Bringing Elizabeth Home (11 page)

The twist to this story is that when the break-in happened, the man police had all but pinned Elizabeth's kidnapping on, Richard Ricci, was sitting in a jail cell. This led us to believe that Ricci may have had an accomplice. Was this a copycat crime, a cruel prank, or was there someone else out there who had kidnapped Elizabeth and was looking to strike again?

The news of the second break-in didn't go public until August 9. It supported our belief that perhaps Ricci hadn't acted alone and that the hunt for Elizabeth had to continue. There had to be someone else who had our daughter, which confirmed our belief that there was a good chance she was still alive. Crucial time was passing, and all eyes were on innocent men. We appreciated everything the police were doing. We supported their efforts one hundred percent. But we know, as the parents of a missing child, that no matter how much is being done to bring your child home, it never feels like enough. Every day without answers was torturous.

In the weeks that followed, we continued to make public pleas to whoever had Elizabeth. We tried to keep the public informed whenever there was news, but we were no longer giving our daily news briefings to the media. Releasing pertinent information was a crucial part of our plan to save Elizabeth. Although the break-in at our relatives' home certainly indicated the possibility of another person being involved, the police felt they had the right man in custody, Richard Ricci. It was hard to ignore the evidence against Ricci, so hard that we couldn't help but begin to believe he was responsible for bringing this terror into our lives. We released a public statement once again asking for someone to please step forward with information about Elizabeth.

To the holder(s) of Elizabeth Ann Smart and Friends Throughout the World: It has been several weeks since our daughter Elizabeth was awakened during the night and taken from her home by force. Every minute of the day we continue to search for her, pray for her, and yearn for her to come home. So many of you have joined us in our search and prayers. Since we last saw Elizabeth on the evening of June
4
, we have not received any communication from the person who took her. We continue to eagerly await information about her location. We believe that through awareness of this terrible tragedy in our family many children throughout the world will be saved. As the authorities continue to piece together a puzzle, we still are only interested in one thing—finding Elizabeth. We believe that she is still alive and wants desperately to be returned to us. Whether or not you are the person who took her, we are pleading with you to do the right thing and let her come home.

Anxiously awaiting,
Ed and Lois Smart

After Bret Michael Edmunds was cleared of any involvement in Elizabeth's kidnapping, all eyes focused on Richard Ricci as the primary suspect. When they brought him in for questioning, Ricci, faced with proof, finally admitted stealing Lois's bracelet and to breaking into our neighbors' home but emphatically denied any connection to the kidnapping. The police had checked pawnshops and found one that had a receipt with a detailed description of the bracelet. This allowed them to put on heated pressure to confess to abducting Elizabeth. By admitting his guilt in stealing the bracelet, Ricci had proved to us once again that he was not a man of integrity. He had lied to our faces and he was convincing. The evidence was mounting against Ricci, and investigators seemed to be building a good circumstantial case. Though the police brought him in to be interviewed about the kidnapping, there was no evidence concrete enough to warrant holding him.

Several people were called and questioned by the grand jury investigating Ricci, including his wife, Angela, who steadfastly testified that Ricci was home in bed with her on the night of Elizabeth's abduction. She had given statements to the media on the morning of the kidnapping, expecting that her husband would be fingered. The police administered a polygraph test to Ricci about the kidnapping, which he passed. But he had lied so many times to us. How could we believe him about anything—especially about the disappearance of our daughter?

The biggest hole in Ricci's story revolves around the Jeep we gave him. We were told that on May 30, Ricci picked up his Jeep from Neth's Auto Repair. He returned the Jeep on the morning of June 8. According to Neth Moul, there were approximately 500 to 1,000 new miles on the odometer since he had picked it up. Ricci, who was usually very friendly, was uncharacteristically reserved. He loaded some things from the Jeep into two bags and also took a posthole digger. When he left, he met up with a friend across the street and then disappeared. In the wake of Elizabeth's disappearance, all of this raised several questions in investigators' minds about where Ricci was and what he was doing. It appeared extremely suspicious.

Moul said that on May 30, 2002, he received a phone call from a woman claiming to be Ricci's wife, asking about the Jeep. The story given was that they needed the Jeep to get to work. Neth told them to come and get the car. The Jeep had been ours for two years and Elizabeth had ridden in it numerous times, so any evidence of her found inside would not be enough to implicate Ricci in her kidnapping. Ricci denied he'd taken the Jeep and refused to answer investigators' questions about the added miles. He had several chances to vindicate himself with regard to the kidnapping, but he refused to say where he was, whom he was with, or what he'd been doing. What was he hiding, if anything?

Salt Lake City District Attorney David Yocom filed felony charges against Ricci for theft of money, jewelry, and other items he'd confessed to taking from our home and our neighbors'. In an effort to build a stronger case against Ricci, Yocom also charged him with habitual criminal charges, which, if convicted, would put him in jail for the rest of his life. Ricci was taken into custody, and Salt Lake City police hoped to garner a confession about Elizabeth. They had established that Ricci had a pattern of breaking into occupied homes in the middle of the night. We desperately sought answers—answers we believed Ricci could provide. We wanted Ricci to give us a reasonable explanation for the miles Neth Moul said he'd put on the Jeep. If Ricci wasn't involved in the kidnapping, precious time was slipping away while the investigation was focused on him.

The evidence, even if it was circumstantial, was very convincing. It certainly appeared to everyone involved that Ricci was somehow connected. We wanted truthful answers, and in seeking those, we offered a reward for any information regarding Ricci's whereabouts between May 30 and June 8, 2002. We also offered a reward to anyone who could identify the man waiting for Ricci the night Ricci returned the Jeep to Neth Moul's garage. No one ever stepped forward with a single concrete lead in either investigation. Ricci never offered a reasonable explanation about his whereabouts.

In early July 2001, Richard Ricci took part in a bank robbery in Sandy, Utah, getting away with slightly more than seventeen hundred dollars. Ricci was indicted for armed robbery on July 17, 2002. One of the other men involved confessed to the bank robbery, implicating Ricci. This came on the heels of the charges brought against Ricci for the robbery of our home and our neighbor's home. Our understanding was that Ricci was imprisoned and held in a maximum-security facility. Police had hoped that leaving him in solitary conWnement would prompt a confession about Elizabeth, but Ricci never admitted to any involvement.

At the roll call hearing in July, Ed pleaded with Ricci's wife, Angela, for the truth. Angela expressed her sincere grief over Elizabeth's disappearance. Ed asked Angela to talk to Richard to see if there was anything he could tell us to help find Elizabeth. He took her by the hand and said, “We have got to find our daughter.” He pleaded with her. Angela insisted that Ricci was not involved in the kidnapping but promised to talk to her husband anyway.

But did he take Elizabeth?

The Richard Ricci saga was one of the most difficult aspects of the investigation. The media was obsessed with what we thought about Ricci's case. We didn't want to comment. When we went to the courthouse for the pretrial hearing, there were so many reporters that there was literally no room for us to sit in the courtroom. We were a bit surprised. Someone from the court finally came out and said that only one of us could go inside. We felt it was best for Ed to go, but we were later told that we could both attend the hearing. We had no idea it would be such a big deal. This was just a pretrial hearing. If this was the coverage for the theft charges, we could only imagine the media circus that would follow for a kidnapping trial.

We wanted to sit in on the trial to hear Ricci tell his story, in his own words. Maybe we were looking for a sign that he knew where Elizabeth was—or perhaps we wanted to stare him in the eyes and try to get a read on his alleged innocence. We were seeking the truth—regardless of how upsetting it could have been. There was a motion for a continuance from Ricci's lawyer, who wanted an opportunity for further discovery. What in the world were they looking for? He admitted to taking Lois's jewelry. He stole from us. That was a fact.

After the first day of the hearing, microphones were shoved in our faces by reporters wanting to know how we felt, what we thought, and if were we satisfied with the outcome. Our publicist, Chris Thomas, scurried us through the crowd and told us not to talk to anyone. We were getting used to the crowds, but we never seemed to get comfortable with the attention.

While the investigation into Richard Ricci was still ongoing, we received an e-mail from an anonymous person who claimed to have seen Ricci working on a fence in Wyoming. Somehow, that e-mail got erased. We were just sick over losing that correspondence. We eventually made a public plea to whoever sent the e-mail to resend us the information. We never heard from that person again. We find it hard to believe that any one person can be alone in this world. Someone somewhere knew who sent us that e-mail, just as someone knew whom Richard Ricci met the night he returned the Jeep to Neth Moul's garage. A friend, a neighbor, a family member—someone knew. The Jeep remains a mystery. There was a rumor that someone in Cedar City was able to vindicate Ricci, but we have yet to hear a confirmation of that. Ricci's attorney is bound by client/lawyer privilege, so he cannot reveal Ricci's whereabouts the night Elizabeth was taken.

We never understood why Ricci wouldn't clear his name with respect to the kidnapping allegation. What could be worse than that? And then the unthinkable happened. We received a phone call from Cory Lyman, the lead investigator on Elizabeth's case at the time, informing us that Richard Ricci had suffered an aneurysm in his prison cell and it looked as if he would not make it. Ricci never regained consciousness, and he died on August 30, 2002. The police had placed so much emphasis on Ricci, and there is no faulting their efforts to prove his guilt. They had gone to southern Utah to interview some of his cohorts. They reinterviewed his wife. They did a lot of work, but at the end of the day, it would be all for naught.

School was starting and it was time to resume family life. It was time we faced that Elizabeth might actually be dead. As hard as it was to bear, the thought was becoming difficult to dismiss. We faced that possibility from very different perspectives.

Chapter 14

T
HAT SEPTEMBER
Elizabeth should have been starting her first year of high school—an important milestone for every child. Instead, we had to prepare ourselves for the end of the “summer of missing children” and move forward with the beginning of fall. Whether we were prepared for it or not, this was a new start for all of us. Ricci's death marked a fork in the road for both of us in terms of how we handled the situation going forward.

As painful as it was, we had to get the children ready to go back to school. At this time of year, our daughters were always excited about shopping, while the boys were always indifferent. We feared that the children faced having to answer lots of questions from curious classmates. How were we supposed to prepare our children for the questions we had spent the summer protecting them from? Mary Katherine was of special concern. How would she handle children asking her about being the only witness to her sister's kidnapping? Could their questions be harmful to her memory or her well-being? We sought out expert advice to be certain we had the right answers to these questions. We spoke to the school principals about how to handle the children, especially Mary Katherine. Her principal assured us that the subject of Elizabeth's kidnapping would not be brought up. We can't think of a single incident where a child teased Mary Katherine or made some kind of cruel remark. That in itself was miraculous. She continued to do well in school and socialized very nicely with her friends and teachers. It's amazing how children had more softness in their hearts than did many members of the media. Our other children dealt with the issue as it came up. Andrew goes to the same junior high Elizabeth attended, so the kidnapping came up a little more in his daily conversations than in Mary Katherine's. Charles, being in high school, felt he could handle whatever came his way and never gave anyone a chance to broach the subject. He wanted to be known not as “Elizabeth Smart's brother,” but as someone with his own identity. We respected his attitude.

Family became our number-one priority. We both come from such wonderful families, who were there every step of the way to prop us up when necessary. They were a tremendous support system—so many people don't have that to fall back on. We were sincerely blessed to have such a strong sustaining force. It's easy to get wrapped up in life and lose perspective on your priorities and what's really important. Business, bills, everyday life goes on—even when the world feels frozen. We had lost Elizabeth. But life had to go on.

We decided it was important for Ed to go back to work three months from the time Elizabeth had been taken. People helped us out, but it was important, especially for Ed, to take his energy and put it toward something positive outside of the search for Elizabeth. He had been at an emotional standstill, and work provided a welcome break and a familiar sense of normalcy. It was a healthy distraction that helped both of us pick ourselves up and try to go back to the roles we had played before the kidnapping. Work had been a priority for Ed his whole life. The lessons garnered from our experience boiled down to not taking anything for granted. Ed works at home, but he spends a lot of time away from home with clients. Ed's business is one filled with peaks and valleys. When business is good, he's got to capitalize on it so that when things slow down we don't face financial challenges. Ed is an extremely driven man, so when Elizabeth was taken, it was hard for him to function at a level that he was accustomed to. There were numerous distractions that took his time and focus away from his work. Title and mortgage companies, and fellow Realtors, stepped in to help when Ed simply couldn't handle the workload. They made earning a living possible when things became difficult.