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. -------------------------------------------------
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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.