SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — The couple accused of kidnapping an 11-year-old girl and keeping her hidden in their backyard for 18 years pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges on Friday as police searched their home for evidence related to murders of prostitutes in the 1990s.

Phillip Garrido, 58, and his wife, Nancy, appeared in El Dorado County Superior Court to answer 29 criminal counts that included kidnapping for sexual purposes, forcible lewd acts on a child, and rape. Neither spoke in court and their pleas were entered by their attorneys. Garrido, a convicted rapist who served time in prison, showed no emotion. But his wife kept her head down and cried in the packed courtroom.

Meanwhile, police apologized for failing to follow up an anonymous tip in 2006 that could have led them to Jaycee Dugard, who was snatched from a bus stop near her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991. Authorities believe that the now 29-year-old Dugard spent most of the past two decades living in squalid tents and sheds in Garrido’s backyard. He is accused of fathering two children with her.

On Friday police searched Garrido’s home in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Antioch for evidence
that might also connect him to killings of prostitutes in the 1990s. Some 10 prostitutes were killed in the industrial area near where Garrido worked at the time, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.