***Smart Case Stumps Police***

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE ^ | 6/12/02 | KEVIN CANTERA

[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

[Ann Archy]

Can you or other freepers post a PICTURE of the House....the Window...the Bedroom???

I have seen posts that say no adult could have gone thru that window in their bedroom. I have just started to follow the story.

[windchime]

There are three reasons to steal beer. No money, underage or both. Also, the manner used by Chief Dinse in warning the kidnapper he would be found seemed to have a parental tone to it. If we're talking about a teenaged kidnapper, the younger sister would be more likely to react in the way she did. Just guessing.

[Iwo Jima]

My post # 102 to you makes no sense. Please ignore it. I have no idea what happened there. Well, I have some idea, but it makes me look so stupid that I'd rather just skip the explanation and go straight to the apology.

[Iwo Jima]

That would be good -- to have a picture of the window which the younger sister said that the man went in and the two of them went out of. When I saw that window on TV, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never before thought about whether the official version being put out about how Elizabeth disappeared was accurate. But when I saw that window I said "Sneak-out, not abduction." At least that's how it looks to me that it started. By now, and probably almost immediately, she is a kidnapping victim.

The size of the window is one thing -- you would have to be pretty skinny to get through it. But the configuration is even more thought-provoking. Just how was he supposed to wiggle out of that window with a gun and a hostage without losing one or the other? Did he go out first or did she? Either way, why didn't she just run away while he was negotiating that window? Makes no sense.

I think that the police and the father know that that is not happened, but don't want to "destroy" the sainted image of Elizabeth by admitting that she did nornal teenage, misbehaving things. And, let's face it, it was that angelic image of her playing the harp, etc. that grabbed the public's imagination and attention. And public attention is what is needed in a situation like this.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Nobody said they went OUT by a window -- the abductor is thought to have entered by a window. Once inside, however, it's easy enough to open a door and let yourself out. Most doors have locks that can be operated from the inside without a key :)

[Iwo Jima]

Well, that would be something different than what I had heard. I thought that the little sister had said that they went out the window. If they went out the door, then that raises another set of questions. And I still want to know how an adult could get through that window. It seemed too small for anyone but a scrawny kid to go through. The kind of window about which a father might have easily said "Now, Elizabeth, in case of a fire, you get your sister and the two of you go out this window."

[Iwo Jima]

Groan

Note to self:1) must stop multitasking. 2) must get mouse fixed/new mouse.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Uhhhh, yes, but according to real scholars (i.e. not anti-Mormon cranks) they came and went in 1838, so I'm hard pressed to see any possible connection to Elizabeth Smart's abduction in 2002.

[GovernmentShrinker]

FYI, modern building codes require all bedrooms to have at least one window of a specified minimum size, large enough for a firefighter in full gear, including oxygen tank, to get through. But I haven't heard anything to suggest that they went out via a window.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Re your mouse: have you tried unscrewing the little disk that the mouseball peeks out of, taking out the ball, and cleaning out its little cave? This usually works -- crumbs, grime, etc. collect in there and interfere with the ball's smooth rolling.

[Lightnin]

Maybe they should bring the DC police in to help out with the investigation.

[Whilom]

The FBI gives that figure for stranger abductions. Others are more difficult to quantify. When someone in the family is responsible for the disappearance, almost always the step-father but sometimes the father and rarely the mother (as in the Susan Smith case in South Carolina), the abduction report is part of a cover-up scheme and the victim has already been killed and concealed. Stranger abductions from a home are almost always committed by "disorganized" personalities, who act on impulse, often under the influence of drugs or alcohol, leaving many clues for investigators. They rarely harm others present at the scene when the abduction occurs. The stranger abductions which usually go unsolved are committed in public places -- a park, sporting event or large department store. These are often committed by "organized" personalities, sexual predators, who plan and execute abductions with experience and skill. There is little likelihood of the victim's surviving. Usually, no trace of the victim or of the perp is ever found.

[ET(end tyranny)]

Two people going out a small window? As you say, who went first? If she went out first she could run, if he went out first she could close the window grab her sister and run to the parents. Something is not right.

[Iwo Jima]

Something is mightily wrong with my mouse. If it gets near a reply button, for some strange reason it clicks in and I've "replied." I better watch my language, cause I'm not having an opportunity to clean it up! I switched to another mouse and have not had the same problem.

Clean computer equipment? Are you allowed to do that? I thought that you had to declare it obsolete and buy new stuff!

[Iwo Jima]

FYI, modern building codes require all bedrooms to have at least one window of a specified minimum size, large enough for a firefighter in full gear, including oxygen tank, to get through.

I am sure that you are right about that. But let me describe the window that they showed on TV and described as "the window." (O.K., maybe they said it was the window the man went in as opposed to the window they both came out of, just don't remember exactly what was said.)

This is one of those cantilevered roofs with a small octagonal window with a hatch type opening on the second floor and which opens up onto the roof of the first floor. There are other windows for this room which face in a different direction which are standard size and which I am sure meets code. These other windows, however, do not open onto a roof and therefore you would need a ladder (which the fire dept. would have) or else you would have to drop to the ground (not impossible, I've done it in my earlier years).

The TV crew zoomed in or put some type of focus on this octagonal window and described it as "the window."

When I saw it, I said "Whoa, something not right here." Looking at it from the father's point of view, this is the type of window that a conscientious father, which Mr. Smart seems to be, and perhaps even a little too over-protective, would feel very comfortable in leaving open on a hot summer night because it is too small to ever imagine any grownup getting through. But it is large enough that the girls could (and maybe had been instructed to) use as an escape.

[bonfire]

Yesterday the Police Chief suggested that might not be the window the perp entered.

Just saw a report on Fox......nothing new.

[Neenah]

Oh, Utah Girl, I don't take it as "blasting" at all. Actually, I am just saying what I heard on FOX. None of us sleuths know what happened, and can only form opinion's on what we hear reported.

Actually, we know very little. I like to read everyone's take on it. I hope most of all, this will prove to be a happy ending. Thanks for your input.

[Iwo Jima]

Yes, if they went out that window. But as GovernmentShrinker said, he thinks that the story is that the intruder came in that window but that they left by a door. Of course, that raises a different set of questions, but I doubt that a fullsize grown man could get through that window. Maybe a skinny little guy. But you would have to wonder and worry about maybe getting stuck! Wouldn't that be a real bummer! It's just a risk that a rational criminal wouldn't take.

Unless of course, he'd done it before.

[Iwo Jima]

Well, I don't know what "other window" that could be. Maybe we'll hear more soon. I frankly don't mind if the police cling to the "abduction" theory even if they know or suspect that it's not true, if it helps in the search. I just hope that THEY have the facts right and are conducting the right kind of search based on how she really left the house. I don't have to be privy to all that is known, and I don't even mind a little white lie, if it's done to further the investigation.

[stlnative]

The Police, nor have the family told the media which window it was that the perp entered. This has not been disclosed.

I heard yesterday on the news that the 2nd level of the house is at ground level at the back of the house. The house is built into the side of a hill.

I have also heard that the window was "left open and he cut the screen and crawled in through the open window", then I have heard that the window "was fully closed, but unlocked and he used something to pry it open, because he thought it was locked and did have to cut the screen to get access to the window."

Also I have not heard how he exited the house with Elizabeth, but the likely answer is that he simply marched her out the front door.