Posted on 06/05/2002 12:27:43 PM PDT by let freedom sing
Parents Were Asleep In Bedroom
SALT LAKE CITY -- A gunman forced his way into a house and abducted a 14-year-old girl Wednesday while her parents slept in their bedroom, police said.
Police said the man also threatened Elizabeth Smart's 9-year-old sister and said he would harm the teen if her sister said anything. The two girls share a bedroom in the home in the affluent Federal Heights neighborhood.
Her sister waited several hours before alerting her parents because of the threat, said Duane Baird, a Salt Lake City police spokesman.
"A two-hour window gives anyone the opportunity to be away from this area," Baird said.
Searchers began looking for clues before dawn Wednesday.
Elizabeth was abducted at about 2 a.m. on June 5, 2002. The abductor is described as a white male, with dark hair and wearing a white jacket and a white baseball cap. Elizabeth was wearing red pajamas, and he let her take a pair of shoes, police said.
The sister told police that the soft-spoken man got into the house by forcing open a window and had a small black handgun.
This assumes the police are TRYING to break her; and unless they're morons, they haven't. I assure you, in Utah, the police don't have a little white girl not accused of a crime, from a wealthy family, alone in a room with floodlights in her face with a couple chain-smoking cops screaming at her.
If the police are suspicious about the story (and they likely are) I have little doubt, as I've mentioned previously, that they're being subtle about it. And they won't mention any suspicions publicly for a week or two. Meanwhile, they look for the girl, and attempt to (or at least make it look like they are attempting to) pursue the perpetrator.
He took her out of the house in her pj's, so he didn't intend that she would live very long. All pedophiles should face the death penalty, all of them, from priests to ditch diggers.
I literally can't remember a crime story where the COLOR of a handgun the perp was using was reported. Definitely not "dark colored"...either TV or newspaper. And there are a LOT of crime stories; I live near Baltimore and DC.
Of course, that's assuming there was any gun at all.
The child is 9 years old. All she saw was the color of a gun. Didn't know the make or model or bullet specifications. She's a little girl in a terrifying position. What is so very difficult to understand about that?
You're pretty naive if you think it's not a possibility the girl isn't telling the truth.
And kids DO lie, even about important stuff. Even kids from "good families." Stranger things have happened. If she is lying, more than likely she was put up to it by her older sister.
I'm not the only person who thinks many aspects of the story are fishy. It's certainly quite possible the girl is telling the truth and her sister was abducted by a stranger, and it's certainly wise to operate under that assumption, particularly for the police.
Absolutely, and it's the only way to stop them other than locking them up for the rest of their lives. Because they never change, from what I've read. The recidivism rate is extremely high.
I'm personally fond of the idea of having a Devil's Island again. The worst of the worst can just be dropped from a plane onto it, and just left. No guards, no way to escape, if they can find some way to feed themselves, ok fine, otherwise, they can starve for all I care.
You're missing my point. MOST people can't ID a handgun and it's not that I find it suspicious that the girl couldn't ID the make.
I just find it strange to have "dark colored handgun" reported, instead of "handgun."...again, having seen or heard thousands of crime stories with a suspect at large who used a handgun, not a one said "dark colored handgun"...it was always "handgun" if there were no specifics on the gun reported.
And kids DO lie, even about important stuff. Even kids from "good families." Stranger things have happened. If she is lying, more than likely she was put up to it by her older sister.
I'm not the only person who thinks many aspects of the story are fishy. It's certainly quite possible the girl is telling the truth and her sister was abducted by a stranger, and it's certainly wise to operate under that assumption, particularly for the police.***
Naive? Nope.
Interesting how you and a few others on this thread immediately accused the girls of lying. The story is sketchy because we don't know enough yet. Amazing how you armchair quarterbacks attack and defile young children before knowing the facts.
Did you make these kind of accusations during the Polly Klaas abduction...until you learned the truth?
I have to disagree, everybody knows that Tennessee is the Volunteer State.
GO VOLS!!
It's not strange. Put yourself in the cop's place. The girl says she saw a gun.
Q: "Can you describe the gun?"
A: "Well.... I don't know how to describe it."
Q: "What color was the gun?" A: "It was dark-colored..."
Q: "OK. Can you tell me how big it was? Was it bigger or smaller than my pistol?" A: "It looked smaller...."
And then the cop releases the information as part of the description. You never know what will help.
Not saying that is what has happened. But i do not see the story as reported being the actuality of what happened.
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