Posted on 06/11/2002 6:33:20 AM PDT by MVV
BY KEVIN CANTERA
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Six days after a teen-age girl reportedly was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home by an unknown gunman, police said Monday they have ruled out the possibility Elizabeth Smart staged her own abduction and was a runaway.
With no credible leads and almost no physical evidence, baffled investigators have re-examined the family's Federal Heights home, reinterviewed members of the family and administered a polygraph test to the 14-year-old girl's father, said Salt Lake City police Capt. Scott Atkinson. He emphasized Edward Smart is not a suspect in his daughter's disappearance.
Edward Smart took the lie detector test willingly Sunday and the results were being scrutinized by FBI agents Monday, said Atkinson.
"We are looking at every possible angle. [The polygraph] is just one of the tools we've been using," Atkinson said.
Investigators refused to say what questions Smart had been asked during the interview. He is the only family member to be tested, but Atkinson said other relatives could be asked to take a similar test.
"We are no closer to solving the case," Atkinson said, noting that 100 detectives, including about 40 federal agents, were sifting through "hundreds" of leads pouring in to police dispatchers from around the country.
In a brief statement Monday, Edward Smart said he took the test because he had "nothing to hide. . . . It's not uncommon in a case like this for a polygraph to be administered. When asked by law enforcement, I fully cooperated."
Elizabeth was taken by an armed intruder inside her family's Federal Heights home between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Wednesday, according to police. The man, who reportedly carried a small black handgun, entered the bedroom shared by Elizabeth and her 9-year-old sister. He forced Elizabeth to go with him and threatened the younger girl that if she told anyone, her sister would be hurt, the child told police.
The girl -- the only witness to the abduction -- waited two hours or more, then woke her parents, police said. The abductor "didn't leave any clues," Atkinson said. Police planned to question the 9-year-old girl, but would probably not issue a more detailed description of the suspect, he said.
Dozens of off-road enthusiasts were asked Monday to bring their all-terrain vehicles to a wide expanse of barren desert west of Salt Lake City to hunt for clues.
"Every day we want a place where we can do one search," said Tom Smart, Elizabeth's uncle, in making the plea for the off-road quest. No specific information prompted the plan to search the desert, said Smart, who suggested "horse posses" might be used to hunt for the girl in the future.
Between 400 and 500 volunteers took part in other search efforts, going through neighborhoods, city parks and surrounding foothills, calling Elizabeth's name and posting fliers.
Residents throughout Utah have been asked to search their own property -- under boat covers and inside vacation cabins, for instance -- and the Utah Farm Bureau Federation encouraged the state's farmers to comb their farms, fields and outbuildings.
As the hunt continues, Elizabeth's loved ones remain hopeful.
"The whole family believes she is alive," said Elizabeth's cousin, Sierra Smart, who said she is as perplexed as police investigators by the girl's disappearance. "It is exactly as confusing as it appears. There's no secret."
kcantera@sltrib.com
The dig against the church was completely out of line.
A lot of "out-of-line digs" have borne much politically-incorrect fruit in criminal investigations. We shall see when this case is resolved if the "dig" was "out-of-line." For a 9-year-old to witness her sister being taken at gunpoint and then be so obedient as to not inform her parents places the level of either fear and/or obedience to the abductor ABOVE the level the child feels for her own parents. That does NOT suggest that the intruder, if there was one, would be only a casual acquaintance.
There's still one or two pieces of dark evidence that are deeply deeply hidden in this case that will 'splain what happened and why. This is no ordinary abduction.
Michael
Methinks that the POH-leece know a lot more than they're saying. This one has the potential to be a really sad shocker.
Michael
No offence meant, but as a practising Mormon I can say that your perceptions are very flawed, and your comments only show that you don't know us our our faith as well as you might think you do.
The only thing the church keeps secret is the confessions of the members, and if those confessions involve some element of crime the Bishop is obligated to involve the authorities. No Bishop would ever keep silent in a case like this and allow this girl to go unfound by his silence if he knew of anything that he could tell the police that would help.
Nor are any Church leaders blindly followed. Members are obligated to pray and find out from God if He approves of their leaders. Their obedience stems from the answer they get from God, and even then it only applies to those things that are within the duties of that leader. Any memeber who knows of a Church leader who is unworthy of his calling because of great sin is justified in refusing to sustain that leader, and is obligated to inform the correct church authority.
You overlook the very obvious explanation that they guy had a gun and the girl was afraid for her life. If it was someone that the girl would blindly obey and follow without question, why would a gun even be needed?
The dig was not out of line because it was 'politically-incorrect', it was out of line because it is a total fiction that springs from a bias that is based on incorrect information. It is disgusting that some people's first reaction is to WANT it to turn into a scandle for the Church.
The police have ruled out her being a runaway though.
I allow that your theory IS consistent with elements of mine - and I agree with you that it's almost certain that she departed the room of her "own volition," while not necessarily of her own "free will."
I can see her leaving the house for some reason, but I'm not seeing it as any kind of "hooking up" with a boy. Either we're being shown some very old photos and videos of this 14-year old (taken when she was very much younger) or the Light Of Awakening has not yet been turned on in her body. She still appears angelic and pre-pubescent, a tremendous rarity for a 14-year-old in this day and age. If she was, indeed, still pre-pubescent, then she wouldn't be sneaking away for sex because her body wouldn't be interested in it yet. So what else would she want to do that parental disapproval of it would force her to sneak out in order to indulge in it? Pot? Doesn't look likely.
One thing's for sure - what happened after she left the room is NOT what she THOUGHT was going to happen, or she would not have gone either willingly OR of her own volition. And you're right about young girls - they do tend to have juvenile reflexive responses (screaming, gigling, etc.) out of proportion to the stumuli that causes them. The absence of that and the rote repetition of the 9-year-old's story doesn't add up, either. It just doesn't fit the age group.
I'll stick to the idea that the POH-leece know more than they're saying. And this case is looking worse and worse by the hour.
Michael
Twenty bucks says she's handcuffed to a bed in some pervert's basement less than 2.5 miles from her house.
I'm afraid so too, I just wish it were not so.
Did you see the "window" that the intruder is supposed to have passed in and out of? It is one of those octagonal hatch-type windows that a probably less than one foot wide at its widest point. I cannot imagine a grown man getting in and out of this window, especailly with a gun, hoping to be undetected. It's just too bizarre!
Up here windows like that don't open or have a screen, they are just decorative. If the 9 year old is telling a cover story and sticking to it, she must also belive that her sister is not in any danger and must knows what was planned originally.
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