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The Smarts are behaving the exact opposite of the Levys.

Hardly. For one thing, the two cases are quite different. The Levys were thousands of miles away from their daughter when she disappeared, and hence could hardly be suspected, even by the most cynical observer. Also, their daughter was grown and out of the house, had her own life. Seems to me any family conflicts go way down when a child grows up and starts a life of his/her own. I'm sure the Levys had a few arguments with their daughter through the years; I'm sure the Smarts did, too. What is there to indicate that either set of parents would have wanted their daughter dead? Just show me one fact, I'm eager to see it, I'm all for anything that will explain this mystery, whether it implicates the family or not.

The Levys' daughter's body has been found. The Smarts' daughter has not been found. We have heard virtually nothing from the poor Levys since the sad discovery, now 4 months ago. Any progress on finding the killer? We have no idea, we are told nothing. As for the Smarts, they have not been before the cameras in, what, a couple of weeks at most? Yet when Ed was in front of the camera every day, all I heard out of people like you was, "he sure loves the camera." Maybe they really were trying to be sensitive to the Riccis' grief.

It wasn't "competent professionals" who found Chandra's skeleton. It was a man and his dog looking for turtles. Yes, I know the Levys' p.i.'s claimed to find more bones, but who found the skeleton to begin with? I'm sure the Levys are still hoping to find the killer, but we certainly haven't heard anything to that effect lately. So just b/c we haven't heard anything of the Smarts' efforts in TWO WHOLE WEEKS (an eternity for someone with ADD) doesn't mean they are not working and hoping just as the Levys no doubt are. If the Smarts have a p.i. working on the case, the last thing anyone who's paying good money to such a person would want to do is blow his cover.

There it is, another "term paper." I guess a long post is a "term paper" unless it's got lots of sensational, unproven tabloidesque tidbits in it.

In the posted articles, this columnist Tim Rollins raises many good points. Most have been raised before by posters on this forum, but then, posters here talk about the case daily, whereas surely Mr. Rollins does not.

A couple of things he said, though, tend to stick in my craw (to borrow one of his own expressions.) Hearing someone who is described as "a New Yorker with an attitude" accuse people from any other region of "smugness, arrogance, and elitism" is a JOKE! Puh-leeze! Sorry, Mr. Rollins, if we blighted peasants in "flyover country" can't meet your high expectations. Also, I assume this man is some sophisticated, trained, well-educated journalist, so I would suggest he get a new editor. Well-educated journalists are not supposed to use phrases such as "like I said," or "she could have fell asleep."

Mr. Rollins apparently has a bone to pick with the people of SLC, and I think it's a sort of religious difference, stemming from the old debate between free will and determinism. He can't seem to understand what he apparently sees as their tendency to perhaps take too much on faith, and see some things as being preordained. He should leave his personal criticism out of his columns and just stick with his discussion of the discrepancy in stories, which was quite good.

He cites several tragedies that have occurred in the SLC area, and implies that they could have been prevented if the people had been more aggressive in taking safety measures. I hate to break it to Mr. Rollins, but tragedies like the ones he described can and do happen anywhere. Usually each tragedy has a confluence of unfortunate events leading up to it.

If a parent goes to sleep at night at home, with his child in her own bedroom, why is it unreasonable for him to expect the child to still be there when he wakes up? There are still many, many communities in which people proudly say "they never lock their doors." It's not like the Smarts were letting their daughter roam the streets at night. If they are to blame for their daughter's disappearing from her own bedroom, then that means we have to blame the parents of the little girl who was pulled from her bedroom and beaten with a hammer, and the parents of Jennifer Short, b/c someone violated their home, and the parents of Polly Klaas, too, b/c a man came right into Polly's bedroom. That sort of thinking is hysterical and wrong.