Elizabeth Smart thread, August 24-31, 2002

[IamHD]

I don't know when Utahn children start school, but Elizabeth should/would be starting the 9th grade, soon. :(

[Sherlock]

Do you have the link for that article you took Dinse's comment from. I think if you saw the statement in context it would solve all your speculation. I think the bottom line is whatever the accomplice says, Ricci won't be able to counter if he's not around.

[Sherlock]

Again you show lack of knowledge of the facts. Start reading my posts. Ed Smart is as wary of LE in this case as I am and I've said for a long time if this is going to be solved he will probably have to win his own ball game.

[sandude]

I thought this guy had a Honda, or something similar

I don't remember seeing anything about what kind of car Rick's friend drove. I may have missed it though. Maybe somebody has an article that states this. I'll try to look myself and let you know.

[sandude]

Either they trust the cops, or they don't. If they don't they should stop praising them and call a spade a spade.

Ed is walking a tightrope here. If he alienates the police he is not going to get their help. The fact that he is bringing in someone does indicate that he feels that the police effort has stalled. I don't think that he would do it for PR because there really is no one in the media putting any real heat on the Smart family. Alan Colmes asked some probing questions the other night but he didn't seem hostile. The family may be aware of all of the suspicion on the internet but I doubt if they are influenced much by it but who knows. They sure took Uncle Tom out of the spotlight in a hurry. Of course the fact that he made such an ass of himself probably was the clincher there.

Lee's high profile cases are far from successful. And what exactly is he going to examine?

You and I both have suspicions about this guys ability. He has made some asinine statements about this case on TV. I would suppose that his contribution will be to review what forensic evidence that LE has. We know of very little but there could be some from the Jeep that we are unaware of. He might come up with something that's been overlooked though so I suppose it doesn't hurt. I do wish Ed would have hired a different expert.

[Sherlock]

I don't remember seeing anything about what kind of car Rick's friend drove.

The article posted above says Mohl said when he last looked they were walking towards a blue van he thought they were going to get it but apparently he didn't actually see them get in it.

[sandude]

Would you give a 'stranger' a key to your home?

No, but we were asked to not long ago. We'd had a small flood and the contractor we hired wanted to do some of the work at a time when we were not going to be home. We declined and he was fine with that. We don't know how long the Smarts knew Ricci. Sherlock mentioned yesterday that he could have stolen a key he came across while working in the home. We really don't know if he had a key but it is possible. I've never said that the Smarts were not gullible. They have paid a terrible price for their poor judgment but they are human and many of us would have made some or all of the same mistakes that Ed made.

[sandude]

We both look at this family through different lenses. We are probably never going to reach a consensus but we do have some common ground. Ed is terrible at giving these interviews. He is very careful in what he says and he gets tongue tied as he thinks his way through his statements. I see this as simple nervousness coupled with the gag order that has been imposed on him by LE. I'm sure that he is looking forward to the day when he will be able to answer questions openly without parsing each phrase. I'm looking forward to that as well. It is frustrating to watch him wiggle under the lights but at the same time I admire him for taking the heat and doing whatever he can to keep the case active. As slim as it is, there is still hope for Elizabeth to be found alive.

I don't find any problem with the Smart family believing that Ricci had at least one accomplice. I've come to the same conclusion and posted several reasons why I feel this is true. If anyone wants, I'll go over it again. I don't know if anybody else in the conspiracy has been identified. Even if they have there would more than likely be no direct evidence linking them to the crime. IMHO Rick has all the keys to this crime. In the beginning I felt that it was possibly a burglary gone bad but have since decided it was a planned kidnapping from the start. I don't think the Smarts are trying to have it both ways. In any investigation as information is gathered and analyzed then conclusions made previously are reinforced or discarded.

Those who wish to exonerate Ricci must cast aspersions towards Neth Moul. Those who find no motivation for Moul to lie can easily put Ricci into an untenable position. The Smarts would have a tendency to believe Moul because his testimony at least points towards a plausible suspect. But even given that, the family was reluctant to believe that Ricci was involved until he began to stone wall the detectives and become uncooperative. IMHO any doubt was removed when MK picked his voice out of a lineup. I know that some reading this will doubt my analysis and I'm ready to listen to other's feelings of who may have been the voice that Mary Katherine recognized. So far, I just find that Ricci's is the most likely.

You wonder who taught Mary Katherine to control the situations she gets into. I would imagine that Ed and Lois have given her some ideas on how to handle questions from her schoolmates. What other situations do you think she might have needed any coaching in? The deal with Ed and Rick over the Jeep is way overblown. I see it as a Christian act of charity wherein Ed was helping out someone in need by allowing them to work off the debt owed for the Jeep.

[Sherlock]

I can't read them.

You don't have any problem writing your own to trash Ed Smart. Don't you think this family has suffered enough!

Thanks for the link.

[hergus]

"This is a mysterious and puzzling case that involves evil attacks on God-fearing people.

{snip}

Satan has the Smart family in his cross-hairs."

Here we go....now the people that are free thinkers are really agents of satan?

Puleeze....we wouldn't be caught dead wearing a tacky red costume with a tail.....

Are we here to talk about Elizabeth or what?

Flames and satan...can't you all do better than this in your attempts to disrupt this thread?

The level of the posts here at FR concerning the Elizabeth Smart disappearance has hit rock bottom. Signs of intelligent life are fading rapidly.

[Sherlock]

What I might see in this is LE taking this 'opportunity' to declare the case dead. I don't know, but I find it extremely difficult to believe they don't know who the accomplice is, seeing he was seen by so many sources and on video. This is the entire conversation by Dinse:

As Richard Albert Ricci lay unconscious and clinging to life in a hospital bed Wednesday, police expressed fears that he could die and possibly take information about Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping to the grave.

"If he does not survive, that would be a big impact on the case," said Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse, who for two months has said Ricci is uppermost on the list of potential suspects in Elizabeth's June 5 disappearance.

Ricci repeatedly lied or withheld information from police investigating the baffling case, Dinse said.

"There are questions about things that [Ricci] did," Dinse said. "If his health does not present the opportunity . . . it will have an impact on if we can ever clear him." End Quote

The Smarts are probably hoping if there are people out there with information that were afraid of retribution from Ricci and his friends they may bolt forward now to be first to collect the new $3000 reward.

[Ditter]

I know your rotts are good dogs & you love them but I am saying this so others will hear it.

My brother is a vet in Houston. I was just in his clinic 2 hours ago & overheard a lecture he gave to a young couple. They had brought their 4 month old rott puppy in because he was limping.

When my brother walked into the examining room the puppy broke out of his owners grasp & attacked him.

He told them if the puppy at 4 months old was that aggressive at such a young age, when he became sexually mature at 10 months or so, he had the potential of being a killer before he was a year old.

He told the couple about the case in CA where the dogs had killed the woman & that they were putting themselves in danger by keeping the dog.

I don't think he told them not to bring it back to his clinic but I know thats a possibility. They have been warned.

[Sherlock]

that were afraid of retribution from Ricci

Just a little new advertising just in case someone was hanging back because they were a friend of or afraid of Ricci, just a little more wood for the fire. Why do you think he's offering the reward, to hide something?

I do find it amusing that when Ed said he thought Ricci was poisoned it was okay;

I thought he might have been poisoned too, what are you talking about.

now that Ed is considering the attempted intrusion into the Wright home as a connection to Liz's disappearance, it's okay, too.

Ed didn't say they were connected, he said he doesn't know if there were or not like we don't. He primarily wants to know to take away the unknown in case there is someone dangerous out there and, like me, he may believe there is a good chance LE his hiding information. What is surprising about this?

[Sherlock]

The break-in also happened at the same time of night.

This is new information. If they know the time of night of the attempted break in it must have awakened the girl. The article on this only said they found a chair below the window used to stand on to cut the screen. There was no indication they knew when it happened, that it awakened the girl, and that it was at 2:00 am. Right? They only thing that sticks in my craw is when you try to devour Ed Smart, the poor man has been ripped apart enough by what has been perpetrated on his family without you getting in there and trying to filet them further and taking such jovial pleasure in doing it.

[Sherlock]

Why does it not surprise me that Bella has rotweilers.

[cherry]

neenah...this is the first that I heard that the vehicle was a blue van....

would have been helpful for the cops to release that description many many weeks ago...