Replies

[Warning to those who bore easily: Do not read this post. It is almost as long as an 8th grade essay.]

The accounts of what Mary K. said just sound so unnatural. "A man's taken Elizabeth." That can't be a direct, exact quote, can it?

I want to tell you about why I think Ed went ahead with Ricci even after Ricci drove off in the jeep and didn't come back.

My neighbor's house (outside) was being painted recently. I looked over often to see the painters, knowing that our own house needed outside painting, and planning to ask our neighbor what sort of job this painter was doing.

The painter saw me looking and came over and introduced himself. Nice guy, very personable. Works with his sons. Says he has 10 children. He urged me to hire him to paint our house. I told him I'd think about it. Every day after that, he'd come over and ring the doorbell, smile, and say, won't be long b/f your neighbor's house is done! Want me to paint your house? At one point, he gave me an estimate.

I arranged for another painter to come one day and give me HIS estimate, believing I shd get more than one estimate. The man didn't show up, though one or the other of us waited there all day. Late afternoon, here comes my neighbor's painter. This time, I was ready to hire him--if he'd come down on the price. He did, he came down nicely.
The neighbors and their in-laws recommended him highly when I asked them.

We signed a "contract." He wanted half up front. (I know, I know...) I gave him some cash (as he requested) but paid most of the down payment by check. He left, promising several times to come back the next day bright and early and get started. It was a Saturday; he said that didn't matter one bit. He never showed Saturday. He never showed Sunday. On Monday I called the bank and stopped payment on the check. But he'd still gotten the cash. About noon Monday he showed up. We talked about the stopped-pmt check and I was unapologetic. He said he understood. He got to work. For the next 2 weeks, he'd come by whenever, and work. Slowly but surely the job got done. In the middle of it, he asked for an advance again. I told him absolutely not, till he'd finished. But I did give him $100 cash towards payment one time. Still, most of his money was unpaid.

He finally finished the job to our satisfaction. I paid him by check. He'd wanted cash, but I insisted on check. (Found out later his driver's license is expired and he's afraid to go renew it b/c he has a misdemeanor warrant open; hence his trouble cashing checks.)

When he went to the bank to cash that last check, the bank called me. I said, pay the check, and they did.

Once you feel stuck in something like this, you end up just trying to make it work. If I had fired him after the 2 days he didn't show, I'd have lost the cash part of the down payment I'd given him. I thought of doing that. (Even went back to that other painter and finally got HIS estimate.) In the end I just kept on, and finally we had the house properly painted, and he had his money.

Later (again, this was stupid of me)--after he and I had already signed the "contract," but b/f he'd gotten much of a start painting, I ran him on the state computer and found he'd been convicted of crack possession almost 2 years ago. To me, that explained his erratic working hours.

Ever after, I will always pay the $6 or whatever to get an internet background check on workers. If they won't give me their DOB and real name, address, etc., they can take a hike.

Ed had more cojones than I. I wouldn't have gone to my painter's neighborhood to get him, even though I know very well where he lives--both places.

At one point, while talking to the painter I didn't hire, I told him I hoped to find someone w/o a criminal record to paint our house. He laughed, and said, well if you want that, you've just eliminated 70% of the housepainters in the county!

Yesterday our painter came by. Wanted to know if we needed the rain gutters cleaned. I told him, thanks, but I already had someone else coming to clean them.

FWIW, I have no daughters.

So there was a $1000 bracelet of Lois' that was taken by Ricci in 2001?

Looks to me like there was more evidence to back up that charge than just Ricci's admission. To my knowledge, pawn shops are required to keep good records, including videotapes and driver's license numbers, etc. There apparently was such evidence, showing Ricci pawned the bracelet.

Clearly, Ed and Rick were not always on good terms. Ed may have felt they were, perhaps b/c that is just the way he looks at things. But seems to me that's rather "un-intuitive" or whatever you might call it, for Ed to ignore the problems they'd had. Of course, Ed deals with contractors all the time...

I think Rick may have harbored some resentment towards Ed. Ed, on the other hand, had Rick back to the house after the jeep confrontation, and after the unexplained thefts. Capacity for denial? Who knows?

Why did the AMW re-enactment that Sandude described show an abductor with a full beard?

Why was Mary K. so seemingly fatalistic, even calm, about the whole thing?

If this kidnapping was some elaborately planned event, I don't see Ricci being the mastermind. Look at how he behaved in other situations: he drives the guy's jeep off and just doesn't come back, surely knowing that the guy would eventually come to hold him accountable and might be mad. (And Ricci was on parole, and knew he had to watch his step.) Then Ricci calmly goes and pawns the stolen bracelet? How could he have missed the videocams, and driver's license checks, that the pawnshop would have? How could he have expected not to be associated with the stolen bracelet?

I think Ricci was a very impulsive person.

Ed said Elizabeth wouldn't wake up unless touched? Remember there was an allegation that Mary K. was tapped on the shoulder? Could the kidnapper have wanted to take both of them? Could the extra time spent in the house been b/c Elizabeth was begging the guy to leave her sister alone?