Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping - Daily News/Chat Thread - Day 20

06/25/02 - Tuesday | Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping - Daily News/Chat Thread - Day 20

[stlnative]

Please keep adding 6/25/02 dated Elizabeth Smart updates to this thread...
Remember to keep checking back to this thread today for today's
developing news on the Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping.

Some people may consider today to be actually day 20, I count 1 day for each
24 hours that have passed since Elizabeth was kidnapped.

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People on my Elizabeth Smart Ping List will only receive ONE ping
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Elizabeth or actually arrest someone for kidnapping her. It is up to you to visit the thread several times daily
as I and others will continue to add the latest breaking news reports as they are released throughout the day.

Links

Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping - Daily News/Chat Thread - Day 19
Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping - Daily News/Chat Thread - Day 18
Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping - Daily News/Chat Thread - Day 17
Elizabeth Smart Website
Smart Residence Real Estate Listing
Brigette's Scanned Copy of House Layout from Newsweek Magazine
(Please do not link to the picture on my server space, if you wish to use it...
copy and paste it to your own hard drive and move it to your own server space)

A note to the people who read this thread because they hope and pray that Elizabeth will be returned to her family and who wish to stay up to date with the facts in the case. Please do not let yourself get sucked into a heavy discussion or argument from someone who wishes to come in to this thread and makes a post that will disrupt this thread. The best thing to do it not to bring attention to these post or reply to them.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

If this guy worked for a landscaper, I assume they are checking back to see all the areas where he has worked- like newly built,not yet occupied homes.

[stlnative]

Ok... I am off of here for now, I have some thing to do and will stop in briefly through the evening and will be back online after 10pm. Make sure you all catch Ashleigh Banfields show this evening on MSNBC, she is reporting live from Utah. (I will have to watch the late night rerun of it).

[cherry]

i think it was stated that Ricci did not do deliveries...

I thought too that the cops had better check the greenhouse ....

I take it that the cops did not find any evidence in the two cars, they might have in the jeep..but if the smarts owned that car before, the defense might say...her hair and blood might have already there...

so why did they keep the jeep?

I want Elizabeth found alive...but today I am very very pessimistic...i could see that on the father's face as well

[Palladin]

Think "Fargo". Businessman with financial troubles hooks up with lowlife ex-cons to kidnap family member and later split ransom. There's a double-cross, and things get nasty.

Will William Macy play the part of Tom Smart in the sequel --"Salt Lake City"?

[Bella]

Could it be that they're targeting Ricci due to his criminal past, that he worked for the Smart's? Read my prior post...I don't see a similarity in his past crimes. Why would he go to the room where the girls were?? If he was going to rob their home, you'd think any criminal where there was money, valuables, something resellable?? From what I see in his past, it's theft, jail escape, etc..Maybe I'm wrong...

[stlnative]

Yes your right... They have had this guy in custody since June 14th and have known about him since June 6th... but they still don't have enough on him for a arrest. This tells me they are reaching for clues or he just not the guy. They have had plenty of time to check out everything... also I do not buy into that they have not showed MK a picture of this guy, or pictures of this guy in light clothes and a driving cap, or even a taped version of his voice. I think MK knows alot less information then what the police are acting like they have. I bet she never saw his face, she was probably to scared to look at him. She saw the hands and arms because she zoomed in on the gun in his hand.

[TheBigB]

That's true, although maybe since it was at night in the house, there were some shadows across his face that obscured the 'stache. Maybe.

[stlnative]

A bad picture of the flyer on the cars.

[stlnative]

The Jeep is being held because there is a part of the SUV missing, they would not say what

The latest from Fox News...

Police Investigate Three Cars in Kidnapped Girl Probe

Tuesday, June 25, 2002

SALT LAKE CITY  — Police investigating the abduction of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart are asking the public for information regarding three vehicles a handyman who used to work for the girl's parents may have been driving.

Police spokesman Sgt. Fred Louis said Richard Albert Ricci, 48, may have been seen driving one of the vehicles between May 31 and June 8, around the time Elizabeth disappeared. Police have examined all three vehicles and are seeking more information that may link them to Ricci.

One of the cars, a 1990 white Jeep Cherokee, was given to Ricci by Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart, as payment for work he did in the home. Police have kept that car in their custody but have released the other two.

Ricci, who has a 29-year criminal record, has failed a lie-detector test in the case and has confessed to burglarizing the missing girl's home last year, sources also told Fox News.

On Tuesday, police circulated a flier with photos of the three cars:

• a 1990 white Jeep Cherokee;
• a 1992 tan Ford Taurus;
• a 1995 white Oldsmobile.

On Monday, Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse said "Mr. Ricci has risen to the top of our list to be looking at. . . ."At this point in time, he is not a charged suspect, but he is very interesting."

Police said Ricci has an extensive knowledge of the Smart home and has confessed to burglarizing it.

The handyman worked for six months in the home before he was fired by the girl's father, Ed Smart, who suspected Ricci had burglarized the home, sources told Fox News.

Smart refused on Tuesday to discuss the terms of Ricci's firing, but acknowledged he did give his car to the handyman.

"When he came to work for me, he did not have a vehicle," Smart said. "I had this old Cherokee and I told him — we actually wrote up a contract — that he would work a number of hours for me and he would work that off."

Smart said he hired Ricci on the advice of a friend.

"I had absolutely no knowledge of his background whatsoever," he said. "I never, ever, would have hired him had I known that."

He said he didn't believe Ricci was angry or disgruntled about any of the interactions he had with the Smart family.

"He seemed like a very nice guy," Smart said. "I don't think he was angry...."I never felt I had misgivings with him."

Ricci has been in custody since June 14, when he was arrested on an unrelated parole violation. Elizabeth was taken at gunpoint from her bedroom nine days earlier.

Despite having had Ricci in custody for 11 days, police haven't been able to pin down his whereabouts on the morning of Elizabeth's abduction, Dinse said.

"We have questions about his actions between May 31 and June 8," Dinse said.

Ricci has been living in the Salt Lake City suburb of Kearns. He has a long criminal history in Utah, beginning with a burglary conviction in 1973. He was been in and out of prison for the past three decades, and was most recently freed on parole in 2000.

Ricci's convictions also include aggravated robbery, attempted homicide and a prison escape.

Chris Thomas, who has been acting as a spokesman for the girl's family, said Ricci last worked in the Smarts' Federal Heights home more than a year ago, painting and doing handy work.

Dinse said he believed Ricci had contact with the Smart children while he was working on the house.

He said Ricci's house and car have been searched, and that he has voluntarily talked to police. Investigators have also spoken with Ricci's wife, Dinse said.

Police have not shown Ricci's photograph to the sole witness of the abduction, Elizabeth's 9-year-old sister Mary Katherine Smart, who told police the man who took her sister was between 30 to 40 years old, nicely dressed and soft spoken.

Authorities said there was no known relationship between Ricci and Bret Michael Edmunds, the 26-year-old drifter sought for two weeks for questioning in the abduction investigation.

FBI agents told Fox News on Monday that they had interviewed Edmunds and that he now has "nothing to do" with the case.

Fox News' Alicia Acuna and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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[cherry]

agree...and that long haired guy on msnbc also agrees....he says it looks like the cops haven't a clue...or something to that affect..

my hope,,,my wish..my prayer....that this is like the movies and the cops are playing mind games, and in reality they have him in their sights and will pounce on him anytime now, saving Elizabeth.

Bridget....get the movie " Brigham city"....very interesting movie out of Provo about a kidnapping and the town's response..not "diehard" but it does center around serial killer in the midst of this very nice religious town....it aptly applies to Ed ....and his relationship with Ricci.....it has a lot of Mormon imagery and to me very flattering ...

[Wild Irish Rogue]

I still can't see a career criminal like this, wearing a snap brim, golf cap-a baseball hat or cowboy hat,yes.The golf cap seems too jaunty and old money,but you never know. I also can't see a criminal wearing light colored clothes and a very specific and unusual hat, for a nightime crime.He may well have been seen in the cap or they have found one,in his car or house-that would go a long way in his direction. I wonder if a career criminal, who had previously robbed a house and possibly considered robbing it again-would be more likely to fail a poly,just because of his criminal association with the house.

[stlnative]

The Jeep from the viewing the picture on TV, has the right driver side front flared wheel well made of black rubber missing. I don't know if this what the police are reporting that is missing and is why they are holding it. I just happen to notice it...

[TheDon]

The unusual nature of the hat makes me suspect otherwise. It would have been easier, and less memorable to whoever he acquired it from, to get a more generic hat. If the abductor aquired the clothing for the crime, there are likely witnesses who saw him do so. I would not give the abductor so much credit either. Though I would give them enough credit to get rid of the hat after the media revelations about the hat. I'm guessing the abductor wore the hat to cover up his partial baldness, and also wears such a hat on a regular basis. It could be a big help in casting suspicion on the right suspect.

[Plummz]

When I saw a reporter on FNC reporting this story this am, they said "the car was given to Ricci by the Smarts in exchange for some work" (paraphrase) . . then he preceded to list all three cars . . . weird.

[mountaineer]

The missing girl who's receiving much less attention than Elizabeth Smart is Alexis Patterson:

Elizabeth Smart is a blond-haired, blue-eyed, seemingly All-American girl whose parents live in a luxurious home in a community where children ride their bicycles in front of their houses and lawns. Alexis Patterson is an African-American girl with braided hair from a less-affluent part of Milwaukee — no less American, but like Elizabeth, a fellow missing child.

[Illbay]

When you say "Ricci is the guy," are you quoting something that has been said officially?

[GovernmentShrinker]

About this hat ...

This type of hat looks to me like something that would fall off easily -- a big risk for someone planning to forcibly remove a teenager from her home in the middle of the night (any hat left behind would surely contain hair, DNA, etc.). Also, I think we can pretty well rule out the idea that he might have entered through a window, since the leaning over while using both hands for leverage/balance that is associated with climbing through windows is incompatible with a hat that would fall off under such cirucumstances. Unless, of course, the abductor is really dim-witted, didn't think ahead when selecting an outfit for his abduction expedition, and just picked up the hat when it fell off. You'd think after it fell off once, though, it would have been stuffed in a jacket pocket and not still been on his head when Mary Katherine saw him.

[stlnative]

On the poly, he made have failed (remember the MEDIA is the only ones reporting he failed it). He could have failed for many reasons. Maybe he was out screwing around on his wife, maybe he was elsewhere and wrecked the jeep...maybe he hit something, maybe he was out robbing another house, maybe he had un-pure thoughts about Elizabeth at one time, but never acted on them. Maybe he thought about grabbing her at one time but did not do it. He is a career burglar and probably shot a cop trying to get away from a burglary.