Smart Case, July 29, 2002

07/29/02 | Jolly Green

[Jolly Green]

Time Line
06/05/01	Tuesday	Ricci steals items from the Smart home while he is employed there as a handyman. Ricci is charged in July of 2002 of 1 count of theft related to the Smart incident.
05/30/02	Thursday	~ Ricci returns to pick up his Jeep at the auto repair shop before the shop has a chance to fully fix it He tells the repairman that it needed for an emergency.
06/04/02	Tuesday	~ Ricci is at work from about 9am to 5:30pm ~ Ricci claims he spends the evening with friends
06/05/02	Wednesday	~ 1:05am - 2 cars are spotted on the SLC Shriner's Hospital Parking Lot by a hospital security guard, two blocks from the Smart residence ~ 1:30am (approx) - Elizabeth is kidnapped from her home ~ 1:30am - Ricci claims to be in bed asleep with his with wife. ~ Ricci is scheduled to be off work all day today. ~ 7:21am - Rachel/Amber alert is issued and national media is involved. ~ 8:30am - Ricci and his neighbor talk about the kidnapping of Elizabeth, Ricci seems to know too much information about it. ~ Sometime during this day Ricci is visited by police in regards to Elizabeth's kidnapping as reported by Angela Ricci (Richard A. Ricci's Wife which is an ex-convict herself) ~ Ricci is seen by his neighbor digging a hole by his (Ricci's) trailer early in the morning. (heard the neighbor say this on TV)
06/06/02	Thursday	~ Ricci is scheduled to work from 9am to 5:30pm today, but instead works from 10:30am to 7:00pm ~ Police talk to Ricci this day about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping. (The media is reporting this, so it could be wrong)
06/08/02	Saturday	~ Ricci returns the Jeep to the repair shop to get it fixed. The Jeep is muddy and the repair shop owner sees Ricci remove seat covers from the back of the jeep and place them into a plastic garbage bag that already contains other stuff in it. Also the repair shop owner said a muddy post hole digger was in the back of the Jeep, Ricci removes this also. Ricci has a man waiting across the street to give him a ride. Ricci takes the plastic bag and contents along with the post hole digger with him. Also there is 500 to 1000 extra miles on the Jeep since Ricci picked it up on May 30th, 2002.
06/14/02	Friday	~ Ricci is taken into custody for a parole violation, this being drinking while on parole and association with other ex-cons.
07/11/02	Thursday	Formal charges are filed against Ricci (2 counts of theft & 1 count of burglary) on the theft & burglary of the Smart neighbors home which occurred in April 2001, and 1 more count of theft for stealing from the Smart home on June 6th, 2001.
Special thanks to Brigette for starting this timeline.

[Bella]

Any way to find out if Remington's band of handymen ever worked for Tom Smart at Winterton Farms?

http://wintertonfarms.com/QandA/

Who are the developers of Winterton Farms?
River’s End L.C., which consists of partners Tom Smart and Zeke Dumke.
tom@wintertonfarms.com
zeke@wintertonfarms.com

[Iwo Jima]

the police have repeatedly said that MK's story has been very consistant throughout.

You apparently put some stock in what the police say. I do not. It may appear that MK keeps changin her story because she has never been properly interviewed. If you keep asking different questions which have never been asked before, you get new answers which appear to be "different" but which really are not.

[Iwo Jima]

I see no evidence whatsoever that would lead anyone to believe that Ricci is "the" perp or the brains behind this thing. He has some involvement, I'll wager, and a whole lot of knowledge. But he clearly did not do the deed.

What leads you to suspect Ricci as "the" perp?

[Iwo Jima]

I have concluded that in a missing persons case in which politically or socially important people are potential suspects (Chandra Levy, Elizabeth Smart), you will never get a decent investigation from the police. If you want your child found quickly, you simply must take control of the situation and hire an experienced investigator. You must be or provide your own detective, police, forensics, etc. It's your only hope.

[Bella]

I have concluded that in a missing persons case in which politically or socially important people are potential suspects (Chandra Levy, Elizabeth Smart), you will never get a decent investigation from the police. If you want your child found quickly, you simply must take control of the situation and hire an experienced investigator. You must be or provide your own detective, police, forensics, etc. It's your only hope.

So very true..

[Jolly Green]

It may have eliminated the wrong description going out in the first place.

All of this second guessing/Monday morning quarterbacking is great, but the police had slightly more that 3 hours from the time the Smart 911 call was received until the Rachel/Amber alert went out at 7:21am.

[Iwo Jima]

Your point is???

[freedox]

"Except that the police have repeatedly said that MK's story has been very consistant throughout."

Think about this. WHY have the police made such a point of stating publicly that Mary Katherine's story has remained consistent? What benefit is derived from these public statements? There is nothing in Mary Katherine's story that is of any benefit to the public......nothing that would help any of us identify the alleged abductor.

The only real benefit that I can see in repeatedly stating that Mary Katherine's story has not changed is to reassure the abductor that she has not provided police with any additional information. If this is the case, what is the likelihood that it is true?

[Jolly Green]

But the SLC police would have probably botched the interview and the sketch just like they have apparently botched so many things.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but that is just what it is - opinion. You are not privy to the details of the case and are merely speculating. You don't know for a fact that the police have botched a single thing. There is a world of difference between an incompetent perp such as in the Runyon case who doesn't hide any evidence (left his calling card) and an experienced criminal who hides everything. Some of those who have been privy to some of the details (such as Boylan) give the police/FBI high marks.

[Jolly Green]

Finally, I think that the perp is not Recci.

How nice. You might want to share with us why his alibi doesn't hold up (per the SLCPD), why he won't account for the Jeep's whereabouts, and why he won't come clean even after being granted immunity on any non-related kidnapping crimes. What's more the police chief has said there is "connectivity" to Ricci and it's not that they don't have any evidince, they just don't have sufficient evidence to charge him.

I sure don't want to interfere with your reality.

[Iwo Jima]

Boylan did not give the police "high marks." See my post to Bella above. My opinion is as valid as yours, more so I think because it is based on the totality of known facts. I am totally neutral in this. You on the other hand obviously have an axe to grind as evidenced by the incredibly biased and inacurrate timeline which you post every day and the way you slam anyone who has anything critical to say of the police or the family.

[Jolly Green]

The idea that there was no ability to get a sketch is so preposterous that no thinking person could possibly believe that.

Reality check: It was dark, MK may have only seen him from the back or side and was looking up from her bed AND the perp may have been wearing a mask. (Wouldn't you?). What MK saw clearly was his hands and was apparently the focus of the Boylan involvement i.e. how to represent the texture of the perps hands. She also heard his voice clearly and has been listening to tapes of possible suspect's voices.

[Iwo Jima]

Once again, you are relying on what the police say, which has very little weight with me.

I think that Ricci's alibi has held up fine. He was at home with his wife in bed, exactly where a man ought to be at that time of night. His wife has passed a lie detector test about this and seems very credible (on this point) to me. Nutty and slutty, but believable on this issue.

I do not accept your assertion that Ricci "will not" account for where the jeep was. I do not know that he has not. What is your basis for such a claim? The police? Back to square one.

Because I believe that Ricci has guilty knowledge and/or involvement, it may well be that his jeep was used in some way in transporting Elizabeth (although if that is the case, it was a situation in which the abductors did not expect Elizabeth to ever return). His guilty knowledge could include what his jeep was used for. This is entirely consistent with Ricci being an accomplice but not the ringleader.

The ringleader is a Mr. Big. Someone who knew enough about the family to know that Ricci could and would lend a hand in what he wanted to do and whose clout is so great that the police are afraid or simply unable to take him on.

[freedox]

"The ringleader is a Mr. Big. Someone who knew enough about the family to know that Ricci could and would lend a hand in what he wanted to do and whose clout is so great that the police are afraid or simply unable to take him on."

Remember......one thing that Ricci, Young and Remington have in common is that they worked together on a job at the home of one of the Smart's neighbors.

[Vinomori]

The ringleader is a Mr. Big. Someone who knew enough about the family to know that Ricci could and would lend a hand in what he wanted to do and whose clout is so great that the police are afraid or simply unable to take him on.

This would fit the criteria for a great Hollywood movie. But it does not fit the criteria for reality. It is juvenile and fanciful thinking. Crimes are committed, 99.99% of them, by low-lifes. They are simply not committed, statistically speaking, by Mr. Big. Crimes like murder are committed by creepy, banal, cretinous lowlife scum. When Mr. Big wants to become a criminal, he brings his accountant in, NOT HIS HANDYMAN.

[Iwo Jima]

Yes, which means that they would have known the house and the family's habits. Extremely valuable information. That plus the fact that they are dishonest people with criminal records makes them very valuable to Mr. Big. They may or may not have known what they were being used for. People of that criminal class are used to not asking questions which the rest of us might insist be answered before we did something like loan out our car. Each of them could have had an entirely different level of knowledge about what was going on.

They all sound guilty to me but of what? None of them sound like the ringleader or even the abductor. Ricci has an alibi and Remington was in jail (as I recall). Don't remember about the other guy. Neither Ricci nor the third guy fit the only description we have of the abductor, but we don't have a good description of Remington that I am aware of.

[Iwo Jima]

Your post makes no sense and seems totally driven by wishful thinking. You will not solve this case, find Elizabeth, or get a conviction by quoting statistics. What a defense! "I'm an important person and therefore statcially I did not commit this ctime." Sheesh!

[Iwo Jima]

"statcially" should be "statistically." I think.

[Jolly Green]

You on the other hand obviously have an axe to grind as evidenced by the incredibly biased and inacurrate timeline which you post every day and the way you slam anyone who has anything critical to say of the police or the family.

FYI, I didn't create the timeline and only added one event or possibly two. You are correct in that I do have a "bias" for facts over fiction. You or anyone else can say anything they want critical of the Smarts or the police that they can back up with published sources.

We have a career criminal with 5 convictions including shooting a police officer, who has now admited involvement in other crimes involving the Smarts. A criminal who has now been charged with three new state charges and three new federal charges. A criminal who previously worked in the Smart home and had familiarity with ES and the family's home and habits. A criminal that has been named by the police as the prime suspect. A criminal with a flaky alibi who has been described by the police as having "connectivity" to the ES abduction. A criminal who will not account for ALL of his or his Jeep's whereabouts inspite of an offer of immunity during the critical period. Those are well documented facts, not bias.

Instead of throwing out your wild-eyed speculations, how about providing some links from credible published sources which support your positions? I would love to see names of those who had both opportunity and motive. I will be only too happy to add them to the Important Links or time-line section.

You might also want to share your agenda and biases.