I think it is odd that at least one of these young girls didn't show some sort of emotion while this was going on. Maybe Elizabeth did show something, and we just haven't been told about it. If she was too afraid to scream, I still would expect her to at least shed a few tears and even make some sort of sobbing noise, if, as the police theory goes, she was "roughly" led down the stairs. The idea that both girls were quiet and obedient as zombies is just very weird.
I have always wondered if what the girls thought was a "small black handgun" was really what Mary K. thought it was. Seems it would have been easy to convince them in the dark that he was armed, even if he really wasn't. However, if we believe that Mary K. really told police she saw a small black handgun, it almost doesn't matter, since the effect was the same whether it was real or not--the effect was, a threat of harm.
Even if Elizabeth was warned not to make any noise, how would the man really feel sure she wouldn't? It seems that he would have taken more precaution on this than he reportedly did. The reports say Elizabeth "yelped" when she either skinned her knee or stubbed her toe. If she's the kind of person who couldn't restrain herself from making a very clear noise on that small provocation, how could she be so stoic as to be absolutely quiet in the face of such terror as a man dragging her off?
As for the parents' room, I seem to remember that it was actually a bathroom that opened onto the hall, and if you entered the parents' room from the hall, you'd have to go through the bathroom. I never found the Newsweek diagram of the house easy to use. I would bet that the hallway depicted in it looks shorter than it really is; this was a million-dollar home.
I can't figure out why it seems that the police don't know how Elizabeth and the man left the house. Even when a home-security system is not on alarm, I think there will still be a computer record showing any wired door being opened. Maybe the police do know this and just aren't telling.
As for the neighbors, it sounds like they behaved the way most neighbors would--rushing to the house, running around the neighborhood, etc. I don't think they'd have felt threatened physically, since there were a lot of them, and reportedly only one missing girl and one man. As Sandude said, people have been known to put themselves in harm's way to help others in an emergency. I'm sure many of them had their adrenalin up by then. I don't believe that all the neighbors could have been in on any big scheme to hide something.
There is one neighbor I wish I knew more about--Sue Ann Adams. She, too, was reportedly a victim of a crime by Ricci. She was reported to have been the first neighbor to get over to the Smarts' after the alarm was raised. (From the fairly recent article in which the mistakes in scene contamination are admitted by the police, who vow to train their officers better.) Ed Smart referred her to Ricci when she needed a contractor in about April, 2001. A shirt from Sue Ann Adams' home was taken from Ricci's things in a consensual search by police, on June 19. (This is in the affidavit connected to the indictment of Ricci for burglary of Sue Ann's home.)
Ed Smart says he felt safe in the neighborhood, yet he was so aware of the Beesley kidnap attempt 10 yrs before, that he immediately went to the Beesleys and said "check your kids."
There is a small article by Bill Bickel at about.com, in which he wonders about the full relationship between Ed Smart and Richard Ricci. I'm not suggesting anything sexual, but I do wonder how well these men knew each other. So does Bickel.
http://crime.about.com/library/weekly/aa090302a.htm
You left one small word out of your post, Devil....."ARMED"......they were supposedly looking around in the dark for one missing girl and one ARMED man. I realize that neighbors are quick to help in an emergency, but searching the bushes in the dark for an ARMED MAN would qualify as mass stupidity. Sorry, but I just don't buy it........