Sex fiend and accused kidnapper Phillip Garrido’s name and face have been all over the headlines since he and his wife, Nancy, were charged with the kidnap, rape and 18-year imprisonment of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

Now Garrido’s first wife, an Irish American named Christine Murphy, has now come forward with details of her disturbed marriage with the criminal.

"He's a monster," Murphy said in an interview with “Inside Edition.”

Garrido’s ex-wife revealed that her ex-husband tried to gouge her eyes out with a safety pin when he suspected her of flirting with another man.

Murphy says Garrido took out a safety pin and dug it into her face. The scar is still visible. When she tried to run away, her husband carried out what was probably his first kidnapping.

"He pulled up in front me and we got in an argument and he grabbed me and threw me in the car," she said.

When asked why she married Garrido, Murphy said: “I was in love with him.”

The two were high school sweethearts in northern California. Early on in their relationship, Garrido was accused of raping a girl, but he denied the charge.

"He could talk you pretty much into anything," Murphy said of her ex.

The 19-year-olds eloped in 1973, and Murphy says Garrido exposed his dark side soon after they wed.

"He started to get controlling, he started hitting me," she said. "He smacked me, he told me to grow up."

The Irish American sweetheart said that Garrido took LSD or smoked marijuana every day, and turned violent when she refused to comply with his sexual requests.

She said Garrido wanted multiple partners but, she said: "I wouldn’t go for that."

"I was always looking for a way to get away. He'd always told me he'd find me wherever."

Four years after they married, Garrido was convicted of kidnapping and raping a woman and was sentenced to 50 years behind bars.

Murphy said she was relieved at the time. “It was my exit out,” she said.

The Irish American, whose ancestors hail from Cork, eventually remarried and had four children.

When she learned the news about the ordeal Garrido put Jaycee Lee Dugard through, she said she was “stick to my stomach.”

When asked what she would want to say to her ex-husband now, Murphy replied “Nothing.”

“The only person I have anything to say to is the victims,” she said. “Just be strong, take it one day at a time.”