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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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