"(Tom) Smart said he spent the night before Elizabeth's kidnapping shooting a Utah Starzz game at the Delta Center for the Deseret News. After work, Smart said he returned home about 11 p.m., spoke with his wife briefly, took a sleeping pill and went to bed.
He was awakened by a phone call about 3:30 a.m. It was his brother Edward calling with the news Elizabeth was missing.
Tom Smart said he and his family left their house shortly after Edward's call and arrived at the crime scene to find yellow police tape in front of the house.
After meeting with other family members at his father's house around the corner, Tom Smart said he returned with other family members to Elizabeth's home. They found the kitchen window open and the screen cut.
"Whether that's what they did or not, I don't know," Tom Smart said. "I didn't look at it under a microscope to find out if I knew which direction it had been cut from."
I just ran across this, and found it interesting in light of yesterday's debate about who arrived where when, etc. It has been said that Tom lives in Park City, about 45 minutes from Ed's home. From this, I would assume that he probably arrived at Ed's house by about 4:30 a.m. or shortly thereafter. According to Tom, the "crime scene" was cordoned off with police tape when he arrived. According to the latest police reports, however, the house wasn't secured until 3 hours after the police arrived, at approximately 7 a.m.
The presence of yellow police tape would seem to clearly indicate that some attempt was being made to treat this as a crime scene......yet Tom, Ed and the police all acknowledge that people were allowed to come and go. Some have suggested that the police didn't have enough manpower to restrain people from the scene. If this was the case, why didn't they call for more officers? Come to think of it, why would they NEED officers there to restrain people? The presence of police tape speaks for itself......surely the residents of Federal Heights wouldn't have to be physically restrained from crossing a police tape barrier. They would know what it meant.
If the tape was there, as Tom says, the police DID view this as a crime scene from early on. Why were no efforts made to protect it? Why did 40-50 people (according to Ed) ignore the tape? Chief Dinse's "mistakes were made" comments don't even begin to explain this.
Hmmmmmm, I don't remember this.
They went to Charles' house. It sounds like the "family" was already there when Tom stopped there.
Maybe Ed told him they would be going over to the Dad's house?
What do you think?