The Smart family released a sketch Tuesday morning of a suspicious man spotted digging what appeared to be a grave in Fairview Canyon near Manti shortly after Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping.
Artist's sketch of suspect seen digging a hole.
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Three or four days after Elizabeth's June 5 kidnapping, two hikers who were looking for a campsite spotted the man digging a rectangular hole near some overhanging bushes in Fairview Canyon near Manti.
When the hikers asked what he was doing, the man said he was digging a pit to roast a pig. The hikers left but considered the situation suspicious because the location was so close to the bushes. When they returned, the man was gone. They called law enforcement officials, who searched the area and found nothing. Between 50 and 60 volunteers also searched the area on Saturday.
The man was believed to have been driving an older-model blue SUV, said Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart.
The sketch was drawn by one of the hikers, Smart said.
"We don't know the significance of it," Smart said Tuesday at the family's press conference. "It's highly suspicious, and we're anxious to try and find this person."
The Smarts also reiterated their plea for any information about the person seen leaving Neth's Auto Repair June 8 with Richard Ricci, the former Smart handyman who topped a police list of potential suspects. Ricci died from a massive brain hemorrhage last week. The Smarts are offering a $3,000 reward to anyone who can identify the man or the person who tried to break into the home of a Smart relative on July 24.
Ricci's Widow Tells Of 'Wonderful Man' No One Else Knew
Angela Ricci, at her Kearns home, says her husband, Richard, was "heartbroken" by the police investigation of him. (Paul Fraughton/The Salt Lake Tribune)
Two weeks before he died, Richard Albert Ricci penned a letter from his prison cell, thanking his new wife for standing behind him even as police were calling him the top "potential" suspect in the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart.
"When I met you, I had no idea how much my life was going to change," Ricci wrote on Aug. 17. "But then how could I have known?"
The love letter -- written in verse form in neat penmanship -- represents the man that no one knew "other than myself and his family," said his wife, Angela, who wed the ex-convict in Mesquite, Nev., last Valentine's Day.
She said Monday that her husband nursed her back to health after a devastating car wreck last year. "It's sad that nobody knows him as I do. . . . He was a wonderful man," she said.
Police investigating the June 5 kidnapping of the Salt Lake City girl had placed Richard Ricci at the top of the list of potential suspects, before his death Friday from a massive brain hemorrhage. He had been at the Utah State Prison since June for alleged parole violations.
Ricci, who worked as a handyman in the Smarts' home last year, insisted on his innocence until the day he died, and police were unable to find any physical evidence to charge him with the crime. Still, police say they are confident they can solve the puzzling case.
Angela Ricci said from the porch of her trailer park home Monday that her husband had no role in the unsolved kidnapping and was being targeted by police because of his criminal history, which dates back nearly three decades.
"He's an ex-convict with a record," Angela Ricci shrugged. "Because of that I didn't think he got a fair shake." She said she hopes police will not simply pin the crime on her deceased husband, who she insists was home sleeping when 14-year-old Elizabeth was snatched from her Federal Heights bedroom.
Angela Ricci said her husband was "heartbroken" because in investigating him, police were looking for the wrong man. "He just didn't tell [investigators] what they wanted to hear, that he was guilty, because he is innocent."
She said her husband had great respect for Elizabeth's father, Ed, but did not not really know any of his children. "All he said about them was that he heard them playing the harp and that was cool."
While the decision Friday night to take her husband off life support was difficult, Angela Ricci said, it was the right thing to do. Her husband's deteriorating medical condition was a "complete shock," she said. "But I feel at peace with the decision."
A funeral in Richard Ricci's honor will be held Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Peel Funeral Home in Magna. His body has already been cremated at his request, said family spokeswoman Nancy Pomeroy.
I live in SW Colorado. I took my son to day care today, and saw a blue van in a field. I hadnt noticed it before, but the lady that runs the day care says it has been there about 15 years. She also says it belongs to her brother.
Just thought I would bring it up. Never know, maybe someone else will look in the right direction and see something different.
Yes, that is what I am hoping. It is hunting season for various wildlife here in Utah, I'm really hoping hunters will notice something suspicious and find Elizabeth.