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