Posted on 12/26/2002 2:56:18 PM PST by Palladin
KING: All right, let's talk about the Elizabeth Smart case, which the media has kind of left now. What is your best read on that tragedy in Utah?
WALSH: I spent yesterday by coincidence with Ed and Lois Smart. I had them on "The John Walsh Show" to kind of give an update to the case. You know, Ricci, the guy that was the main suspect, died in prison of an aneurysm. He's the guy that was the handyman at the house that put 1,000 miles on his pickup truck during the two days that she was missing. He was a burglar. He also had a rap sheet, which a lot of the media doesn't understand. He spent 10 years in jail. He tried to blow the head off of a cop with a shotgun. This is a real bad guy.
I hope that he didn't take the secret of Elizabeth Smart to the grave with him. I talked to Ed and Lois yesterday. I said, don't give up hope. Justice delayed isn't justice denied.
What's killing them is the fact of the not knowing. I think they're prepared for the worst. Most parents of missing children are prepared for the worst. But their young daughter has now said that she believes that Ricci wasn't the guy in there that night, that it may have been another guy that did some work on their roof, an itinerant guy that worked at a homeless shelter, and he may be a suspect in this. And I don't want to give away a lot of breaking information here, but "America's Most Wanted" is going to take a look at the Smart case, because I know one thing, we have been able to solve crimes after 10 years.
So I gave the Smarts, you know, the best encouragement I could and said, look, don't give up hope. We'll relook at the case. It is normal for the media tension to die down, and to try to have a good holiday. This is going to be the first Christmas without this beautiful girl, and the Smarts have five other beautiful children. So they're trying to hold that family together.
I said, you know, do the best you can with your five children. Don't give up hope, and, you know what, we'll take another look at this case and try to keep it alive.
(Excerpt) Read more at silenter.com ...
Hey Holmes I guess they blew it on this one. Overall I feel that law enforcement gets it right more often than not. When they do poorly in high profile cases it has a tendency to make them look like idiots in all that they do. As you recall most of us discounted the theories of those who felt there was a polygamist angle in her abduction. My apologies to them for not giving their ideas more weight. The engineer in me always will point to the most logical path. In this case I was wrong. I wonder what the real story was with Ricci and the Jeep? What was he doing that he had to keep so quiet about? Perhaps Moul was being dishonest or maybe his memory of who returned it was flawed. So many mysteries that may never be solved.
We decided to put our German Shepherd into FBI training in January. He's is too young and so very intelligent that it would have been a shame to keep him holed up with us. Reports are that he learned all the commands in 3 days.
Did media ever say who contacted whom first, and when?
I guess the theory is now that Mitchell went through the window.
I believe this is correct and they are now admitting there was some kind of footprint or foot impression in the carpet under the window.
It's nice to see we agree on the above.
I would like to hear Ed's 911 call too.
MK gave a fairly detailed description of the kidnapper (including hair on the back of his hands) according to Ed. I would like to know more about the gun vs Elizabeth saying it was a knife. I would like to know if Emanuel had a beard at the time of Elizabeth's kidnapping. One of the Smart's relatives had supposedly seen him in Kinko's the same day as the kidnapping. I'm not sure if it was before or after the kidnapping. Did he have a beard then? Has anyone ever seen Emanuel wearing a polo shirt and a golf cap before? If Elizabeth's relative saw Emanuel in Kinko's was he known to the neighborhood?
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