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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

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

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.

Thanks for posting this article, UG, but your highlighting does not resolve the issue. sandude made two assertions about the article:

"There was a lengthy article in the Tribune or Deseret News which refuted this. It states that LE was on the scene before any neighbor arrived and that the Smarts called police before anyone else."

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

Neither of these statements is supported by what is stated in the article, with the exception of Suann Adams' statement. In this article, the police are accepting full responsibility for what happened to the crime scene AFTER their arrival......they neither can nor do they accept responsibility for what happened BEFORE they got there. Nowhere in the article do the police retract their previous reports of neighbors being present in the home when they arrived on the scene.

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

This is so pathetic!! Mr. Smart, no matter how berieved he was, and confused, screwed up big time with 40 - 50 people in the house...

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.......he directly CAUSED this whole mess. I am not saying intentionally, but directly.

For the police to not disipline the officer's in an "OH WELL ! " type of attitude is like the L.A.P.D.

While admitting their mistake, police also downplayed the impact it could have on this case, which has remained unsolved for three months.

Read the above statement again...the police downplayed the impact it could have on this case.....why?....cause they know what happened to Elizabeth? Just a thought.

In any case I have read about or followed, this step is very important. They have been very casual all along..and for weeks on end now..silent. Why? There are strange statements coming from both ends...LE and Family. Not my words, but in transcripts and print. Talk discussions, and internet...backyard talk, and phone talk. Here on this board, and by professionals and common folk alike. THIS CASE STINKS and something is very wrong.

Smart scene unsealed for hours

You are the best UG. Thank you so much for posting this article. I've got a really brutal schedule tonight and I've got to be to work at 4:00 AM tomorrow so I wouldn't have been able to do this research. Your efforts are appreciated.