The dig against the church was completely out of line.
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?
It is even logical to assume that she didn't wait that long but the police and parents didn't want to anger the abductor by a public announcement that the girl didn't wait. It would not be prudent to do that and anger someone who is deranged.
This may be a bit of police deception -- telling the media that the younger sister waited two hours before informing her parents -- as instructed by the abductor, who is likely following media reports closely. The perp probably thought the younger sister could not recognize him and would not endanger his escape -- or she would have been killed on the spot. The likelihood that Elizabeth was alive three hours after the abduction is about 3 percent. The chief's press conference Tuesday was an effort to make the perp bolt and run so they can take the mystery out of this chase. Almost no chance that this is a stranger-on-stranger abduction -- though that was the case with Polly Klass. That is very unusual.(Stranger-on-stranger abductions are those by people who have had no previous contact with the victim -- such as in the Klass case.) Stranger-on-stranger abductions are invariably committed by "disorganized" personalities, usually under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or both. That doesn't appear to be the case in this instance. Greatest probability: It's someone in the family or in its close circle of friends and relatives. In that case, the perp probably has not been arrested previously for assaulting a child. Second: It's someone in the neighborhood -- either a neighbor or someone else with justifiable reason to be in the neighborhood, such as construction, repair or utilities people. In that case, the perp has a record and has served time for assaulting (and/or killing) a child. If any of those men in the construction crew carrying out renovations on the Smart home has a record, he's in big trouble. The police probably already know about it and were attempting in the media conference to scare him enough to break and run or, it is to be hoped, enough to release Elizabeth if she is still alive.