Smart Case, August 3, 2002

08/03/02 | Jolly Green

[Jolly Green]

Time Line
04/01/01	Sunday	Ricci burglarizes a Smart neighbor's home taking various items.
06/05/01	Tuesday	Ricci steals items from the Smart home while he is employed there as a handyman. Ricci is charged in July of 2002 of 1 count of theft related to the Smart incident.
05/30/02	Thursday	~ Ricci returns to pick up his Jeep at the auto repair shop before the shop has a chance to fully fix it He tells the repairman that it needed for an emergency.
06/04/02	Tuesday	~ Ricci is at work from about 9am to 5:30pm ~ Ricci claims he spends the evening with friends
06/05/02	Wednesday	~ 1:05am - 2 cars are spotted on the SLC Shriner's Hospital Parking Lot by a hospital security guard, two blocks from the Smart residence ~ 1:30am (approx) - Elizabeth is kidnapped from her home ~ 1:30am - Ricci claims to be in bed asleep with his with wife. ~ Ricci is scheduled to be off work all day today. ~ 7:21am - Rachel/Amber alert is issued and national media is involved. ~ 8:30am - Ricci and his neighbor talk about the kidnapping of Elizabeth, Ricci seems to know too much information about it. ~ Sometime during this day Ricci is visited by police in regards to Elizabeth's kidnapping as reported by Angela Ricci (Richard A. Ricci's Wife which is an ex-convict herself) ~ Ricci is seen by his neighbor digging a hole by his (Ricci's) trailer early in the morning. (heard the neighbor say this on TV)
06/06/02	Thursday	~ Ricci is scheduled to work from 9am to 5:30pm today, but instead works from 10:30am to 7:00pm ~ Police talk to Ricci this day about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. (The media is reporting this, so it could be wrong)
06/08/02	Saturday	~ Ricci returns the Jeep to the repair shop to get it fixed. The Jeep is muddy and the repair shop owner sees Ricci remove seat covers from the back of the jeep and place them into a plastic garbage bag that already contains other stuff in it. Also the repair shop owner said a muddy post hole digger was in the back of the Jeep, Ricci removes this also. Ricci has a man waiting across the street to give him a ride. Ricci takes the plastic bag and contents along with the post hole digger with him. Also there is 500 to 1000 extra miles on the Jeep since Ricci picked it up on May 30th, 2002.
06/14/02	Friday	~ Ricci is taken into custody for a parole violation, this being drinking while on parole and association with other ex-cons.
07/11/02	Thursday	Formal charges are filed against Ricci (2 counts of theft & 1 count of burglary) on the theft & burglary of the Smart neighbors home which occurred in April 2001, and 1 more count of theft for stealing from the Smart home on June 6th, 2001.
Special thanks to Brigette for starting this timeline.

[varina davis]

I feel pretty solid standing with the SLPD/FBI on the issue of Ricci's involvment.

Well, sandude, it will all come out in the wash. There will be some sort of closure eventually, hopefully with Elizabeth turning up safe and sound.

[stlnative]

She left because someone was rude to her, kinda like how you were to me tonight with your reply to my post about poisonous snakes. Good night!

[whenigettime]

Since I'm from Utah, I can safely say that rattlesnakes may indeed live behind the homes in the Federal Heights district. Being an American, and registered with FR and a frequent lurker on the Smart threads; almost ANY hypothesis as to Elizabeth's abduction has been explored. Brigette's theory as such is just as valid as any other, and there was no malice intended.

[varina davis]

So my point was a snake bite could have happened to her if the snakes are bad in the Utah area

Brigette, you have a right to voice your theory -- I've read theories that are more off the wall than that, like the child being "sold," etc. Having said that, I really do think death by snake bite is a stretch. I tend to think a snake bite is the least of her concerns.

[whenigettime]

I've wondered why Ricci would have done this deed myself, given his 30 years as a slimeball ne'er do well. So, here's my .02 - Being the bad guy that he is, he no doubt takes great pride in being able to get into someone's home unnoticed, or stealing money from a bank, or shooting a cop. And these are only the crimes that LE found out about, no doubt there are others. (why in the world Utah keeps letting scumbags like this go free, I'll never know) So, thinking he's such a great professional criminal, he goes for kidnapping and possibly murder - even using a vehicle that has the victim's DNA already in it. Ricci wanted to try to stick it to LE, in my opinion and here's his "perfect" crime.

[TXLady]

The idea about Elizabeth being bitten was certainly plausible and I can see where you would have reason to think that because of what happened to your step-son. I have lived in West Texas where you didn't go out at night without being very careful where you stepped. We had several scary confrontations with rattlers. No bites, thank goodness!

[stlnative]

Here is a picture of the area...

#1 marks the Smart Home (the home is to the left of the #1)
#2 marks the street where the Doctor lives that heard the scream late that night.
#3 marks the area where I believe the Doctor heard the scream coming from.

If anyone thinks my rattlesnake bite thought is not possible... just look at the terrain here and the deseret conditions. Remember we know they left on foot from the home. Did he have a car parked somewhere in the #3 area. Was the scream possibly coming from Liz being after she step too close to a snake laying on warm ground surface to gain warmth and then was bit by a snake and that is why no ransom demand was made? It just a thought... not that any of you have to believe it.

[TXLady]

I was here back in the days of quidam, Clinton's a liar and Drudge. I couldn't believe there were that many people that felt like I did about the Clintons. It was good to find a home here!

Whatever happened to quidam? He either knew a lot from the inside or else had a wonderful imagination.

[stlnative]

Thanks you two... It just a thought of maybe this why their was scream and why no ransom demand was made. I mean if Ricci took part in this, the guy just has no luck in pulling things off. It would really be terrible if something like this happened to her, put it is possible. If some people are thinking about a ransom gone bad some how... this could be one answer of why the ransom and the kidnapping went bad for the perps. She gets bit by a snake while they are escorting her to a waiting vehicle, they cannot seek medical attention for her as she knows who they are or has seen their faces. They also cannot leave her there as someone would hear her pleads for help as the houses are not that far and someone would come and save her but she has seen their faces. So they take her with them and she dies from the snake bite, and they bury her somewhere. I know it sounds really bad for the kidnappers & Liz... but it is possible.

[stlnative]

Or possibly the scream came from open area just south of my #1 in the picture. Maybe the doctor lives in the home to the bottom left corner of the #2 in the picture.

I will leave the picture up on my server for a couple of days. Then I will remove it. If you want it right click on it and save it to your own hard drive.

[stlnative]

Close up of the Smart Home Location
(notice the location of the large white "U" on the ground - The #1 marks the location of the Smart home)


In this zoomed out picture... the large white "U" is marked now with the green star.


This is a zoomed picture and again the white "U" is located this time next to the green star I have placed in the picture.


These pictures give you an idea of the terrain in the area and the many escape routes that could have been taken.

[stlnative]

JUST FOR YOU...DATED 5/28/02

Outdoor Life In Utah Can Bite

A rattlesnake just off Grandeur Peak trail. (Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune)

BY SKIP KNOWLES
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

    Heather Landsaw spotted a fat rattlesnake sunning in the middle of the dim deer trail as she hiked down from waterfalls on the benches above Centerville.
    It was a familiar sight. She and her friend were detouring through the brush when a hot pain shot up her ankle. She glimpsed a small rattlesnake by her foot.
    "It felt like the worst hornet sting you can ever imagine," she said. Her ankle throbbed as her companion, luckily a big fellow, carried her the last 100 yards to the car. He recalls her screaming incoherently.
    Emergency staff found three bites; she had stepped in a nest of
   hatchlings.
    "Liquid poured in the wound hurt far worse than the bites. The antivenom made me nauseous, sick to my stomach," Landsaw said.
    Nine years later, the Centerville native has covered the scars with a tattoo. But she sees reminders of the incident all the time. Last summer her father killed a big rattlesnake in the yard and shortly after, she killed a scorpion in her bedroom.
    "There's all kinds of fun stuff up here," she said. "Rattlesnakes everywhere."
    Plenty of bad nature lurks amid Utah's natural splendor. From venomous lizards, rattlesnakes, poisonous spiders, scorpions, biting flies, disease-packing ticks and bees and wasps, there are many nasty ways to wreck a day afield. Poison ivy can cause eyes to swell shut and bee stings can lead to respiratory failure.
    Frank Brower of St. George never saw the spider that put him in the hospital. He was folding linen when his hand started to hurt, and by 9:30 he had to go to the Dixie Medical Center. The pain was penetrating, a sharp burning.
    "You could see a bite of some sort," he said. "It looked like my hand had been
   jammed on a nail."
    Brower fell ill and was put on an intravenous antibiotic for 12 hours. It got worse. By the next day, he was taking the antibiotic every eight hours and was also swallowing huge antibiotic pills. By day three, he was worse, but was released.
    Redness spread around the wound. For five days Brower was in and out of the hospital. For weeks puss oozed from the open wound, his arm in a sling.
    Physicians speculated the spider was a brown recluse that carried a staph infection.
    That was two years ago. Ten years prior, his wife Saundra reached behind the stove and a spider bit her ankle. Physicians called it, too, a recluse bite. Soon she couldn't walk. She took Benadryl and was told to stay off her feet for a week. Her shin was swollen and discolored for a year.
    Saundra's sister, Marsha Eddy, was bitten in Kanab while pulling her pants on, and her leg swelled badly.
    "She got really sick from it. I thought spider bites were not that common," Saundra said. "I've been amazed how common it is."
    Physicians at Dixie Medical Center in St. George reported 37 stings and bites last year. The Browers were accustomed to seeing black widows, and sprayed around the house regularly to control them. People constantly report rattlesnakes and scorpions around St. George but mostly outdoors.
    Actually, the desert fiddleback brown spider is the likely culprit in the Brower bites. It is a close relative of the recluse. Scientists and arachnid specialists know volumes about spider biology, but are bewildered by its distribution.
    They generally agree three seriously poisonous spiders can be found in Utah. The black widow is common, while the brown recluse is rare. The hobo spider,
   also known as the "aggressive house spider," is common in northern Utah.
    Tarantulas can pack a wallop, but bite few people. And most bites are attributed to mishandling the creatures as pets.
    Utah Department of Health epidemiologist Sam Lefevre is a spider whiz and former collector. He once caught a tarantula with a two-inch body and four-inch legs in Hicks Canyon near Tooele and brought it to work.
    Most Utah spider bites are attributed to the recluse but are more likely the hobo spider or other species. As its name suggests, the hobo entered the country through Seattle in the 1920s and spread via railway. Black widows can pump victims with a nasty cocktail of hemotoxin, neurotoxin and myotoxin (damaging blood, the nervous system and muscles, respectively). A bite with neurotoxin can be fatal.
    Hobo spiders turned up in Utah in 1990 and are most common in Cache and Weber Counties. They bite indoors, while the fiddleback/recluse spiders favor woodpiles and sheds. All spiders pack poison but few have fangs capable
   of penetrating skin.
    Black widows, bees and rattlesnakes wreck many an outing along the Wasatch Front each year. So, is it safe to toss a sleeping bag out on the desert floor and go to sleep?
    Probably safer than the basement. Male hobo spiders creep into houses in the fall. Lousy climbers, they seek dark areas at floor level. And contrary to popular belief, outdoor spiders do not bite sleeping people to suck blood, LeFevre
   said. Their fangs only inject venom; they have a mouth to chew and eat. Spiders bite people defensively, though like most mamas, female black widows are plain mean when defending their webs.
    Finally, as you begin the annual trek into the great summer outdoors, beware the most revered of all Utah biting creatures.
    Rattlesnakes have a much better venom delivery system than any spider and can puncture the legs of passing mountain bikers.
    "Mountain bikers are going fast and they don't see the snakes," said
   Caryn Summers at the University of Utah Medical Center's trauma center.
    "The leg goes down and the snake comes up," she warns.
    Rattlers come in five flavors: the speckled rattlesnake, the Mojave rattler, the midget faded rattler, Hopi rattler, (all of these inhabit parts of southern Utah) and the Great Basin rattlesnake -- common along the Wasatch Front.
    Snake bite victims at the U. of U. rose to 22 last year from the typical 12 to 15, said Martin Caravati, a physician at the university's Poison Control Center. There have been two cases reported so far this year.
    "We think the rise last year was due to the early snow melt, with people and snakes out earlier," he said.
    A snake has not killed a person in 50 years in Utah, Caravati said. Serious bee stings are more common, and every fall sees a rash of 20 or so black widow bites at the trauma center. Black widow bites are seldom fatal, but can be a nightmare. The bite appears as a bullseye and is very painful, causing muscle cramps and severe headaches. Scorpions are common in Utah, but stings are rare. The worst Caravati has seen happened when a man opened a package from Central America last year. A six-inch black Guatemalan scorpion stung his hand.
    A Utah scorpion zapped a man last year in American Fork. A string from these one- to two-inch amber "bark scorpions" feels like a bad bee sting. One species in Arizona can be lethal, but is probably not found in Utah.
    Baby rattlesnakes have concentrated venom and cause a lot of problems when people handle them, said Bruce Mooers, an emergency room physician at LDS Hospital. The hospital sees fewer than 12 snakebites annually, but about 150 spider bites, five of which may be serious.
    Southern Utah's big pink-and-black gila monsters pack a venomous wallop, but are slow, ponderous creatures that lack fangs and almost never bite people.
    Arguably, the nastiest creatures in Utah are deerflies and horseflies. They are true bloodsuckers, aggressively chasing mountain bikers for hundreds of yards and ripping a chunk of flesh out with every bite.
    Short of wearing a Kevlar vest and walking around with a can of Raid, how does one avoid all these nasty creatures?
    "Stay in Starbucks," said Mooers. "When you're out there, running around outdoors, you gotta take your lumps. You gotta expect mother nature's gonna bite you. Most of the time we recover."

[stlnative]

I started the New Daily Thread...
Smart Case, August 4, 2002

[FR_addict]

I wonder if the police have tried to recreate the scream from within the Smart's home and listened at the doctor's to see how the sounds travel?

[sandude]

it will all come out in the wash. There will be some sort of closure eventually, hopefully with Elizabeth turning up safe and sound.

I totally agree varina.

[lakey]

quidam sounds familiar...can't recall specific posts though.

You joined FR the same day I did. FReepers from every state went to Washington, DC by the thousands. That was so great, everybody pulling together.

[sandude]

quidam was a poster who appeared to have connections to higher ups in the Clinton administration or some other govt body. His posts were always cryptic and tantalizing but he never did actually put out anything that was solid, at least not to my recollection. Anyway, it was always fun to read what he had to say and there was endless speculation as to what he meant. Then one day he just stopped posting, which added to the intrigue. Lots of fun.

[TXLady]

Thanks for the description of quidam, you certainly summed up my thoughts about his posts. He was daily fare for us for a while. I printed out a lot for my husband to read as well. I remember particularly his discussions on the "football" and who had it at the time.

Sorry for going OT but interesting to know that some of the posters remember the early times and are still around.

[TXLady]

You joined FR the same day I did. FReepers from every state went to Washington, DC by the thousands. That was so great, everybody pulling together.

---

I wanted so much to go then! From the pictures I saw, everyone really had a great time. I did go to some FReeper rallies in downtown Dallas though.