Bret Michael Edmunds
- 6"2'
- 235 lbs.
- 1997 green Saturn
- Considered Dangerous
Posted on 06/22/2002 10:17:01 PM PDT by stlnative
June 22, 2002 - Late Evening Report
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. (AP) _ A hospitalized drifter sought for questioning in the disappearance of a teenager in Utah was alert and talking with investigators Saturday.
Bret Michael Edmunds, 26, was cooperating with investigators, said FBI spokesman Kevin Eaton. Salt Lake City police sought Edmunds for questioning in connection with the disappearance of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart from her family's home June 5.
Bret Michael Edmunds
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"He's talking to us. He's not telling us, 'go away, I want a lawyer,"' Eaton said.
But investigators won't say what information Edmunds is giving them. They will release information after Salt Lake City detectives have a chance to interpret Edmunds' responses.
Questioning Edmunds likely will not substantially affect the Smart case because he was only a possible witness and not a suspect, Eaton said.
"We've been hitting five to six promising areas, and we've been concentrating on a lot of important stuff" not related to Edmunds, Eaton said.
Edmunds remained in serious condition in a secure section of intensive care at City Hospital under the watch of U.S. marshals. He is being treated for a drug-related liver damage.
"He's conscious, he's coherent and he's talking," hospital spokeswoman Teresa McCabe said.
Edmunds, who appeared at the hospital Friday, began talking with a Salt Lake City police officer and FBI agent Saturday morning. Doctors monitored Edmunds' condition to ensure he was up to the questioning.
McCabe said Edmunds would stay at the hospital at least three or four days. She would not divulge details of his condition, citing confidentiality rules.
Edmunds is being held on a federal warrant charging him with fleeing to avoid prosecution for a probation violation. The charges are unrelated to the Smart case.
"He is still not a suspect at this time," Police Chief Rick Dinse said. "He's a question mark, and we want to put a period on that question mark."
Edmunds, who was living out of his Saturn sedan, had been seen in the Smart neighborhood the week the girl vanished. While Elizabeth's sister described the alleged kidnapper as a 5-foot-8 man, Edmunds stands 6-foot-2.
A Saturn found in the hospital parking lot was photographed, impounded and towed away. Police saw nothing suspicious through the windows, and are seeking a search warrant.
Also Saturday, sheriff's deputies said cadaver dogs were unable to find a scent at a subdivision near Salt Lake City. A police search was prompted after dogs owned by search volunteers apparently picked up an unusual scent.
Edmunds has been sought since last fall for outstanding warrants on charges of fraud and assault on a police officer in Utah. He had served 60 days and was put on probation in 2000 for stealing and forging checks.
When he is physically able, Edmunds will be taken to a magistrate for a hearing, the marshals service said.
I believe this is significant, because he didn't mention it in earlier interviews, and now he throws it in. Maybe that's where he got the idea for this charade.
This has been out since day 1. It is not new news, and Ed Smart just didn't throw it out all of a sudden. The neighbors did have an abduction attempt, but one of the kidnappers ratted out the other one before the abduction took place.
Some of this is getting eerily similar to the Lindy Chamberlain case in Australia 20-25 years ago (on which the movie A Cry in the Dark is based). The woman was tried and convicted in the press and the public long before a court finally did so, then had to overturn her conviction when evidence was found that she had not killed her child. The family belonged to a religion not that common in Australia, and they were labeled as cultists and Satanists (which is as far from the truth as is imaginable). The book based on her story is called, I believe Evil Angels. She was an unlikable individual, but was not a killer.
It was almost like a Saturday Night Live skit with John Lovett. As soon as the media starts discussing the size of the window and that it didn't seem likely that a reasonably sized person could get through it, the father comes out and says: "Oh yeah....that's right.... I just remembered that I left the garage door open....That's right...yeah."
Give me a break
It's hard, but kids do often come back from horrible misstakes.
I'm just flailing about in frustration here John. The truth of so many stories in the past couple of years (Jonbebet, Danielle, O.J., Clinton-Monica, TWA 800, etc.) have been beyond anything that anyone could even prdict or even fictionalize. I'm just syaing that I think this is a case is just such a story.
Our unwillingness to consider or talk about the "rediculous" boxes us into evaluating theories that in no way reflect what happened.
Look at some of the responses on this thread. So many people "won't go there." It's too upsetting. It's easier to attack me for wanting to.
What do you think happened?
By Pat Reavy
Deseret News staff writer
MARTINSBURG, W. Va. — While investigators Saturday were keeping quiet on much of what Bret Michael Edmunds may have told them about the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, they did reveal one small but possibly telling bit of information.
Edmunds gave authorities permission to vacuum his green Saturn for hair, cloth and other fibers — material investigators may need to prove whether the missing Salt Lake City teen had ever been inside the car.
"He's been pretty cooperative with his car," FBI spokesman Kevin Eaton said. "He pretty much gave them consent to search it however they wanted."
Even without permission, authorities had a warrant to search Edmunds' green Saturn for evidence of unlawful flight from prosecution. They didn't, however, have a warrant to search the car for kidnapping or abduction, Eaton said.
Sans such a warrant, investigators could not have collected evidence with a vacuum. Eaton said if authorities had found evidence of the kidnapping in Edmunds' car, they then would then have sought another warrant to vacuum the car.
But the transient's cooperation saved investigators the trouble.
Eaton couldn't say if the cooperative spirit meant that Edmunds likely wasn't involved with Smart's abduction.
"I don't know what he's told (investigators)," Eaton said.
Eaton said police would likely make Edmunds' full comments public either Sunday or Monday. He would not say what investigators found Saturday in the car.
Edmunds, 26, remained in serious condition Saturday in a Martinsburg hospital but had regained enough strength by Saturday morning to talk to investigators.
Salt Lake police detective Jason Snow and an agent from the FBI's Salt Lake office flew to Martinsburg Friday night to interview the Utah man. They arrived at the hospital at 10:30 a.m. Saturday and interviewed Edmunds at least twice plus conducted extensive interviews with physicians and other hospital staff members, said Martinsburg City Hospital marketing director Teresa McCabe.
Meanwhile in Salt Lake City, police still haven't named a suspect in the kidnapping or found Elizabeth. Law enforcement personnel, her family and countless volunteers have been searching for the 14-year-old girl since she was taken at gunpoint from her Federal Heights home in the early morning hours of June 5.
A search Saturday in the foothills above Draper was eventually called off after authorities found no evidence of Elizabeth in a construction site where three search dogs appeared to have picked up some sort of scent the night before. When the dogs returned to the area Saturday they could not detect the scent, and a grid search of the area by 14 search and rescue workers yielded no clues.
Preliminary results from the state crime lab have also failed to lead investigators in any specific direction, Salt Lake Police Capt. Scott Atkinson said.
At this point it's still unclear what clues Edmunds may hold that could help police solve this puzzling case. He had been sought by police since June 12 for questioning in the kidnapping.
Edmunds is being held in the Martinsburg City Hospital's intensive/critical care unit.
"He is conscious. He is alert. He is speaking," was all McCabe said she could say about Edmunds' interview.
Based on the interviews with Edmunds and his doctor, McCabe said authorities decided to keep Edmunds at the Martinsburg hospital rather than transfer him to another facility as was originally anticipated.
"He will probably remain here for the next several days, McCabe said. The decision was based mostly on Edmunds' physical condition, she said.
"(Edmunds') physician feels he can get the care he needs here," McCabe said.
That update was an improvement from earlier media reports that Edmunds was suffering from severe liver failure and had been going in and out of consciousness.
Investigators and agents from the Salt Lake Police Department, the FBI and the U.S. Marshal's Office descended on this quiet West Virginia town Friday after Edmunds checked himself into the hospital under an assumed name for a reported overdose and his true identity was discovered.
Edmunds told the hospital staff his name was Todd Richards but gave them the phone number of his mother's house in Utah. After calling the number, the staff discovered his identity, police were called and the three other patients in the hospital's ICU were moved to another area, McCabe said. The ICU is located on the hospital's sixth floor.
On Saturday half of the ICU was reopened. Edmunds was held in one half of the area with FBI agents and marshals guarding his door at all times. The other half of the ICU was reopened for other patients. The 260-bed hospital has eight beds in the ICU, and an aver age of 103 beds are used on a daily basis, McCabe said.
During the first few days of the kidnapping investigation, a milkman reported he had seen a suspicious car in the Smart family's neighborhood prior to the abduction. The first three numbers of the car's license plate, 266, were eventually linked to Edmunds' 1997 green Saturn. His car was found in the Martinsburg hospital parking lot and seized by West Virginia state police.
Saturday an FBI team from Pittsburgh began going through the car, which was stored in the garage of the Jefferson County Public Services Center. About a half-dozen agents in jumpsuits, yellow boots, rubber gloves and hairnets searched the car all day looking for any evidence that may lead them to Elizabeth.A large trailer with the words "Federal Bureau of Investigation, Pittsburgh Division, West Virginia Team" was parked near Edmunds' car as agents conducted their work.
The discovery of Edmunds has thrown this small town of about 30,000 people into the national spotlight. One hotel desk clerk said every hotel in town was booked solid with the sudden influx of law enforcement personnel and the media.
This is normally a busy time of year for tourism in Martinsburg. The city is located in the panhandle of West Virginia and is a short drive from many Civil War sites. Washington, D.C., is a 90-minute drive from the town.
McCabe said neither the hospital nor the town has ever received this kind of media attention. All the major national media and the Salt Lake media are in Martinsburg this weekend.
Contributing: Brady Snyder
E-mail: preavy@desnews.com
What if the police are confirming as prior statements remarks that Mr Smart has recently made? It's a common tactic for sweating out a perpetrator. We could be merely spectators in a battle of press-conferences and timing issues.
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