recovery mode," said her stepfather, Carl Probyn, a wallpaper contractor. "I thought it would be nice just to recover her and capture the people and find out why they did this.

"Now, I just won the lotto. It's just unbelievable. This is going to be a great day today."

Probyn, 60, who now lives in Orange (Orange County), said his wife, Terry, called him at about 4 p.m. Wednesday with the news.

"She basically said, 'Are you sitting down?' I said, 'Yes.' And she said, 'They found Jaycee - she's alive.' "

The two, who are separated, cried for about two minutes on the phone.

Terry Probyn was able to speak on the phone with her daughter. "She sounds normal. She told my wife she remembers everything," Carl Probyn said.

Terry Probyn, who also now lives in Southern California, was on her way to the Bay Area to reunite with her daughter.

Dugard was last seen June 10, 1991, as she was walking to a bus stop in South Lake Tahoe. The blond, blue-eyed 11-year-old, wearing a pink top and pink pants, was going to catch the bus to her school near South Lake Tahoe. She never made it.

As Carl Probyn watched from the family's driveway on a hill about two blocks away, a two-tone gray sedan pulled up and someone yanked the girl into the car and sped off. Even though officers responded within minutes, no trace of the car or girl was ever found - until Wednesday.

Neighbors of the Garridos on Walnut Avenue considered Phillip Garrido an oddball, saying he believed he could talk to God.

With its security bars on the windows and doors, the Garridos' gray, one-story home stands out from the others in the semi-rural neighborhood.

Haydee Perry, 35, who lives next door, said that when Phillip Garrido helped her jump-start her car a month ago, he had a pre-adolescent girl clinging to him in a manner that struck her as strange.

The girl told Perry that Garrido was her father and that she had older sisters, including one who was 28 - which is one year younger than Jaycee Dugard is believed to be now.

"She stayed close to him at all times," Perry said of the girl. "It wasn't normal behavior. She had a blank stare on her face. Now it seems like a cry out for help."

Perry said Garrido told her he homeschooled girls in his house and that they didn't cuss or watch TV.

"I just thought he was weird," Perry said. "You have children and they're never outside, and you have bars on your windows."

A Web site containing statements apparently from Garrido and others indicates that he gave a demonstration in Pittsburg last month to prove "the Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world."

Garrido also had a printing business, some acquaintances said. Tiffany Tran, who runs Furniture Gallery in Brentwood, said she had seen and done business with "Phil the printer" for six years, as recently as last week.

She recalled Garrido as being "a little different" and said he constantly talked about religion and showed her a device through which he claimed could control sound with his mind.

"Some people have a story behind their smile, some don't - he did," Tran said. "He was happy-go-lucky, but you knew there was a story behind it."

She said he was very religious and talked about how God had been his salvation.

"He loved God. He said God was amazing," Tran said. "He talked about how much God had changed him, that he had been corrupted with womanizing and with this and that."

She said he dressed as if he was not well off and often brought along a girl and a woman he said were his daughters.

The younger girl was about 14, the older one was in her 20s, she said. "They were very nice, very polite children," she said.

E-mail the writers at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com, jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com,