Elizabeth Smart thread, September 5, 2002-?

[Jolly Green]

It doesn't matter.

Devil,

Your analysis left out the part where varina always has to have the last word - no matter how trite.

[Devil_Anse]

I agree with you. Not to mention the fact that maybe Angela shouldn't have been so quick to mention the circumstances of the kid's birth, I mean, that sort of thing used to be considered shameful and why do anything which might even remotely serve to stigmatize your own child?

I just have no doubt that she is bogus. I suppose this will lead to all sorts of questions, but in my work I've encountered many addicts, as well as some people with criminal backgrounds. I assumed Angela would fit the profile, and I've seen nothing of her that would dissuade me from my assumption.

[Jolly Green]

This falls into the FWIW category:

I had the "opportunity" to drive around the Smart neighborhood twice in the last few weeks - once at night and once in daylight. My motivation was to confirm or refute speculation regarding a ""back road" between the Smart residence and Shriners hospital from some previous threads.

First let me say that many of the satellite images we have seen are quite old. The most current and useful that I have found are on Mapquest. The neighborhood has built-up substantially since the creation of these images and is populated with many very new homes. The satellite images I have seen are very misleading to an amateur and would be better analyzed by USAF Photo Interp people that do that kind of thing for a living. The most startling revelation (to me) was that the Smart home sits on a bluff carved out of the hillside high above Shriners Hospital. The images are misleading because they obviously don't give an amateur a feel for the differences in elevation. I estimate that the Smart home is 500 feet higher in elevation than Shriners and possibly as much as 700 hundred feet. Bottom line - anyone trying to drive a jeep or anything else down that hill would be on a suicide mission. At night it is even more foreboding.

I'll try to paint a word picture for you, so please bear with me. I encourage you to enter the Smart address (1509 Kristianna Cir Salt Lake City, UT 84103) into MapQuest using the link above, click on Aerial Photo, and Big Photo and follow along. (You may have to register with Netscape, but that is no big deal.) The neighborhood is in an area of SLC often referred to as "the avenues" and all of the avenues rise rapidly from the valley floor at Temple Square - the center of Salt Lake City. The easiest access to the neighborood is via Virginnia Street, which is about 1340 East, driving north from South Temple. SLC is laid out in an X-Y grid and 13th East is 13 blocks east of Temple square. As you drive north on Virginnia, (a fairly narrow two lane road lined with parked cars), you start to climb rapidly. At about 11th Avenue, the major cross street running east and west is Fairfax. Shriners Childrens Hospital is on the NE corner and the LDS chapel where many of the press conferences were held is directly across the street South of Shriners. The now famous parking lot where Fred Trujillo spotted two cars at 1:30am on the morning of the abduction is in the NE corner of that intersection. The hospital itself sits farther to the East of the lot. My impression of the lot is that it is far smaller than it appears in the videos we have seen. I estimate that it only holds about 75 cars - six rows of twelve cars. My point is that it is a shame that LE didn't get a good video from the hospital. It's not like the two cars of interest were hundreds of yards away. They had to be fairly close to the hospital to even be in the parking lot.

To give you a feel for the steep mountain terrain that is in the area, the main hospital entrance is approximately 25 feet above street level on Fairfax and the main entrance to the chapel is approximately 20 feet below street level on Fairfax. That is about a 45 foot rise in only 50-75 yards.

Immediately behind the parking lot, if you continue up Virginia, the next street is Pepperton Park Way. This street is interesting for several reasons. The distance between Fairfax, that runs in front of the hospital and Pepperton that runs behind the hospital (also East and Eest) is quite small. In other words, the hospital is situated on a narrow strip of land with the parking lot on the West end. The North side of Pepperton is paved as vertical parking for the park patrons and what appears to be overflow parking for the hospital. When I visited there at night, this area wasn't very well lit and seemed like a far more viable place for a clandestine meeting than the better lit parking lot. There was only one car there at the time I was there and looked more like teenagers necking than hospital patrons. As the name implies, the NE corner of the Pepperton intersection is a very small park with few amenities and probably only extends 100-150 yards along Pepperton. Even on a holiday weekend day, it wasn't in use except for some guy taking a nap. The primary purpose for the park appears to be to control the weeds, though it might provide entertainment to children waiting for their siblings in the hospital. I'll return to Pepperton in a moment.

If you continue North on Virginnia past the park, it immediately takes a hard right and climbs up a very steep hill. These kinds of incline are often referred to as a switchbacks or a dugway. There are no homes on the South side of Virginnia at this point - just a very steep drop-off. Virginnia proceeds up the hill f0r 200-300 yards and then takes a sharp left and returns to its Northerly direction. Within about half a block there is a dead-end sign and a street sign for Kristianna Circle. If you turn right on this street, it continues East for 200-300 yards with large homes on both sides and ends in a Cul de Sac with the Smart home on the North-East side of the Cul de Sac.

If instead of turning into Kristianna Circle, you continue North and drive up the hill on Virginnia and turn right at the next intersection, and proceed uphill on the winding road for several hundred yards, it dead ends in Tomahawk. Tomahawk is a very long street if you turn left, but very short if you turn right resulting in another dead end. Doing so puts you immediately above and behind the Smart home. You will recall that a doctor living on Tomahawk heard a woman scream in the middle of the night. The big question for you arm chair detectives is what part of Tomahawk did the doctor live? The point is that the doctor could live very close to the Smarts OR a long way away from the Smarts.

I mentioned Pepperton before. Driving east on Pepperton from behind the hospital for 400-500 yards there is a large gate for what used to be a gated community. Too many people live in the area for that to be practical any longer so it remains open. The large Univeristy of Utah "U" is high upon the hill but rather than being off by itself in the satellite images, has homes built around it on the West and South sides. The area is covered with "switchbacks" where people have to drive back and forth up the steep inclines to get to their homes. (Must be a lot of fun driving around there in the Utah's winters.) As you drive up the hill there is street running in an East-West direction named Federal Point Drive. It dead ends, as noted in the satellite images, BUT there is a very rough dirt road that continues in a North Westerly direction for about 100 yards towards the Smart home. An SUV such as a Jeep would be the preferred transportation for this area though I carefully navigated it in a car. There is a fairly large flat area with a water spigot and a hose nearby. The flat area and the rough road to reach it are visible on the satellite images. It looks like this will become a new home site in the near future. There were lots of very small footprints all over the area - 5 to 6 year olds.

I was intrigued by this spot for several reasons. This spot completes a small triangle between the Smart home to the North West and the dead end of Tomahawk, which is almost due North - each about 50-75 yards away as the crow flies. While the terrain is steep, it is my view that it would not only be possible, but likely, that the abductor could have parked a vehicle on this spot, traversed down the hill and back up the other side to the Smart home and brought ES back out the same way.

Other Observations

1. The neighborhood is still very much in "Find Elizabeth" mode. There are still blue ribbons everywhere and hand painted signs in many windows.
2. There aren't many ways to access the Smart neighborhood. The Shriners Hospital parking lot or Pepperton would provide an ideal place for a lookout. SLCPD most likely went up Virginnia when responding to the 911 call from Ed Smart.

Next Steps

1. I would like to know exactly where the doctor lived that reported hearing screams and motorcycles. If he and his wife live near the dead end of Tomahawk, then it is very likely that it was ES that he heard.
2. Initial reports indicated Ricci's jeep had new tires. The flat area described above would have left tire tracks. When did Ricci buy the new tires?

[Devil_Anse]

You know, come to think of it, Jolly Green, you're right! She does seem to do that--constantly.

I seem to have been added to the killfile of some posters, perhaps Palladin, who has the Dixon thread? Can't blame Palladin too much, I have been harsh. But Palladin's dressing-down of Brigette, who didn't deserve it, still rings in my ears, so to speak.

So, as to the Dixon thing, I'll post here. I see where freedox, I think, said the only partial explanation of why the parents and Elizabeth were late to the school function, was that Ed said something about Elizabeth having gone running that afternoon. I would like to add: In an early article where the son Charles was quoted, he said when he woke up to the confusion early on June 5, at first he thought Elizabeth had just gone running. Now it sounds like maybe she would have been doing a no-no if she'd gotten up early to go running. Maybe for some reason her parents weren't as thrilled about her new interest in running, as she reportedly was.

Jolly Green, as you've said many times, there is really nothing at this point to implicate the Smarts in Elizabeth's disappearance. I believe you would consider them if there were any facts pointing to it. You and all the others who have defended the Smarts really do seem to me to be among the more open-minded people on here. Everyone in Elizabeth's life is suspect. If anything ever comes to light about the family's involvement, I believe you would go after it as you would any lead.

[scaredkat]

Im not into the psitech either, but i did find those sketches highly interesting because, some of them where like what I was trying to describe or didnt but knew about. I really dont know what even brigitte has to do with all of this. She seems to have info that no one else does and that she doesnt share.

[Devil_Anse]

Thanks very much for the very interesting info. I will definitely remember Federal Point Drive. I'm still studying your detailed post on the Smarts' area.

As to your questions, I looked up the doctor, Steve Voss (ob-gyn) in anywho.com, but got no results. I'm sure someone here can do better at finding his address. From google.com, there is the article that gives the doctor's name and what he heard. That info is about midway down the page.

Wait. I was going to post it, but I'm new and probably will do it wrong. If you want to re-read the article, it's the one that began, "They say when a coyote kills a rabbit..." It was in the Salt Lake Tribune on June 30. If one goes to google.com and plugs in "They say when a coyote kills" the article will come up.

[Devil_Anse]

Yes, about Angela's remarks on LKL about Moul and the jeep. She really seemed to be dodging and weaving when she talked about it. I was totally baffled by her assertion that "he did not speak to the person that brought that jeep back, he observed." That statement was a blatant contradiction of what Moul said in his interview with Ashleigh Banfield, which I avidly watched.

Plus, when you bring a car in to an auto place, would you just leave the keys under the floor mat and leave? How would the auto guys even notice your auto was there, especially if it's a busy place? They may TELL you to leave the keys under the mat, but you're going to have some interaction with them b/f you just walk away from your vehicle. Moul's story is just far more credible than Angela's.

And you know, we don't even know what Angela said in the grand jury. She may have even taken the Fifth, and we wouldn't know about it. The secrecy would protect her, as well as protect the grand jury.

Moul--well, we don't know what he said in the GJ, either. But I can't imagine if he took the Fifth, obviously that would be a big red flag for the authorities. And obviously if he got out of telling the GJ anything, he wouldn't have been yapping to Ashleigh Banfield. I believe that Moul told the GJ the same thing he said on TV.

The whole bit about "someone else took the jeep out of the shop" is 100% smoke and mirrors, in my opinion.

[Devil_Anse]

Thanks, home educate.

I wonder what all those posters would have thought of the Smarts if they belonged to some other religion, or if they were secular humanists or something like that? Bet they wouldn't have automatically pegged the Smarts as hypocrites under those circumstances.

[Devil_Anse]

I remember reading, I think, that Brigette said she was from Chicago. (?) Anyway, she is doing her own research, I think she said. If she finds something really big, I think she'd share it!

Your info still holds my interest. If you care to add anything else about the house that was searched in your sister's neighborhood, I'd be glad to hear it.

[Sherlock]

Good work, Jolly Green. As far as Dr. Voss, I found an address for him but it wasn't Tomahawk, it was down south and west of Shriner's Hospital. However, because his wife heard something that made her call to him and he awoke to hearing the car scream by I have assumed he was to the west. I figured the perp left out the front door and had his car parked either at the entrance of Kristianna or facing north on Virginia. I think he went north on Virginia, right on Chandler, then left on Tomahawk. The doctor said in the article when he heard the scream and all the dogs in the neighborhood started barking he came out and looked up into the hills (north of Tomahawk) and saw nothing, so if he lives south of Tomahawk he would have gone out front or north of Tomahawk into his back yard. If the perp took ES into the hills there may be an access road somewhere up towards Perry's Hollow Road (not Drive). If he went screaming by then went up into the hills that might indicate he was having trouble controlling her and needed to stop to get her under control.

Now we need to have Bella go by Bishop Dixon's house and peak in his garage and see if he has an older model blue SUV or an older model white/silver/gray/dark Honda/Nissan with 266 in the license number. Just kidding, Dixon is a red herring but varina already has him convicted over on that other thread.

[Palladin]

But neighbors have raised questions about her account, and authorities have said she was known to use prescription sleep aids

The crediblity of these neighbors is somewhat in question, considering that many of them have police records. One in particular, Thurber, exhibited the body language of a habitual liar--shifty eyes; continual grinning; touching the nose after making a statement. He was the one who said that Angela was "Somatose". How could he be privy to what medications Angela was or was not taking that particular night?

[freedox]

Your reference to Thurber reminded me of his grand jury appearance....which brought me to a question. What ever happened with the grand jury? Are we to assume that they didn't even find probable cause for charges to be filed against Ricci.....let alone enough evidence to actually find him guilty?

[cookiedough]

Angela does not have to testify about confidential communications between herself and her husband, grand jury or no. There is a presumption that marital communications are confidential and the burden of proof is upon the government to overcome that. The privilege can be waived, depending on who "owns" it (husband or wife) and the presence of a third party means the communication is not confidential.

So Angela may have testified to virtually nothing before the grand jury, between her right not to incriminate herself and her duty not to reveal confidential communications between herself and her husband.

[trussell]

I didn't know that. Thank you.

[Jolly Green]

I left out a few things I had intended to include:

Other Observations (continued)

3. Some of the "trails" that look like roads in the satellite images are pipelines and couldn't be traversed with a 4WD or even a motorbike.

Next Steps (continued)

3. The elizabethsmart.com web page has a link to an article which says "Search Dogs Picked up Scent in Mountains" (ABC4.tv, 06.21.02). The link no longer works. I would like to know what this is about, especially if it relates to the mountains around the Smart home. I searched Brigette's web site on "scent" without success. Any ideas anyone?