hm.....
well, the thing is .....whoever did this wanted to make it look like there was an actual abduction from the outside ...up from the chair and thru the window.....
now ask yourself....who would want what ever happened to Liz to seem like an outside job???? why would Ricci care....why would any crook care what it looked like?
on the other hand, you would care if you had a key to the house, and everybody knew it...
Ricci could have had a key.....so could how many others.....
doesn't a relative or neighbor of yours have a spare key to your house?.....that is a custom a lot of neighbors do.....
Ricci is a fine target...a fine creep to pin this on as well as his slimy friends....but since there is not one stitch of evidence that he went and took Liz and apparently no evidence of one of his friends....then it makes just as much sense to look at Ricci and his friends as well as other "respected" members of the community....members that might have access to a key ......or knowledge about the lack of the alarm system being turned on....or knowledge that the garage door would be left open for a while ....
if this crime had happened in Podunk Alaska, and you read that a rich man just happened to leave his garage door opened and just happened to not put the alarm system on and whose dtr just vanished during the night.....in any other case other than this one everyone here would see big old red flags.....
How many of those other "respected" members of the community (quoting varina here) committed another crime (robbing a bank) also with a 9mm pistol, broke into another house on the Smart's block, and bragged to his ex-con friends how easy it is to break into the Smart home?
....but since there is not one stitch of evidence that he went and took Liz and apparently no evidence of one of his friends....
You don't know what evidence the police have. The police said they will not make an arrest until Liz shows up or her body is found. They don't want to try the kidnapper and then have more evidence turn up.
Covering one's tracks would be a good idea for any crook. But what I want to know is, what do those four dots mean? It makes me think the really important part of your reply has been removed.
You really have a "rich" thing, don't you? In Utah, Texas and a lot of other places where there is a culture of trust (an obviously foreign concept to you), people leave their doors, windows, and garage doors open all the time. My neighbor left his garage door open for about five years. One day his BMW disappeared. Guess what? He still leaves his garage door open most of the time.
In the Peoples Republic of California I set my home alarm all the time. In Texas I usually don't bother because of the much lower crime rate; concealed carry laws; the right to shoot-to-kill anyone on your property after dark; a vigorously enforced death penalty.
You can keep harping about Ed's "red flags" until hell freezes over, but it doesn't mean squat AND doesn't prove anything.