Elizabeth Smart Thread, 9/17/02 to ???

[Devil_Anse]

About this D.A., or Deputy D.A., Morgan. I note his glib statement, that the supposed chaos was "the ward function of the year." This is not the only rather glib, slightly sarcastic-sounding statement I've seen this same person make, referring to Mormons and their church.

In an article about alleged child-molester and ex-bishop Dixon, this Morgan said something to the effect that maybe Dixon was "fleecing his flock."

I get the feeling that Morgan isn't too crazy about the LDS church. As I said once b/f, if someone shows me proof that he is himself a Mormon, obviously I will turn out to be wrong. But I don't think he is, and I don't think he likes that church much. So, with a D.A. or deputy D.A. who doesn't even seem to like the LDS church...well, that would be one person in SLC who isn't in on the gigantic, mysterious, evil plot by all the law enforcement and church and prominent people there, to pull the wool over our eyes.

And there she is: Sue Ann Adams again. How well does she know Ed Smart, and how could he have recommended Ricci to her before April 2001--unless Ricci was already working for Ed before April 2001? Why was a shirt from Sue Ann Adams' house found among Ricci's property, over a year later? Ricci only got out on his last parole on September 12, 2000.

[Neenah]

If you have a different source than the Deseret News article on 09/07/02, please post a link......I'd like to read it. 899 posted on 9/25/02 11:53 AM Central by freedox

freedox is right here too...You mentioned sourcing, freedox has done that. You state something, but you do not source!

I know you know how to do it, sandude, I gave you all the HTML to study to learn how to do it. I know you are smart. I think you should start sourcing your stuff as well as the rest of us.

It makes it easier to credit a post, on whether it is an impression, theory, or offical statement. The article freedox talked about and sourced, was said at a press conference. What you said is from your lips. Could be so...but with all the sources we have, I too, would like to see you go on record as she asked. Thanks! Show your fine skill !!

[freedox]

Devil, why do YOU keep trying to drag the Mormon church into this? Kent Morgan is a Deputy District Attorney. I assume he has access to the official files and reports in this case, and that his public statements are based upon such. Whether his statements sound "glib" to you or not is of no interest to me......nor is his church affiliation.

[Devil_Anse]

You don't want to take the statement of Sue Ann Adams, as quoted, as persuasive? Then why take the statement of D.A. Morgan as quoted?

I, for one, wouldn't trust any statement by him any more than I would a statement by Sue Ann Adams. One thing to consider: the veracity of Sue Ann Adams in an affidavit was considered good enough to launch a burglary felony charge against Richard Ricci. Sounds to me like she isn't some sort of known liar.

[scaredkat]

I haven't stated Ricci did it.
I haven't stated Smart family member did it.
I haven't stated anyone did it.

I have brought up senarios. I have wondered who the players are that are involved.

I do truely believe that the one main person/player involved has not been mentioned yet on the media or anywhere else. I do believe there is more than one person involved.

[freedox]

"You don't want to take the statement of Sue Ann Adams, as quoted, as persuasive?"

Persuasive? No. Not when her statement appears to be in direct conflict with the statements of a district attorney and a number of police officers.

[Devil_Anse]

If you read the whole article it states that police arrived on the scene within 12 minutes of the first call and that no neighbors were present.

Thank you for making that clear, Sandude. We all need to do as you did, and read the WHOLE article, not just some piece of it.

I've never paid much attention to the furor about whether it was the police, or the neighbors, who were summoned first--or to the questions about Ed running around the neighborhood "leaving his family unprotected."

As for the possibility of neighbors being told b/f police were called, I think in that situation, I'd make darned sure my teenager wasn't at some neighbor's house, or hadn't gone out running, b/f I alerted the police. I'd probably doubt the story about the man at first, thinking my 9-yr-old was probably freaked out and confused. I have occasion to call the police every now and then, but I wouldn't want them to think I was some crackpot who always went off the deep end immediately.

I'd have been in constant motion, carrying a cellphone if possible, searching for my child in the neighborhood, either by car or on foot, but in the back of my mind I'd have been saying, "Your child has been out of your sight before, you were worried about it, it always turned out all right, it's gonna be all right this time, too."

As for the notion that Ed "left his family unprotected," there was a teenaged boy, older than Elizabeth, there, and Lois is not some cripple. If they own a gun, she could hold the thing as easily as could Ed.

[Devil_Anse]

I do not believe the Deputy District Attorney's statement more than I would believe the statement of citizen Sue Ann Adams. I have been a Deputy District Attorney. I was honest; not all of them are honest.

There is no reason for you to reject the quoted statement of Sue Ann Adams--especially if you accept the quoted statement of some other person. Everything we know about this case comes from QUOTED STATEMENTS BY INDIVIDUALS, or by our seeing the individuals talking on TV.

[Devil_Anse]

A number of police officers? What are their names? Where are their statements quoted?

Dang it, Freedox, I just know I'm going to have to actually go back and read that whole article again. That's a bad thing, I would rather be lazy and not go rooting around for it!

Just remember: Sue Ann Adams' statement was considered GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE POLICE. They used her declarations to file an INDICTMENT OF A MAN FOR THE FELONY OF BURGLARY!

[freedox]

"If you read the whole article it states that police arrived on the scene within 12 minutes of the first call and that no neighbors were present."

I'm still waiting for a copy and paste of this alleged statement from the source. I have the article right here, and I am finding nothing......other than Suann Adams' statement which contradicts statements made by the district attorney and the responding police officers.

I'll be back later to see if either of you have come up with anything......

[Devil_Anse]

You know, Freedox, I think we could all benefit from going back and reading Anatolfz's Post 869. There are many good points in it about judging statements by others for credibility, and ways to analyze what we know.

I don't see why we need to frame this discussion as a sort of debate, with each party saying "gotcha!" whenever they put something on the board. I hope people realize that it's not about either being in the "Ricci" camp, or the "Smart" camp. I think there's much more to this case than that. We don't always have to take sides or gang up on each other, in order to try to find the truth.

[Devil_Anse]

I'll be back later to see if either of you have come up with anything.

There are other articles which address the issue of who was at the house first. The article you're talking about contained surprisingly candid statements by police, blaming themselves for allowing the scene to be contaminated. As I told Sandude, I haven't paid too much attention to the furor over whether the police or the neighbors were called first. This is b/c it does not seem unnatural to me for a man in that position to maybe call his neighbors early on, maybe even b/f the police. A person wants to only call police if necessary, not waste their time on a momentary episode of mistake and hysteria.

So I'll root around among some articles, perhaps at Brigette's site, and see what I can dig up about who got there first. But, other than the idea of people trampling forensic evidence, I don't really consider it a key point whether the police or the neighbors were called first, and I don't think it necessarily tells us much. I do find it odd that Sue Ann Adams' name keeps coming up in this case.

[sandude]

I'm stating this from my memory of the article which could be flawed but I don't think so. I'll look for and paste the source this evening after I get home from work.

[FR_addict]

A thousand pardons, Queen of Cryptic Posts!
To the Tower! if you do it again!

...
Good! Then you can be the Princess of Cryptic.

Hey, No fair! I was suppose to be Your Majesty.

[Devil_Anse]

You can be Your Majesty, and Varina can be Your Cryptitude.

[Utah Girl]

Thank you. I've tried to keep my comments factual, every time I don't, I get into trouble. :)

[cherry]

"I don't see why we need to frame this discussion as a sort of debate, with each party saying "gotcha!" whenever they put something on the board. I hope people realize that it's not about either being in the "Ricci" camp, or the "Smart" camp. I think there's much more to this case than that. We don't always have to take sides or gang up on each other, in order to try to find the truth."

well, I got to tell you, after reading your breakdown review of the frequent posters here, yes there are two sides....

one side looking at all scenarios and one side looking at only ones that make the Smart's look good

somehow people have got the Smart's mixed up with the credibility of the LDS church...as if the church's honor would be disparaged if the Smart's are accused of anything....I guess acccusing Angela or Rick or any of the other numerous Mormons in that trailer park is A-OKAY because they are low class....

the Smart's DO NOT equal the LDS church....

furthermore, if you had read any of the tributes given Ricci and Angela, or if you read any other sites on crime then you know there are plenty of people, LDS included that don't necessarily believe the "RickRicci/all the time" program....they are open to all views and possibilites...

But you Devil...you even are questioning the integrity of one of the Utah DA's....basically accusing him of being a LDS hater....

tell me....does everyone have to be LDS to have any credibility in your book....the book you started as of Sept 5th?

[Utah Girl]

Here is the Deseret News article about the crime scene at the Smart house in its entirety, with links. The police do take responsibility for the unsealed crime scene, Dinse does say it was an "oversight" (I personally would have used stronger language) that the crime scene wasn't cordoned off. I've bolded the parts that show the police have admitted their culpability. And I will stick up for sandude, this article was posted, I can remember reading it also on one of the Smart threads, and he said that he would source it when he got home from work.

Smart scene unsealed for hours

Several people entered home after kidnapping

© Copyright 2002 Deseret News

By Derek Jensen
Deseret News staff writer

Police waited nearly three hours after Elizabeth Smart was reported missing to seal off her parents' Federal Heights house as a crime scene.

That "oversight," as Salt Lake Police Chief Rick Dinse termed it, means investigators likely will never know what evidence may have been lost from the Smart residence because police allowed several neighbors and family members inside the house during that critical time.

Elizabeth's father, Edward Smart, called police at 4:01 a.m. June 5, about two hours after his daughter was taken at gunpoint from her bedroom. Police arrived at the residence 12 minutes later but did not begin sealing off the house entirely until 6:54 a.m.

"It was a pretty big issue," said Lt. Cory Lyman, who's part of a team of detectives overseeing the Smart investigation. "We were very upset."

No officers were disciplined for failing to cordon off the scene more quickly, but Dinse said the mistake has prompted more training within his department.

"The people who were responsible for controlling that have been talked to," Dinse said. "In this case, the crime scene was not well-controlled, and that's something we have to live with in the investigation. It's a matter of training and educating our officers who slipped."

Failure to secure a crime scene properly can cause evidentiary problems if a case is taken to court, Deputy District Attorney Kent Morgan said.

"Securing the crime scene eliminates the possibility that somebody came there after the incident and before the evidence was collected," Morgan said. "When you don't secure the crime scene until later, it makes it more difficult to find which evidence found in the crime scene is relevant."

So far, investigators have not uncovered enough evidence to charge anyone with Elizabeth's kidnapping. While admitting their mistake, police also downplayed the impact it could have on this case, which has remained unsolved for three months.

"If there was anything that was damaged or tainted by the virtue of people being in and around the scene, that can only be guessed," Dinse said. "We didn't find anything, at this point, that we believe is contaminated. On the other hand, we don't know what was there."

Lyman said the patrol officers who first responded to the Smart house acted appropriately by making their first priority that of finding Elizabeth instead of taking time to cordon off the entire house. Sealing off the entire area around the Smart's million-dollar home would have taken at least four or five officers, meaning less manpower for trying to find Elizabeth as soon as possible.

"That's absolutely what they should be concerned with," Lyman said. "We always put life ahead of an investigation."

Police say it's virtually impossible to seal off every crime scene immediately. Still, Lyman said, "I can give you justifications for why it didn't happen the first 15 to 20 minutes, but not why it didn't happen" until almost three hours later.

More than anything, waiting so long to cordon off the house simply made more work for investigators, who had to determine each individual who entered the house following Elizabeth's reported abduction, then determine what, if any, evidence those people may have brought in with them.

Lyman estimated that number to be more than a dozen people. Ed Smart said he recalled 40 to 50 different people inside his house that morning, most of them family and members of his LDS ward whom he called for help after first contacting police.

"As soon as I found out that my daughter was gone, I wanted all the help I could get to find her," Ed Smart said. "I wasn't thinking about contaminating the scene. . . . Looking back on it, I would think that they (police) would have said something to me because there were a lot of people there."

Although previous reports have indicated that neighbors arrived at the Smart house before police, recent interviews with neighbors seem to indicate otherwise.

"When I came up, there was already a policeman inside the house," said Smart neighbor Suann Adams, whose family Ed Smart said was the first he called after phoning police at 4:01 a.m. Adams said she was the first neighbor to arrive at the Smart house.

Some neighbors who spoke with the Deseret News also said they entered the bedroom Elizabeth was abducted from as her then 9-year-old sister Mary Katherine feigned sleep. Those neighbors said they entered the room only to comfort Elizabeth's mother Lois, who was in that part of the house.

Authorities admit that after allowing so many people into the house, it became much more difficult to secure it as a crime scene.

"In this case I'm not criticizing them," Morgan said. "We had neighbors running around trying to find Elizabeth. It was the ward function of the year where everyone was trying to help. By the time the police got there, they had to undo the chaos before they could begin reasonable forensic procedures."

****************************************************
Here is the link to the original posting of the above article, it was posted by Sherlock. Several people entered home after kidnapping

[Neenah]

Computers Examined In Elizabeth Search

Friday, June 21, 2002

BY ASHLEY BROUGHTON THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Three computers belonging to the family of Elizabeth Smart were among 12 examined and analyzed by authorities investigating the 14-year-old's disappearance, police said Thursday.

In addition, polygraph tests have been given to those "inside and outside" Elizabeth's family and other investigative tactics are being used, Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse said at a news conference.

However, police have been unable to identify a suspect in Elizabeth's June 5 disappearance from her Federal Heights home, and no one, including her family members, has been ruled out, he said.

Dinse sought to explain contradictory information about the sequence of telephone calls made to police, family members and neighbors the night Elizabeth vanished.So we have contradictory information....from who?

He also said that contrary to a police watch log that said a member of the Smart family had called neighbors before alerting police, authorities now believe the first call was to the Salt Lake Police Department. Dinse did not explain how the discrepancy had been resolved. what????The Police watch log said a member of the Smart family had called neighbors BEFORE alerting police...and then..."authorities NOW believe ...must have been a misunderstanding..who was the discrepancy caused by?

"We believe the first call was to the police at 4:01," he said. "We believe we have satisfied our questions regarding that."

A gunman allegedly abducted Elizabeth between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. that morning from the room where she was sleeping with her 9-year-old sister, Mary Katherine. Police said earlier this week the younger girl pretended to be asleep while her sister was taken, then went to alert her parents. She retreated after seeing the man in a hallway, and emerged two hours later when she felt it was safe, police said.

The Deseret News also has reported that Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart, called his brother Tom Smart at 3:30 a.m. But the men's sister, Cynthia Smart-Owens, said after the news conference that Tom Smart must have been mistaken about the time. Even if the family did call others first, it doesn't particularly bother authorities, said Dan Roberts, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Salt Lake office. "This is such an unusual type of crime . . . for them to naturally turn to friends and neighbors for guidance and assistance in the middle of the night, I don't think that is unusual."

As for the computers, Dinse said authorities were searching for indications Elizabeth had been talking to anyone online or receiving e-mails from anyone.

He would not say what was found on the hard drives, but emphasized that "we have found nothing on the computers that creates a nexus to this crime. There certainly were questions, and those questions have been asked and responded to."

Two personal computers and one with business material on it were among those turned over by the Smart family at police request, Dinse said, and all three now have been returned. He did not say who owned the other nine computers, but said "we are mostly done with [them]."

The National Enquirer tabloid newspaper is expected to publish a story today about the contents of the computer, said Det. Dwayne Baird. So the police KNEW that the NE was going to publish the contents of the computer? I didn't rememember this!

Police have described the purported kidnapper as a white man, 30 to 40 years old, with dark hair and hair on his arms and backs of his hands. He was wearing tan pants, dark shoes, lighter jacket and a Scottish-style golf hat and carried a handgun.

Police also still are looking for Bret Michael Edmunds, 26, who they say may have seen something in the neighborhood that could help the investigation. Edmunds is not considered a suspect, police stressed.

Other aspects of the investigation have involved driving Mary Katherine around the Smart neighborhood in hopes of finding a route the two sisters took when they went jogging the night before the abduction, Dinse said. Forensic evidence is being analyzed in state and federal labs, including some items belonging to family members and Elizabeth, and others taken for purposes of elimination in case material is found for comparisons.

Roberts said investigators have looked at other kidnapping cases in Idaho Falls and Oregon, but no link between those cases and Elizabeth's abduction has been found.

Dinse told The Associated Press that only one ransom request had been received -- an e-mail forwarded to police from "America's Most Wanted." The e-mail demanded that $50,000 be dropped off at the "Morman" temple by June 17. Police received the e-mail after that date, Dinse said, and the writer did not follow up. "We're not taking that seriously. We haven't heard anything else on it."

He said authorities are still following up on leads, some of them "very promising." But, said Baird, daily news briefings will be discontinued until there is a major development in the case.

"The investigation is a critical part of what we're doing to solve this case, and get her home and safe, we hope," Dinse said. "We're not telling you a lot of things we're doing . . . we're doing that purposefully, to protect that investigation."

_________ Tribune reporter Linda Fantin contributed to this report.

[freedox]

"I don't really consider it a key point whether the police or the neighbors were called first, and I don't think it necessarily tells us much."

I see. Now that I have asked you for sources to back up your statements, the whole issue suddenly becomes unimportant. Well, Devil, I think the issue IS important. As I lined out several posts back, I think that the presence of several neighbors in the home when the police arrived goes to the very heart of this case. Specifically, I think that the presence of neighbors prior to and after the arrival of the police raises questions about MK's "armed gunman" story.

It is my contention that reports of an armed gunman in a neighborhood would NOT prompt people to leave their own homes and families unattended to rush to the aid of a neighbor. I would think that their first concern would be for the safety and security of their own families. The story of an armed gunman falls under even greater suspicion when one reads reports that these neighbors were literally "beating the bushes" outside the Smart home in search of Elizabeth and/or her armed abductor. Perhaps you would find one or two people foolhardy enough to do this, but not a whole neighborhood full of them. Simple logic tells me that these neighbors showed no fear because they were not told anything about an armed gunman. Why not? Did MK not "remember" that the man had a gun until some time later? I thought it was the GUN and the threats of harm that had scared her back under the covers for 2 hours. Did she "forget" to tell her parents that part when she woke them? Did Ed "forget" to mention it to the neighbors when he summoned them in the middle of the night? I don't think so.

If there was reportedly an armed gunman in the neighborhood, why did the police allow neighbors to continue milling about after their arrival? Were the police not concerned for the safety of these citizens? Were the police not told about the armed gunman until sometime later, or were they told and they simply didn't believe it? Wouldn't you think that even if they had their doubts, they would have erred on the side of caution? What was it about this case that seemingly caused the police to throw all standard procedures out the window?

I don't know how Elizabeth left that house, or with whom, but I do not believe that she left with an unknown man holding a gun at her back. The only eyewitness to this alleged event has been kept sequestered throughout this investigation. We have never heard any direct quotes of what she has allegedly reported. In my opinion, the behavior of the neighbors and the police that night argues against the presence of danger in the area, and I have seen no logical explanation that would resolve my doubts.

Oh, and btw, here are my sources for the assertion that neighbors were indeed present before police arrived:

"The police chief also expressed frustration with the crime scene. He said at least 10 of the Smarts' neighbors were invited into the house before police could arrive at 4 a.m. Wednesday." (CBS, 06/08/02)

"Dinse said Friday that some of the evidence at that scene was disrupted by neighbors who were allowed to enter the house to search for Elizabeth before police arrived." (Deseret News, 06/08/02)