Elizabeth Smart Thread, 9/9/02 to ???

[stlnative]

New thread...

[lakey]

That's better...."an LE agency trying to hide something."

[lakey]

I'm not going to hunt down the original poster.

[Sherlock]

sandude, have you ever heard anything from ES.com?

[sandude]

sandude, have you ever heard anything from ES.com?

No but I'm sure that LE and the search center are checking out any known associate of Richard.

[sandude]

I'm not going to hunt down the original poster.

Then I'd have to give you credit lakey. Would you like the reward money in small bills?

[Sherlock]

...like the one with the cabin & Ricci meeting the perp there, burying Elizabeth.

sandude made this one the other day, but he speculated they were keeping her in the cabin but didn't want to bury her near a cabin that could be traced to them so they brought her back and the accomplice buried her the next day with his blue SUV.

[Sherlock]

GERAGOS: And did you identify what the other car was? What kind of make or model, the second car?

TRUJILLO: The second vehicle, you can see it actually as it pulls down around Fairfax (ph) Road, which is just down from our hospital, and makes the U-turn, comes back up. I believe that's one of the things that the FBI was trying to enhance.

(CROSSTALK)

I just believe it would be remiss to think that it was just one person. I think that we need to leave our options open here to find out who actually did this.

KING: But you couldn't recognize the second car?

TRUJILLO: If I viewed the tape a second or third time, and, again, I don't know vehicles, but someone who knows vehicles could certainly tell you what kind of car it was.

KING: Nancy, do you know why the police may have dismissed this and the FBI is interested?

GRACE: Well, I'm frankly very, very concerned. And coming from law enforcement myself for many, many years, well over a decade, I hate to take a potshot at cops. But what's concerning me more in taking a potshot at them is that this girl could or was possibly still alive at the time. If they sat on this video and it is a significant clue, then they are gravely at fault.

One other thing I wanted to point out. You were speaking with Karen. Law enforcement sources told "Newsweek," Larry, point blank, that Ricci is a, quote, "a cat burglar." His M.O. is going into homes at night while people are sleeping. This is their statement that they had made. So that fits perfectly with this theory about what happened to Elizabeth.

KING: Dr. Lee, what do you make of the delay in knowing about this tape and the police apparently not putting much stock in it and the FBI is?

LEE: Well, probably, initially, they pursue other leads. And Utah police department -- it's not a very large police department. They only have a limited amount of detective manpower. Just so many lead to chase. They may be view that tape, that time, they think not important.

But now, they are looking, for example, they look at some other suspect before, now start focusing. Of course, when FBI brought in, they think of because Utah police doesn't really the facility, also the ability to enhance. But, meanwhile, FBI have a video section enhancer.

[varina davis]

What we have here, at least from the way it looks now, is an inept law enforcement agency. There was a bank robbery back in November, 2001, and they don't get around to charging these three men until 8 months later!

Is there a source saying Ricci confessed to the bank robbery?

[Devil_Anse]

"Why would you try to create a scenario where the jeep wasn't involved in the ES kidnapping?"

Well, my scenario doesn't exactly do that, but it does tend to give an out to Ricci as to what I have heretofore pretty much assumed--which is, that he kidnapped Elizabeth.

I wasn't trying to create such a scenario, Sherlock, I was just really, really trying to figure out:

1)why Ricci would absolutely, rock-solidly, flat-out refuse, in the face of immunity from prosecution (for some things) and other tempting tidbits, to tell where that jeep was during those 8 days--even through his lawyer!

2) why the Riccis let that jeep sit around that auto shop from mid-May to May 30, and again from June 8 on. Remember, Ricci was free for 6 days after he returned the jeep, why didn't Neth's get it ready during those 6 days? And it was still sitting at Neth's when the FBI finally came and seized it!

Who leaves their vehicle in the shop, w/o complaining or trying a new repair place next time, for such extended periods? I've had an automatic transmission replaced in less time!

Then there is the way the jeep "disappeared" on May 30. I saw Neth on Banfield, and while I remember clearly his detailed account of June 8, as far as I could tell, he said little or nothing about the removal of the jeep on May 30. Also, Brigette has been trying to tell us over and over that in at least one of his interviews, Neth said the jeep was SURREPTITIOUSLY TAKEN on May 30.

Who takes a vehicle surreptitiously? A thief, sure, but if a thief gets your vehicle, you won't see it again till it's totalled, and Ricci got his back! Another person who takes a vehicle surreptitiously is a REPOSSESSION MAN. That's what got me started on this train of thought. REPOSSESSION. Repo men are not above having a fake "Mrs. Ricci" phone call made, either!

So then Brigette said, yes, but there would be a paper trail, and any legal company that had repoed it would have come forward. True. So maybe this was NOT a formal, legal loan by means of "pawn-you-car-title." Maybe it was not a formal legal loan by any means. That leaves a LOAN SHARK or drugs-on-credit loan. Ricci had two vices that we know of (other then felonies): alcohol, and heroin. The latter requires a lot of money, and requires more and more money as time progresses. NO WAY could Ricci afford a heroin habit on his and Angela's income, we all know that.

So he knows he's going to visit his dealer pretty regularly, but he doesn't regularly come into enough money to pay for these visits, even with his periodic crimes. (A third of $1700? $300 and some jewelry from Sue Ann Adams? About $3500 in thefts from Ed Smart? All---chump change!)
Around the time he was paroled in 2000, Angela had just gotten $50,000. That would certainly have enabled him to get somewhat used to having money for a fix, but long b/f May 2002, that money would be a memory. He would be desperate, addicts always are.

If a friend borrowed the jeep, Ricci wouldn't really know what crimes the friend did with it (including an abduction maybe), and I'm positive he wouldn't have asked. So he wouldn't have known what his friend faced if he told the police he'd lent the jeep to his friend. So he probably would have told the name of the friend, figuring that just telling who borrowed the jeep still wouldn't be enough to hang his friend's crimes on the friend, w/o more evidence--evidence which would not be provided by Ricci, b/c he wouldn't know anything more.

If he used the jeep himself, in the abduction, then that really is the reason he steadfastly refused to explain its whereabouts.

If the jeep had been (illegally) "repossessed" b/c it was collateral for Ricci having bought heroin on credit, Ricci absolutely could not tell such a thing, b/c to do so would definitely require his revealing the drug trafficker's name. To tell police that Mr. X had sold him heroin would have brought down a drug trafficking indictment on Mr. X. Yes, I am POSITIVE that to do that could very, very easily have caused a drug trafficker to have Ricci killed. I am sure Ricci knew this, also. He couldn't tell about this arrangement, so he couldn't tell the police that his jeep disappeared when the drug dealer took it as payment for the drugs, so he couldn't account for the 8 days w/o expecting almost certain execution-style death.

That's the answer. I feel far more sure of this scenario than of any other which I have come up with to explain any aspect of this case.

Who was Ricci's dealer? Did Edmunds provide the police with leads that enabled them to find out who it was? Did Edmunds know who it was already, and provide the name to the police?

[sandude]

Is there a source saying Ricci confessed to the bank robbery?

Ricci never confessed to this crime. Remington was the get away driver in the holdup and was caught soon after the robbery. The police knew that there were two other men involved but didn't catch them. It was after LE interviewed Remington in jail about the Smart case that he informed them that Richard was the masked trigger man in the bank holdup. I read that the reason that he gave Richard up was because he was disgusted that Richard would abduct a teenage girl. It really ticked Remington off.

[Devil_Anse]

"we will soon hear from lawyer Smith" Sadly, no we won't! (Were you saying that sarcastically, Sandude?) Attorney-client privilege will continue posthumously unless waived by Angela. She isn't about to snitch on Ricci's dealer, either! Very dangerous!

"Angela is really broken-hearted" Now I know you're being sarcastic!

An OJ-style search for the perp? Yes, I could see Angela doing that...

[Utah Girl]

Do you suppose Elizabeth could be HERE?

No.

[Devil_Anse]

When she "recovers" from the Soma, maybe she'll move on to Oxycontin.

[lakey]

If it wasn't my idea, I don't want credit. Besides, I just came into an inheritance & don't need large or small bills ;O)

[varina davis]

That's the answer. I feel far more sure of this scenario than of any other which I have come up with to explain any aspect of this case.

A major hole in your theory, devil, why on earth would he have gone to all the trouble to kidnap a 14-year-old girl in the middle of the night, with her sister in the room, parents and assorted brothers sleeping nearby. He knew full well that the Smarts were among the elite of SLC and that such a caper would bring out the LDS in fulll force as well as public opinion and LE.

He might not have been a rocket scientist, but he didn't seem stupid enough to think he wouldn't be a suspect, having worked for Smart for so long and so intimately.

He had plenty of time to cross the Mexican border and did not run.

There was no ransom asked -- indeed, even Ed Smarth stated this past he believes it was "a straight-up kidnapping."

[sandude]

I feel far more sure of this scenario than of any other which I have come up with to explain any aspect of this case.

Have you decided that Richard has to be innocent? You've been putting together this tortured scenario for two days now. I don't have time today but there are several illogical components to what you're proposing.

[varina davis]

Excuse the typos, it's late.

[Utah Girl]

Sadly, most junkies end up taking whatever will give them a high, anything at all.

[varina davis]

In fact, Devil, no one a lot of posters have implicated as perpetrators or accomplices, ran anywhere, except Edmunds, and that apparently was a case of mistaken identity.