I still don't believe Garrdio wanted to get caught. I think there is some reason for him taking everyone with him to the Parole office and that he coached everyone beforehand, since I don't think Jaycee came up with the 'abused wife from MN' and 'wanting a lawyer' on the spur of the moment. Maybe the adults had talked about this before the Berkeley incident though. I believe that Garrido could have thought he was blending back into society on the one hand and becoming a respectable citizen (as far as others knew). Yes, delusional, but he thought no one knew much other than the 1976 incident.
Garrido was amazingly able to do what he wanted since 1988 or at least since 1993 (and, who knows how much he has done that he was never caught at, even pre 1976). A generation had now passed though since he kidnapped Jaycee and he thought no one would really question an adult woman claiming to be the mother of two children... Jaycee even laughed and said how others had commented on how young she looked - sounds like she had given this response before. I think Garrido thought she was completely programmed and, in fact, it was Garrido who gave himself up, not Jaycee or Nancy.
Natal mentioned in another thread that he might have panicked when they were separated at the parole office. Was it a mixture of this panic and his delusional thinking that if Jaycee stood up for him (and all the others), people would believe he had changed his life? I believe it was primarily Garrido's default mechanism - saving his behind by confessing because he knew he was trapped (especially if one of the women broke down and he was still lying - no, better to confess and he maintains control of the situation by doing so). Remember the religion thing seemed to work for him before when he was in prison and now he had evidence to put forward (in his mind) that he was being a spiritual leader, a member of the community, and, maybe, he thought, a good father. If nothing else, Jaycee would stand up and say he hadn't done anything to her for years and he was a good parent (which she did), that he had no arrests (which he didn't), etc. Now we know Garrido had all kinds of infractions, but was not even hampered by a GPS device. He was welcomed to present at a council meeting. Others even signed statements about his black box. He had a business.
Yeah, he could have short circuited a bit being confronted, but I still see long range planning on his part and no strong evidence he was trying to turn himself in, only that in the back of his mind if he got caught, everyone would HAVE to believed his story.
The question still remains though (in my theory) - why did he take them all with him. I think he simply could have thought it was support for himself and they would let him go quickly. He could have thought there would remain questions about who was with him in Berkeley if he didn't do that and if Nancy was there supporting the whole story, who would think it was a lie? No one really knew Nancy was his co-conspirator in anything. Maybe he thought he'd lose control if he went by himself and anyone had a chance to question others, esp if he was detained, or do a thorough search on the house while he wasn't there. It also makes me wonder, looking back, if Cheyvonne and others did think Jaycee was fine since this is what they saw - they didn't the rest of it?