Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Smart Case, July 27, 2002
07/27/02 | Jolly Green

Posted on 07/26/2002 9:45:30 PM PDT by Jolly Green

Time Line
06/05/01 Tuesday Ricci steals items from the Smart home while he is employed there as a handyman. Ricci is charged in July of 2002 of 1 count of theft related to the Smart incident.
05/30/02 Thursday ~ Ricci returns to pick up his Jeep at the auto repair shop before the shop has a chance to fully fix it He tells the repairman that it needed for an emergency.
06/04/02 Tuesday ~ Ricci is at work from about 9am to 5:30pm
~ Ricci claims he spends the evening with friends
06/05/02 Wednesday ~ 1:05am - 2 cars are spotted on the SLC Shriner's Hospital Parking Lot by a hospital security guard, two blocks from the Smart residence
~ 1:30am (approx) - Elizabeth is kidnapped from her home
~ 1:30am - Ricci claims to be in bed asleep with his with wife.
~ Ricci is scheduled to be off work all day today.
~ 7:21am - Rachel/Amber alert is issued and national media is involved.
~ 8:30am - Ricci and his neighbor talk about the kidnapping of Elizabeth, Ricci seems to know too much information about it.
~ Sometime during this day Ricci is visited by police in regards to Elizabeth's kidnapping as reported by Angela Ricci (Richard A. Ricci's Wife which is an ex-convict herself)
~ Ricci is seen by his neighbor digging a hole by his (Ricci's) trailer early in the morning. (heard the neighbor say this on TV)
06/06/02 Thursday ~ Ricci is scheduled to work from 9am to 5:30pm today, but instead works from 10:30am to 7:00pm
~ Police talk to Ricci this day about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. (The media is reporting this, so it could be wrong)
06/08/02 Saturday ~ Ricci returns the Jeep to the repair shop to get it fixed. The Jeep is muddy and the repair shop owner sees Ricci remove seat covers from the back of the jeep and place them into a plastic garbage bag that already contains other stuff in it. Also the repair shop owner said a muddy post hole digger was in the back of the Jeep, Ricci removes this also. Ricci has a man waiting across the street to give him a ride. Ricci takes the plastic bag and contents along with the post hole digger with him. Also there is 500 to 1000 extra miles on the Jeep since Ricci picked it up on May 30th, 2002.
06/14/02 Friday ~ Ricci is taken into custody for a parole violation, this being drinking while on parole and association with other ex-cons.
07/11/02 Thursday Formal charges are filed against Ricci (2 counts of theft & 1 count of burglary) on the theft & burglary of the Smart neighbors home which occurred in April 2001, and 1 more count of theft for stealing from the Smart home on June 6th, 2001.
Special thanks to Brigette for starting this timeline.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: elizabethsmart
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140 ... 181-194 next last
To: spore-gasm
How long has he been there

I believe he was arrested for the bank job back in November.

101 posted on 07/27/2002 2:56:05 PM PDT by sandude
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 100 | View Replies]

To: sandude
I believe he was arrested for the bank job back in November.

I challenge you to find a quote from LE stating that Remington was in jail at the time of the kidnapping. That was what Remington's lawyer said. LE has been quiet about Remington. Maybe he was let out by some snafu??

102 posted on 07/27/2002 3:38:03 PM PDT by Sherlock
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 101 | View Replies]

To: sandude
Just a blurb from Larry Kind Transcripts...Remember the screen? The big deal about the screen?

KING: Boston, hello.

CALLER: Yes, hi. I'd like to ask, with all of these things being stolen from the Smart home, has there been any report of house keys perhaps being missing at any time?

KING: Karen?

SCULLIN: I haven't heard anything along the lines of house keys. Certainly if there were, that would be a very good explanation as to how he got inside. But at this point, no, no house keys stolen that I know of.

KING: Karen, has any answer ever been given to the screen, inside, outside, how it was cut?

SCULLIN: I wish I could say yes. But you know, it's funny because I haven't heard about the screen in a long time. Nobody seems to be talking about the screen, so I don't know if it hasn't provided any evidence. I also heard that possibly it was torn some time before the night of the kidnapping. So it seems that the screen has kind of shifted to the background at this point.

103 posted on 07/27/2002 3:41:21 PM PDT by Neenah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 101 | View Replies]

To: spore-gasm
"Does anyone know at what point this was considered not a case of a runaway?"

As I recall, the runaway theory was debunked immediately by the police.....at least publicly. Given the situation (i.e., a 9 y/o who claimed to have seen an armed intruder), I'm not sure they could have handled it any other way. Chief Dinse has said repeatedly that Mary Katherine's account has "remained consistent." If the police are investigating the runaway angle, they are keeping very quiet about it.

104 posted on 07/27/2002 3:47:40 PM PDT by freedox
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 99 | View Replies]

To: Sherlock
http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2002/mdia_2002-06-27.cfm

Salt Lake City Weekly - War Stories

Media Beat - June 27, 2002

War Stories

by Paul Swenson

While George W. Bush makes vague but ominous allusions to widening the war on terrorism to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq, The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News show no hesitation in issuing their own Declarations of War—on each other.

The Tribune made the hostilities official by designating its huge (5,000-word) Sunday (June 9) front-page piece, “Anatomy of a Newspaper War.” The multiple-bylined story (Michael Vigh, Elizabeth Neff and Kristen Moulton) was a definitive history of recent enmity between the papers, dating back to the Trib’s mid-1990s sale to Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI).

Among the story’s provocative revelations was a plan it said Deseret News Editor John Hughes hatched to fuse the papers into one, called the News-Tribune and to fire Trib humor columnist Robert Kirby as a “one-note Mormon-basher” and put News columnist Lee Benson in his space (while retaining a “cleaned-up” version of the Trib’s Rolly & Wells).

Surprisingly, the News’ Benson—often more obstreperous than capable in the heat of hard-news controversy—took up the lance and stepped into the breech. Employing an aggrieved tone and wielding his outrage like a blunt instrument, Benson objected in his June 14 column to the Tribune’s use of anonymous police sources in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case, reporting that the cops were eyeing extended family in the probe. He extrapolated that the account was aimed at the kidnap victim’s uncle and Deseret News photographer Tom Smart—“a close friend of mine,” Benson wrote.

“I’m not against the occasional story with anonymous sources,” Benson conceded, but added, less than cogently: “Otherwise, we’d never know how much [money] Karl Malone makes,” which seemed to imply that unnamed sources are OK to feed sports fans’ curiosity, but aren’t kosher in reporting significant news.

Next day, a Tribune piece turned it back on the Deseret News by noting the Trib had withheld any names of extended family members under investigation, implying that the News had only itself to blame for identifying Tom Smart.

In replying to questions, Benson acknowledges that “responding to things in the media shouldn’t be my role,” adding that the Tribune story was so highly speculative that it demanded comment. “It poured gas on a media fire,” he said. Benson, a former sportswriter/editor, said the Trib’s follow-up to his column should be given “15 yards for piling on.” He noted that the New York Times “wouldn’t touch” the extended family angle.

These public fire fights—in stark contrast years ago, when neither newspaper would mention the other in print—didn’t encourage peace talks pushed by Tribune money man Philip McCarthey, aimed at bringing Tribune managers, MediaNews, Inc. and Deseret News officials to the table to attempt to avoid a scheduled June trial and settle out of court. The trial’s now off until September, and Trib managers sought an injunction to extend the management contract while litigation remained pending.

Deseret News Editor John Hughes uses litigation and the possibility of an out-of-court settlement to refuse comment on the Tribune’s “Newspaper War” opus, or on City Weekly Editor Chris Smart’s June 20 report, “Paper Tigers.”

Smart said the Weekly had obtained a copy of a Nov. 11, 1997 Hughes memo to then-publisher Glen Snarr that described News negotiations to buy the Tribune and contained the quote referring to Kirby’s so-called “Johnny-one-note … Mormon bashing,” a ridiculous reference if accurate, since Kirby is Mormon with a self-effacing sense of humor, while Hughes is Christian Scientist and wouldn’t necessarily be in a position to distinguish between healthy satire and unfair comment.

What Hughes will say is that an attempt to arrange a level playing field at the Newspaper Agency Corporation forced the paper to briefly consider the possibility of a Trib-News merger. “We discussed various scenarios. Whatever happened, we did not want the Tribune to be subsumed. We wanted to preserve a separate voice for that paper. But to get better representation on the NAC board, if we were offered a package deal that included owning the Tribune, we had to think about it.

”While recent sparks were flying between the papers in newsrooms and courtrooms, surprising developments indicated that neither one was positioned to look down its journalistic nose at the other:

In an almost unprecedented action, film critics Sean Means of the Tribune and Jeff Vice of the News both turned up their noses at reviewing Salt Lake filmmaker Paul Larsen’s powerful documentary, Chasing a Good Day to Die, when it opened at Salt Lake’s Broadway Theater on June 14. Means blamed the void on a “conflict of interest,” since he knows some Utahns who appeared in the film (a circumstance hard to avoid in local filmmaking, but not a barrier to previous Means reviews). Vice said he does not review pictures shot on video, no matter how significant. (My own conflict, disclosed here, is that I deeply admire the film and said so in a review for another publication.)

Tribune Culture Vulture columnist Dan Nailen, who fancies himself a cynical defoliator of local culture, was hoisted by his own petard in his June 14 column, while ridiculing the state’s new right-wing newspaper, the Utah Weekly. “Why bother with small details?” Nailen asked in nailing obvious errors in the premier issue. He found it odd that a paper that considers itself conservative publishes “standard-issue astronomy columns.” Does the resident sophisticate know the difference between astronomy and astrology? (Nailen was out of town when I called for comment.)

105 posted on 07/27/2002 3:50:33 PM PDT by Bella
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 102 | View Replies]

To: Neenah
So it seems that the screen has kind of shifted to the background at this point.

Have you noticed, EVERYTHING about this case has shifted to the background at this point.

A senior law enforcement source told CNN the primary goal of the police and FBI investigation is still to find Elizabeth -- or her remains -- and any charges against an alleged abductor will most likely not be leveled until the girl is found.

Unless someone happens to stumble across the body this is all over, although Ed Smart will do everything he can on his own to prove the case.

106 posted on 07/27/2002 3:53:57 PM PDT by Sherlock
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 103 | View Replies]

To: Sherlock
Maybe he was let out by some snafu??

I challenge you to find something that shows he was not in jail at the time of the kidnapping. Once again, there are too many people involved to cover up any kind of snafu in this case.

107 posted on 07/27/2002 3:55:38 PM PDT by sandude
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 102 | View Replies]

To: freedox
If the police are investigating the runaway angle, they are keeping very quiet about it.

If the police are investigating ANY angle, they are keeping very quiet about it.

108 posted on 07/27/2002 3:55:55 PM PDT by Sherlock
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 104 | View Replies]

Comment #109 Removed by Moderator

To: sandude
I told you, find something where LE says he was in jail at the time of the kidnapping. You won't find it.
110 posted on 07/27/2002 4:02:04 PM PDT by Sherlock
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 107 | View Replies]

To: spore-gasm
I'm sure there was and still is.
111 posted on 07/27/2002 4:06:36 PM PDT by Bella
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 109 | View Replies]

Comment #112 Removed by Moderator

To: Neenah
Yep, I'm addicted alright, but thats not so bad, its 99 degrees at the picnic table & my a/c is working great in here. <;9}
113 posted on 07/27/2002 4:09:41 PM PDT by Ditter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 75 | View Replies]

To: spore-gasm
http://newsnet.byu.edu/textonly/story.cfm/39210

Viewpoint: No new news is not good goods
By Russell Page
russell@newsroom.byu.edu
Associate City Editor

Repetitive reporting is wearing down our human ability to feel empathy for the Smart family. Salt Lake area newspapers have been trying to play on our emotions by writing the human-interest story. Why? Certainly not out of obligation to report newsworthy events because for the first week, there was nothing new in what is so cleverly titled the news.

Three weeks ago, a man or woman - we don't really know - broke into or was already in what can recognizably be referred to as the Smart home in an upscale Salt Lake City neighborhood. Let us think for a moment about the different event coverage we have seen for this unusual yet usual case.

I say usual because sadly hundreds if not thousands of children disappear every year but don't receive the kind of attention this story is receiving. And in cliché manner, many news writers fail at presenting the real news because they are writing the same leads every day.

Think back to the 92 stories you've read about some volunteer or person who has helped in the Smart case. The lead read: John Doe has a 14-year-old girl, that's why he knows how the Smart family feels, and that is why he is out searching the hills of Salt Lake City - just like the father the newspaper wrote about yesterday, and the one they are going to write about tomorrow. Sound familiar?

Try this for news. Recently, a four-year-old boy disappeared in Little Cottonwood Canyon, and his shirt was found in the river. Gratefully, the Salt Lake Tribune graced us with the saddening story that many of us are hopeful will have a happy ending. Yet the Deseret News decided to bury the story on page four of the metro section, leaving us with not one but two Smart stories with little new news.

The Deseret News has tried to return us to the news with a headline that reads: Elizabeth isn't only missing Utahn. But this is obviously a ploy to continue on with the Smart news.

I am saddened to see the Smarts on television as they have to talk about this tragedy that has turned and softened the hearts of people around the country, but it also saddens me as a journalist to see reputable newspapers continually headlining a subject that they know has had sparse bits of news.

The Smart case seems to put media in a rock in a hard spot situation but as long as nothing develops, I think it is time we start covering what we all know is inevitably happening - the world around us.

114 posted on 07/27/2002 4:17:15 PM PDT by Bella
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 112 | View Replies]

Comment #115 Removed by Moderator

To: Partisan Hack
I just don't trust that Ed Smart at all.
116 posted on 07/27/2002 4:25:22 PM PDT by joyce11111
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: spore-gasm
Appears they've long gone..they're only interested in selling papers and ratings..Look at Fox--how many times they've come up with a blurb setting the stage for something new to be reported, and it was the same old..
117 posted on 07/27/2002 4:27:01 PM PDT by Bella
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 115 | View Replies]

To: spore-gasm
This article does not reference who said Remington was in jail since November. I don't know that Remington was the kidnapper but there were so many witnesses I believe LE knows who it is and by their actions are not anxious to make an arrest. My instinct is unless someone outside of LE solves the case it will never be solved as far as the public knows.

I wonder what upset Remington over this that he gave up Ricci and Young as his accomplices in the bank robbery he was arrested for? And I wonder who's white Honda that was that was used as the getaway car.
118 posted on 07/27/2002 4:33:04 PM PDT by Sherlock
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 112 | View Replies]

To: Sherlock; spore-gasm
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:w4HO0ZVfVGoC:www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/08/national/main511580.shtml+%22russell+remington%22+bank+robbery&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Kidnap Cops Interviewing Repairmen

SALT LAKE CITY, July 5, 2002

(CBS) It has now been one month since Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her family's home.

Police searching for the 14-year-old are interviewing three ex-cons who last year did repair work on a house about two blocks from the Smart family home.

The men are: Richard Ricci - who has already denied involvement and has been under heavy media scrutiny; Douglas Rex Young, called "an associate" of Ricci's, who is being held on a parole violation and was interviewed on Tuesday; and John Russell Remington, who has been in jail since November on bank robbery charges.

Authorities say Young, who is being held in the Salt Lake County Jail, was picked up Saturday while trying to visit an inmate at the state prison in Gunnison.

Young - who briefly escaped from prison in 1993 while serving time for bank robbery - pleaded guilty to a previous federal parole violation in 1997.

Young's father, Rex Young, said that before his arrest his son had been living with his wife and "working to provide for his family." He refused further comment.

Remington's lawyer, Steve Killpack, told The Salt Lake Tribune that "a witch hunt is certainly understandable given the seriousness of this case... But we should take precautions to avoid burning anyone at the stake merely to satisfy community frustration."

Word of Young and Remington being added to detectives' interview list came after word of a second award being offered in the case - this one aimed at tipsters who want to remain anonymous.

Salt Lake City and the FBI are offering $25,000 for information leading to the location of the girl, dead or alive, or information that results in the conviction of those who took her.

That reward is separate from a $250,000 community reward for the safe return of the girl who was taken overnight from her bedroom at gunpoint on June 5.

The mayor's offer is designed to bring out an informant or accomplice who doesn't want to be identified, but can trade information for a code number and cash from an assigned bank.

On Tuesday, officers investigating Elizabeth's disappearance returned to Richard Ricci's mobile home and confiscated several bags of stuff.

Investigators won't say what they found, reports CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan, but it's not the first time police and the FBI have been through the home, and it's not the first time items have been seized.

Authorities used a warrant to search Ricci's trailer and shed for about two hours Tuesday, his father-in-law, Dave Morse Sr., told The Associated Press.

"The police have definitely had a focus on Richard," Ed Smart, the missing girl's father, said Tuesday during the family's regular daily news briefing.

Ricci, 48, worked as a handyman for the Smart family a year ago. He is being held on an unrelated parole violation.

Ricci has said he had nothing to do with the girl's disappearance. In a statement released last week by his lawyer, he said he has given 26 hours of police interviews, taken polygraph tests, given a blood sample and surrendered the impounded 1990 Jeep Cherokee given to him by Ed Smart as payment for work.

What they can't get from Ricci, investigators are hoping to get from his prison associates.

Paul Romero is a parolee who met Ricci in jail and now lives in the same neighborhood. He and his wife have both been interviewed by the FBI - several times.

"They asked me if I was involved in the kidnapping, they asked me if I was, if I knew anything before or after the fact," Romero told CBS News.

In another development this week, more than 100 searchers combed remote terrain around Monroe Mountain in central Utah.

Ricci briefly lived in the area in late 1995 and early 1996, and Sevier County sheriff's deputy Charlie Ogden said it was possible that he might have a connection to a cabin in the area.

The search was undertaken Wednesday at the request of the Smart family and nothing was found, according to Ogden. -------------------------------------------------

http://kutv.com/related/StoryFolder/story_1081617257_html

Police Plan to Interview Another Ex-con

Jul 4, 2002 9:44 am US/Mountain

Salt Lake police investigating the case of missing 14-old Elizabeth Smart plan to interview a third ex-convict who worked in the neighborhood.

The attention has focused on 48-year-old Richard Ricci, who worked as a handyman for the Smart family a year ago. Ricci has said he had nothing to do with the girl's disappearance, and that he was at home with his wife the night the girl was abducted from her home.

Investigators on Tuesday interviewed 51-year-old Douglas Rex Young of Sunset, an associate of Ricci's who is being held for a purported federal parole violation.

Police indicated yesterday that they also planned to talk to 44-year-old John Russell Remington, who with Ricci and Young did repair work last year on a house about two blocks from the Smarts' residence.

Remington has been in jail on aggravated robbery and bank robbery charges since November third. Remington's lawyer, Steve Killpack, said his client was in jail the night of the abduction, and had never worked in the Smarts' home.

He was quoted in a copyright story in The Salt Lake Tribune.

119 posted on 07/27/2002 5:07:59 PM PDT by Bella
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 118 | View Replies]

To: Sherlock
I posted it..
120 posted on 07/27/2002 5:09:19 PM PDT by Bella
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 102 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140 ... 181-194 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson