Sacramento, Calif. ? A state report released Wednesday blasts corrections officials for missing chances to catch the sex offender accused of holding Jaycee Dugard captive in his backyard for 18 years.

The 45-page report by the state inspector general paints a heartbreaking picture of overlooked opportunities to rescue Dugard, but also contains new details of the now 29-year-old’s first interactions with law enforcement after her captivity.

It says Dugard repeatedly tried to conceal her identity in the hours before it was revealed, telling authorities she was hiding from an abusive husband in Minnesota and defending Phillip Garrido, the man now charged in her abduction and rape.

Garrido and his wife, Nancy, have pleaded not guilty to 29 counts related to 1991 Dugard’s abduction, rape and imprisonment.

Inspector General David Shaw, appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to monitor the prison system, said the failures by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began almost immediately after the state took control in 1999 of Garrido, who had been convicted in 1977 of raping and kidnapping a 25-year-old woman. He was previously under federal supervision.

They included neglecting to interview Garrido’s neighbors or to investigate the utility wires from his Antioch house to the secret backyard compound where Dugard and her daughters are said to have lived. They also included temporarily misclassifying Garrido as a low-risk offender.

Such mistakes by the department resulted “in the continued confinement and victimization of Jaycee and her two daughters,” Shaw said.

Dugard’s identity was discovered when she and her daughters, ages 12 and 15, who were fathered by Garrido, accompanied Garrido and his wife to his parole agent’s office. Dugard said her name was Alyssa. The report said investigators grew suspicious of the Dugard and children’s relationship to Garrido and separated them into different rooms.

Unbeknownst to Dugard, Garrido told another agent that Dugard and the girls were his nieces. Confronted about the inconsistencies, Dugard “explained that she was from Minnesota and had been hiding for five years from an abusive husband,” the report said. “She was terrified of being found, she said, and that was the reason she could not give the parole agent any information.”

Garrido eventually told the parole agent he had kidnapped and raped Dugard, the report said, an account later confirmed by Dugard, who then identified herself.

According to the report, Dugard told investigators before she identified herself that she knew Garrido was a convicted sex offender but that he was a changed man. She called him “a great person who was good with her kids.”

Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate said Wednesday he deeply regretted if the mistakes made by his department kept Dugard in captivity for even one additional day.

A statement issued by Dugard’s lawyer McGregor Scott said the report “clearly sets out many missed opportunities to bring a much earlier end to the nightmare of Jaycee Dugard and her family.”