Volunteers search the foothills below the Salt Lake City home of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart who disappeared from her home Wednesday. Hundreds of people showed up to help in the search effort. (Steve Griffin/The Salt Lake Tribune)
Volunteers search the foothills below the Salt Lake City home of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart who disappeared from her home Wednesday. Hundreds of people showed up to help in the search effort. (Steve Griffin/The Salt Lake Tribune)
22 volunteers??? 22?? Why not 222 ???
SALT LAKE CITY- More than 48 hours after she disappeared, police on Friday morning said they are no closer to finding out what happened to 14-year-old girl who was reportedly taken at gunpoint from her home.
"I don't believe we've gotten any leads that we could call really solid, any at all," said Police Capt. Scott Atkinson said. He said police were still optimistic but "the longer we go without finding her, it becomes problematic."
The mere report of a man acting suspiciously was enough for authorities searching for Elizabeth Smart to block off a heavily wooded canyon and search through the night.
One of 1,200 volunteers searching for the girl reported seeing a man acting suspiciously at the top of Emigration Canyon on Thursday evening.
An all-night search yielded nothing, and Atkinson said of that report, "I think it's the quality of any other lead we've had."
The searchers may have seen a transient who lives in the rugged area of forest and sagebrush, sheriff's spokeswoman Peggy Faulkner said. Police hope to question the transient to see if he fits the description of the abductor, but he's not considered a suspect, she said.
Police on Friday also were asking for information about a man that was seen in the neighborhood a day or two before Elizabeth disappeared. A milkman said he saw the man in an older gray Nissan or Honda, but the license plate number he recalled didn't match any number in the state's database.
Police said that on Wednesday between 1 and 2 a.m., an intruder forced open a window at Elizabeth's home and went into the bedroom where the teen-ager and her 9-year-old sister slept. Police said the gunman warned the younger girl her sister would be harmed if she told anyone.
Because of the gunman's threat, the frightened younger girl waited two hours before alerting her parents, police said.
The kidnapper did not call Elizabeth by name and he did not appear to know his way around the house, the sister told police. No neighbors reported anything suspicious.
Pictures of the missing girl were posted throughout the city and people started wearing light-blue ribbons - Elizabeth's favorite color.
Meanwhile, the girl's father, Ed Smart, was hospitalized Friday morning after collapsing from exhaustion. He had slept little in the hours since his daughter's disappearance. The family did not say which hospital he was in.
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