Posted on 06/23/2002 3:48:13 PM PDT by Partisan Hack
Check the last sentance. The more the police keep quiet, the more the uncle seems to rush to fill the void. The police may just be handling this brilliantly.
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- Police interviewed Bret Michael Edmunds as he lay in a hospital bed here Saturday, but refused to say if he revealed anything about the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart.
Edmunds was alert and coherent during police questioning, although he remains in serious condition at City Hospital's intensive-care unit, said hospital spokeswoman Teresa McCabe. Edmunds is being treated for an apparent drug overdose, but hospital officials are refusing to disclose details of his condition.
Salt Lake City police launched a nationwide manhunt for Edmunds June 12 when they announced that the drifter -- already wanted on two outstanding warrants -- was a potential witness in 14-year-old Elizabeth's disappearance on June 5.
He turned up Friday, after checking himself into the hospital under a false name a day earlier. Hospital staff found his mother's Sterling, Utah, phone number on an emergency contact card Edmunds carried, and he was subsequently identified as the only person police have publicly sought in the kidnapping case.
Elizabeth reportedly was snatched from her Federal Heights home early on the morning of June 5, police say. As her parents slept, the girl's 9-year-old sister Mary Katherine secretly watched an armed intruder abduct Elizabeth from the bedroom the two girls shared.
Mary Katherine has provided the only description of her sister's captor. He is described as about 30 to 40 years old, 5-foot-8, with dark hair, and wore a tan, golf-style hat, a Polo shirt and a tan jacket.
The 26-year-old Edmunds is 6-foot-2.
Police insist they do not consider Edmunds a suspect in Elizabeth's disappearance, and simply want to talk to him "because he might know something," Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse has said.
A milk deliverer told police he had spotted a suspicious-looking vehicle prowling the Smarts' neighborhood two nights before the apparent abduction.
Police believe it was Edmunds, who was reportedly living in his car, and said he was often spotted in the area.
The car -- a green Saturn sedan -- was found in the hospital parking lot here Friday and towed to a nearby garage. Detectives searched the car Saturday, but would not say what, if anything, had been uncovered.
Edmunds was questioned by a Salt Lake City police officer and an FBI agent from Utah in a cordoned-off area of the hospital as a doctor stood nearby monitoring his condition.
Security remained tight in the hospital as Edmunds was moved to a secure part of the intensive care unit so the rest of the 8-bed unit could be reopened, McCabe said. The three other patients in intensive care had been moved Friday to allow federal agents to guard Edmunds.
And as news crews from across the nation descended on this town of about 14,100, security officials roped off a large section of the parking lot where reporters, producers and camera crews set up shop, apparently ready to stay as long as Edmunds remains hospitalized.
McCabe said Edmunds would stay at the hospital at least three or four days.
Edmunds is being held on a federal warrant charging him with fleeing to avoid prosecution for a probation violation. The federal charge allows U.S. marshals to bring Edmunds back to Utah without an extradition request.
He is wanted by Utah prosecutors for outstanding warrants on charges of fraud and assault on a police officer.
Meanwhile, a once-hopeful search for clues in steep terrain of south Draper turned up empty Saturday as a team of Salt Lake County sheriff's deputies used a trained German shepherd to search piles of dirt at a construction site on Traverse Ridge.
Volunteer searchers late Friday told deputies that three of their dogs had detected a scent in the area. Eager to pursue any possible lead, the sheriff's office dispatched a dog team along with search and rescue personnel to scour the area at first light Saturday.
"We didn't come up with anything," said Peggy Faulkner, Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman.
Loosely heaped mounds of earth dotting the construction site -- at the southern tip of the Suncrest housing development -- combined with steep and overgrown topography hindered the search effort, said Sgt. Jim Winder.
The sheriff's office's trained cadaver dog failed to confirm the scent that was reportedly detected Friday night and a subsequent ground search also yielded no clues.
"We're committed to following any lead that develops," Faulkner said. "We'd rather not discount anything."
David Smart, Elizabeth's uncle, showed up for the search, saying the lead could have been meaningful because Edmunds had been spotted several times in the hills of south Draper.
Maybe, but I don't see how the last sentence shows this. Sounds like a concerned relative and the media thought it worthy to ask him a question.
Should the nurse be fired?
Any news yet on that "hit" from a dog on the "south mountian"? I hate to be a wet blanket but I believe this is a sex crime, possibly committed by a relative and that she is dead. I hope I'm wrong but this "brother" is behaving strangley with interfering in having the younger sister interviewed and talking to a well known composite sketch drawerer. Something smells here.
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