Smart Case, July 24, 2002

07/24/02 | Jolly Green

[Jolly Green]

Wild-Eyed Speculation, Half-baked Theories and Myths
Theory(?)	Facts
Richard Ricci has been identified as the prime suspect in the case, though several of his "theme park" pals are under suspicion.	- Ricci is a 5-time loser, having been convicted of burglarizing a food bank and shooting a police officer. He has recently been indicted on three additional state charges including theft at the Smart residence and burglary of a Smart neighbor. Additionally, he has been recently indicted on three federal charges related to two bank robberies. - Ricci worked for the Smarts last year for several months and was paid with a white Jeep in lieu of cash. He had full access to the house and may very well have had a key to the Smart residence. Ricci and two others were fired when some items were stolen from the home. Ricci later approached Ed Smart and said he wasn't involved and wanted his job back. Ed Smart declined to rehire him. - Ricci lives in a trailer park in West Jordan that is now referred to as a "theme park" because of the large number of Ricci convicted felon friends living there. - Ricci has no credible alibi for the period during and shortly after the abduction. He is believed to have put an additional 1000 miles on the Jeep during a period when he claimed the Jeep was in Moul's shop. Moul also reported that Ricci removed several trash bags, the seat covers and a post hole digger and carried them across the street. - Ricci had both opportunity and motive.
Ed Smart and Richard Ricci were gay lovers. This is based upon Ed Smart's pleading before the media for Ricci to come clean, where he used phrases like "Help me, Richard".	This theory was eloquently refuted by Jengaio and it hasn't reared its ugly head recently.
Elizabeth Smart had a nose ring, must have been rebellious and ran away. Later, proponents shifted emphasis to "piercings".	Numerous photographs of Elizabeth Smart show no indication of a nose ring and the existence of a nose ring has never been reported by any credible news source.
Moul, the mechanic, lied to the grand jury and in TV interviews. Some of the scenarios: He knows more than he is telling; his eyesight is bad; he made it up; he is in cahoots with Ricci; he used Ricci's Jeep without Ricci's permission.	Moul has no criminal record and no motive. What's more his vehicle logs corroborate his testimony. If Moul had "borrowed" the Jeep, he certainly would have washed it to remove the bugs, mud and pine needles.
Elizabeth Smart's aunt, in a televised interview said the police "are working with us". Implications: This surely must mean that the Smarts and their influential friends and church must be controlling/thwarting the 100-man SLCPD/FBI task force	We will ask Jengaio to analyze the phrazing.

Motive	Possible Suspect	Details
Kidnapping	All	- The SLCPD has said there has not been any credible ransom demands. This may be due to the massive search and media blitz within 5 hours of the abduction i.e. the perps may have realized that their chances of getting caught were very high and they decided to get rid of the evidence.
	Ricci & cronies	- Ricci and his colleagues have recently been indicted for several Utah bank robberies, each producing only a modest amount of cash i.e. $1800 split 3 ways. It is likely that they were looking for a bigger "score".
	Unknown	N/A
Burglary	Ricci	- Ricci has five previous convictions for theft, burglary, and assault (shooting a police officer). He has recently been indicted on three additional state charges including burglary of a Smart neigbor while they were sleeping (a M.O. similar to the Smart kidnapping) and theft of the Smart home. He has also been indicted on three federal charges including two bank robberies. - The Smarts, like most people, wouldn't keep large amounts of cash around. It seems likely that a simple burglary would not produce much in the way of cash or jewelery. - The SLCPD has said some things were taken but haven't identified those items.
	Unknown	N/A
Burglary Gone Wrong	Ricci	- The Smart perpetrator may have been surprised by Elizabeth Smart and decided to remove the only witness.
	Unknown	Same as above
Sexual Predator	Ricci	- Fox News reported Ricci had attempted an "inappropriate relationship" with one of his old girlfriends 16 yr old daughters.
	Unknown	N/A
Revenge	Ricci	- Ed Smart wouldn't rehire Ricci even though Ricci claimed he had no involvement in the theft of the Smart house.
	Unknown	N/A
Runaway	Elizabeth Smart	Unknown possible motive
	Unknown	N/A

[FR_addict]

We have "established" no such thing. Ricci was in fact a trusted member of the community, working in the Smart's and neighbor homes unsupervised - UNTIL the theft. At which point he was no longer trusted.

I'd say you are stretching it to say that Ricci was a trusted member of the community. He is an ex-con, that was fired because Ed Smart thought he was stealing. On this point Ed Smart turned out to be right.

[freedox]

Yeah.....I have a real problem with Ricci being the "trusted member of the community" that the police refer to in their statement. Even Jolly (post #58) acknowledges that after the theft, he was NO LONGER TRUSTED. At any rate, I don't think the police would have referred to a man with Ricci's record as a "trusted" member of anything.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I didn't mean to imply that they wouldn't lend any credence to her sketch. I just said that they wouldn't lend any credence to her own estimate of how accurate the sketch might be, especially when it was made after she (and probably MK as well) has had so much exposure to TV, still photo, and sketch likenesses of various suspects and family members. My point was that one of the factors in the decision not to release the sketch at this point, would be whether police had confidence that it was enough of a likeness of the actual perpetrator that it's release would be likely to do more good than harm. If they lack that level of confidence in its accuracy, that would support a decision to keep it for internal police use only (not to ignore it completely).

[freedox]

".....none of the artists' pieces are being released to the public for "tactical" reasons."

TACTICAL: Characterized by adroitness, ingenuity, or skill

(We can only hope that this word wasn't just pulled off the top of somebody's head......)

[GovernmentShrinker]

Huh? Mustaches can come and go pretty quickly -- glued on, shaved off, etc.

[Jolly Green]

A five time loser who burglarized a food bank and shot a police officer is trusted???

The point is that the Smarts and their neighbors weren't aware of Ricci's record until AFTER the abduction. The fact remains that prior to the theft, Ricci was able to wander around the Smart home un-supervised because he was trusted. Even after the theft, Ed Smart wasn't sure which of the three workers had stolen from him.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Given Boylan's history of work on serious investigations, her lip-flapping is likely to be given a lot more credence than the lip-flapping of the others you mentioned (though I can't remember who Deana Newhouse is). Moul is an auto mechanic, Thurber is a low-life, and Angela Ricci is an ex-con. I would assume this is why the authorities are more interested in curbing Boylan's lip-flapping than the others.

[GovernmentShrinker]

It would be pretty unusual for media to be allowed access to a 9 year old who is the sole eyewitness to a serious crime. I think you're reading too much into this. MAYBE she has some very sensitive information, but almost certainly there is concern over having her memories unnecessarily tainted, and over minimizing disruptions in her life which hinder her recovery from the trauma of losing her beloved older sister this way. If she was MY daughter, you can be sure the media would have no access to her. And besides, the police are having enough trouble controlling the parents' media appearances -- just imagine trying to control a 9 year old, who would have a lot of trouble remembering which things she is allowed to talk about and which must remain secret to protect the investigation.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Probably the authorities got mightily annoyed with her free speaking on the 12th and resolved to prevent a recurrence.

[freedox]

Come on, Jolly. The police did not say "someone who was trusted within the Smart family"......they said "a trusted member of the community." Regardless of how the Smarts and their neighbors might have viewed Ricci, there is NO WAY that the police are going to refer to him as "a trusted member of the community." That's a stretch and you know it.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I'll see if I can dig something up, but don't have much time this evening. As I recall, there were scattered references to it in a number of articles in the first week or so after Ricci's arrest, but nothing terribly detailed (I think at least one article gave the exact dates covered).

[dalebert]

If MK saw the perps hand hair(no gloves) then there must be fingerprints. Wasn't it just a week or 10 days ago they were calling for neighbors and friends to come in for printing? Seems like this investigation is going backwards. Why put off sketch until now?

[Neenah]

HERE is the transcription of the interview done on the TODAY show this morning, July 25, 2002. It is done by Katie Couric and Jeanne Boylan.

I believe I got every word correct, tho it was hard to keep backtracking that tape !! LOL..There is one thing I may highlight that struck me funny when I was transcribing it. When I saw it, remember, I was only half way into my first cup of coffee! *********************************************************** THE TODAY SHOW INTERVIEW WITH JEANNE BOYLAN

KATIE: "How were you able to produce a sketch based on your conversation with this little girl?"

BOYLAN :"We were able to produce substancial information. I will defer to the authorities to answer that specific question...but I am optomistic that what we were able to produce, will be very useful in their attempt to find Elizabeth.""

KATIE: "I know you bristle when people describe you as a sketch artist...because you do much more than that. You consider yourself as an investigative interviewer, in fact, you have a background in psychology and counciling.Can you describe how you work in a case like this that might differ from the person who is described as a sketch artist?"

BROYLAN:" ahmmmm, I can. There were many questions raised about why there wasn't a sketch forth coming from very early on. In this case, and for very legitimate reasons. As you know, I have been coming on the today show for 15 years now in relation to high profile cases. I have worked on and typically I am brought in to undo damage that has been done inadvertantly by investigators through leading questions, etc. In this case, I was actually fairly stunned to arrive at the scene and find out none of those mistakes have been made. The've done exceptionally well at protecting and preserving Mary Katherine's recall. A traditional sketch artist, would come early on in with a supply of visual information, catalogs of facial features, etc, and ask them to, asking the eye witness to pick among those features to create a composit. That can be distructive to eye witness recall. That wasn't done in this case, out of a want to protect her information early on...so everything has been done really suburbly in this case by both the Police, the F.B.I. and in addition to the people surrounding and supporting Mary Katherine."

KATIE: "And in fact, part of the problem, I understand, of producing a sketch early on, it can contaminate the memory of that individual and really muddy what they actually recall about what they've seen."

BROYLAN: "Exactly, and that wasn't done in this case. So I really have to commend the Salt Lake Police Department and the F.B.I. for doing a supurb job at protecting this information, and the way they are utilizing the information. We were able to produce internally for very sound reasons, as well, and things are being done very professionally in this case."

KATIE: " I understand this little girl is quite artistic and you've used drawing tools. You actually used clay on a carpet so you could get a better feeling for the texture of this man's skin. Is that right ????

BROYLAN: " That's true. We sat on the floor and worked in a way that she was comfortable. We worked in a place in the home that she chose..ummm..we worked in a format that she could convey in, so she's so artistic and I knew that going in to it. Her Mother and Father had met with me the night prior and explained some of her interests, so we were able to use some of the things like finger paint and clay, play dough etc. And helping her convey what it was that she had seen that night."

KATIE:" As you well know, one of the reported suspects is this handyman Richard Recci. Is the discription that Mary Katherine gave and the information you were able to gleen from your conversation with her in keeping with the description of Richard Recci ?"

BROYLAN: " Well, you know, Katie, I know it's your job to put me on the spot in answering that question. But I am unable to do it, and I really apologise for that. I can just say with a great certainty that we are very optomistic about the information we produced."

KATIE: " So obviously the authorities were pleased. You have been involved wth so many high profile cases. You produced the sketch for example of the Uni Bomber Ted Kosinsky, which led to his arrest, in fact, we have the sketch of that side by side with his photograph. You also produced the sketch of Polly Klaas' abductor that led to the arrest of Richard Allen Davis. Do you believe.....I don't want to put you on the spot yet again, Jeanne, but do you believe that a sketch from your conversations will be forthcoming because obviously that might be helpful in terms of the public being able to point out if they know someone with similar features?"

BROYLAN:" It might be helpful and often times...with sketches released to the public when there is no other information to work off of. So sometimes it actualy behooves the case and sometimes a detroment to the case to go to the public with that information."

KATIE: " So you can't say at this juncture that a sketch is forthcoming ..to the public at least.

BROYLAN: " Katie....I actually can't. I'm sorry."

KATIE: " Alright, O.K...that's alright. Jeanne Boylan, we appreciate your time. Thanks so much for talking to us this morning. I'm sure everyone appreciates your help with the case."

BROYLAN:" You're welcome." **********************************************************

Brigette...Feel free to post this on your board.

[dalebert]

I thought Mr.Smart let Ricci go before the abduction?

[cherry]

"In this case, I was actually fairly stunned to arrive at the scene and find out none of those mistakes have been made"

Fabulous neenah...

this is fantastic news....I feel really confident now about this investigation..

Broylan is a professional with tons of exp. from around the country and I feel her endorsement of this investigation means a lot

if she states that the cops and fbi are doing a great job,then I totally believe her....

thanks again Neenah