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CNN Talkback Live

Will Media Coverage Help Find Elizabeth Smart?

Aired June 06, 2002 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ARTHEL NEVILLE, HOST: Hello, everybody. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Arthel Neville. Any time now, the Senate Judiciary Committee will be hearing testimony from Coleen Rowley. She's the whistle-blower who claims FBI headquarters thwarted efforts to investigate terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui. We're going to bring that to you live as soon as she starts.

In the meantime, let's look at a couple of other big stories happening today, starting with the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart. Salt Lake City police say the 14-year-old girl was abducted from her room in the middle of the night. Her parents are pleading for her safe return. Her friends mounting searches and distributing fliers. Authorities ask anyone with information on her abduction to call 1- 801-799-3000 or 1-800 932-0190.

Joining us now retired FBI agent Don Clark. Mr. Clark, welcome to the show.

DON CLARK, RET. FBI AGENT: Thank you. It's good to be here.

NEVILLE: Does coverage like this help in the investigation?

CLARK: Well, I don't know that it's going to have a tremendous adverse impact. I mean, clearly it does attract somewhat, because agents are there in the field and they're concerned about their image and what they want to do, and without a doubt, this is a strong organization that had its -- has had its ups downs during the years, but it seems to come through pretty well, and we'd like to see that take place. But clearly it's going to have a bit of an adverse opinion, but I think the bottom line is, is that the grassroots agents will get the jobs done and there is some very good management throughout the organizational structure.

NEVILLE: Tell us how crucial the first three to 48 hours are in cases like this.

CLARK: Well, I think it's very, very crucial, because the evidence that you need to get your hands on immediately, to start some investigative process to take place. So I think it's extremely crucial that you can get as many individuals who in a position to follow appropriate leads and get a head start on this before it gets out of control because it's really difficult to catch up or to play catch up in these types of case. NEVILLE: Because I read that in cases of children being abducted, that chances are if they're going to be killed, it's going to happen in the first three hours after the person takes the child.

CLARK: Generally speaking, that has been a sort of a rule that the investigators and the profilers have seen to come up with and determine that a short period of time afterwards, whatever these very ill and criminal minded people are intended to do, it usually happens immediately, and then the child is usually killed.

There have been exceptions to that rule, as a matter of fact right down here in Houston, we've had a couple of very good successes that after I was gone from the FBI that them working with the local authorities have been able to rescue young girls in the very same setting that we've seen taking place out there today.

NEVILLE: So again, you know, when the community gets together and puts out flyers, and phone numbers, and you know we've all seen -- we've all seen missing kids on the cartons of -- milk cartons, and does all of this really help, because I think that people at home would like to know in situations like this if there is something, anything that they can do and if a phone call to the police, a tip or something could help lead them to the perpetuator.

CLARK: Well, you know it really does help. In 1997 here we had a young girl named Laura Smith, who was kidnapped and subsequently killed and as a result of that through the strong efforts of her parents, there's something down here called the Laura Recovery Center and it has been used all over this country to move and advise communities in the very exact same set of circumstances.

And that's really to mobilize the community and get the community involved, and they have been very successful in at least getting the word out there, and that helps to generate -- to generate leads for the law enforcement community. So it's a joint effort between the community and the law enforcement community.

NEVILLE: What -- we're looking at pictures of the home there, the Smart's home, and I read that the suspect entered a window, and the alarm system was not on. What can parents do? I mean certainly it's no fault, the Smarts are not responsible that this horrendous thing has happened to their child, but what can parents do to try to prevent things like this from happening? I mean parents are always saying to their kids don't talk to strangers. Should they teach kids, not necessarily not to talk to strangers, but to look for -- to look for suspicious behavior and things like that?

CLARK: Well, that's exactly correct. Sometimes we allow ourselves to lull into a sense of believing that perhaps where we live, our area, our neighborhood that it's not going to happen to us. It's always going to happen some other place, but obviously we can see from this very good surrounding here, that it can and it does happen in anyplace, at any economic level, and we need to take the exact same precautions.

We need to make sure that we have some security, and to have a security system and not have that security system on, you may as well not have one. So, I would suggest that we adhere to that and make sure that we keep things as secure as we can, and yes we tell kids about don't talk to strangers and certainly, don't get on the computer, and get into these chat rooms and allow yourselves to be lulled off into places where harm can come to you.

So we have to keep up with that, but the physical security is very important, and keep in mind that this is probably, perhaps, the third such occurrence that I'm aware of in the last few years, where a perpetuator has climbed into a window, entered into a house, and taken a kid away. So we ought to take a look at the physical securities around there.

NEVILLE: Absolutely, Mr. Clark, stand by for me if you will because I'd like to bring in CNN correspondent James Hattori right now, who's covering the Elizabeth Smart case in Salt Lake City, and James thank you for being here as well, and if you could, fill us in on the latest on this investigation.

JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Arthel, I think what's going on right now, I think you could safely say is a full-court press to turn up some sort of clue that might lead investigators to the whereabouts of 14-year old Elizabeth Smart. They've announced a $250,000-reward for her safe return. They've received thousands of tips, averaging one a minute. They've got dozens of investigators following up on those leads.

Yet, as of a little while ago, they told us that they are -- in terms of a serious lead or a serious suspect, they're no closer today than they were yesterday. Now we did get a briefing from investigators just a little while ago, and here's some of what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF RICK DINSE, SALT LAKE CITY POLICE: As we speak now, we have 36 investigators assigned. We have commitments by the entire, virtually the entire valley of Salt Lake in the law enforcement community to assist us with personnel, and we are looking at expanding our investigative capability with that assistance.

I also want to announce at this time that a reward for the safe return of Elizabeth Smart of $250,000. That has been offered by the community, and so we are going forward with that, and putting that out front. Again, that is for the safe return of Elizabeth Smart.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HATTORI: Of course, everybody wants the safe return of Elizabeth Smart, and that's why a lot of these volunteers are here behind me, some 700 or more, have come together and gone out in the field. They're going literally door-to-door, asking people if they've seen anything or heard anything, seen anything suspicious that might give them an idea as to what happened.

In terms of suspects, the police also said that they really have no serious suspects right now. They are -- they have not, however, ruled out anyone. They have looked at, for example, you were talking about the house earlier ...

NEVILLE: Right.

HATTORI: The house was one the market. Some people have come through the house. There was construction work to the house. Workers have been through the house. They say they've looked at as many people as they can and to this point, they've eliminated most of those people.

NEVILLE: James, hang on for me if you will. Mr. Clark, you just heard that there are thousands of leads on this case. Of course in situations like this the police cannot ignore anything, but how do they decipher the more substantial leads from those and unfortunately people call in hoaxes in situations like this as well.

CLARK: Right. You know what you really have to do, and I'm sure that they're doing that out there is devise a command post organizational structure so that number one, you can receive every lead that comes in and that something can happen to it.

And then you've got to have a component of that command post whereby they are going to evaluate those leads, and you can tell by the nature of the lead that comes in and the information that's there, it'll give you some sense as to what category that you want to put these in, whether they're urgent category or whether they should be something that you'll look at as you move along the line. But clearly, it's an analyzation process that's going to take place, and it works very well in a command post setting.

NEVILLE: And then also because the initial reward was about $10,000, now that it's been upped to $250,000, will this help bring out substantial leads, but yet also bring out the loonies who call in on situations like this yet again?

CLARK: Well I -- the good citizens are going to be reluctant to call in something that they don't believe is factual or has taken place. They will be a little bit more reserved. The loonies, I just don't think you have -- you can worry about them because they're out there anyway, and they're going to create havoc for the investigation by trying to set you off.

But nonetheless, when that lead comes in, the actual assessing of that lead will give the investigators some clue as to whether or not that this is a legitimate lead or whether it is, in fact, as you said, some loony just calling in.

NEVILLE: OK, I have Ivy (ph) now calling in from California. Go ahead, Ivy.

IVY: Yes, hello, Arthel. What I want to say is that, you know there's too many children being snatched from their bedroom, and I think now that these parents are going to have to think about putting rot iron bars up around the children's windows. It's come to that point, and another thing I'd like to say is I think the sister should never have waited two hours. She should have turned in immediately.

NEVILLE: But Ivy, in fairness to the sister, you have a 9-year old girl who was in shock, first of all that anybody would come into her room, to snatch her sister at gunpoint. So I mean on the one hand, yes you certainly could think well a nine-year old girl would have some of sort of wherewithal to, as soon as this guy leaves the house to run to the parents, but I mean, you know, Mr. Clark help me out here, I mean, you know, that's a lot to expect from her -- I don't know. I mean, what do you think about this?

CLARK: Well, of course, it is, and it's sometimes easier for us to look back at all of these situations and say what we probably should have done, or would have liked to have seen happen. I mean clearly, if the kid had run out the instant that they left, but this kid, we have to assume was absolutely frightened to death to see, if what we've heard is the factual situation, we'll assume that it is that took place, she's very frightened as to what took place.

And I think the likelihood of her behaving and doing just as that person told her, thinking that her sister would be OK is something that we would have to expect that happened. I do agree with the lady in terms of security of the property, so as we cannot allow ourselves to lull into a sense of saying all safe and OK in anyplace that we are.

NEVILLE: And James, go ahead and tell us again what the little girl told police, the nine-year old sister.

HATTORI: Well, they describe her as a very brave little girl, first of all. I mean she's nine years old and went through a harrowing experience. We don't know exactly how much time the man spent in the bedroom with them, probably a couple of minutes, maybe he was in the house for a time before that, but from what we can understand is the girl told them basically that, you know do this, if you keep quiet, no one will get hurt.

If you say anything after I leave, I'm going to hurt Elizabeth, and that's certainly enough of, in this case it seems a scary experience to make her keep quiet for a certain amount of time. Let me also add that the police answered a question about today whether or not it would be worth having her talk with a sketch artist. Apparently it may not have been bright enough in that room for the girl to get a good look at this man, this suspect or perhaps she's just in such a frame of mind that she can't really help the police ...

(CROSSTALK)

HATTORI: ... that much.

NEVILLE: And then also, James, I mean you're nine years old, I understand that she gave the police an initial description regarding the age of somewhere between 18 and 40. I mean you know when you're nine, somebody who's 23 seems to be, you know, 55.

HATTORI: Sadly that's true. Young people aren't very good at judging age. So, again it's a lot of vague descriptions, not a lot of detail, and again under a short period of time that they were actually together.

NEVILLE: OK, I have Jeff from Texas here. What do you think, Jeff?

JEFF: I'm kind of concerned -- I heard that they have an alarm, but the alarm was not on and the abduction happened at 1:00 a.m. and the question is why wasn't the alarm on. They have at least two small children at home. I have small children. I live in a safe neighborhood.

I have a monitored alarm. My children put it on if I don't, just for that sense of security and just to calm the concerns of parents around the country and small children that are worried because this case is getting a lot of attention. You ...

NEVILLE: Sure. Sure. Thank you. First of all, Jeff, for those comments, and James I know you were listening. I read the information in this case, as well and from what I understand the reason the alarm wasn't on is that the Smarts don't put it on at night because they do have, what is it six children, and they -- you know kids are walking around, so the motion detectors would trick off the alarm -- trip off the alarm, but at the same time then, again, no fault of the parents, but I say put the alarm on. Turn off the motion detectors.

HATTORI: Yes, I think there's been a lot of conflicting information. This morning on "AMERICA MORNING" with Paula Zahn, Mr. Smart did say that the alarm generally is off in the evening, but in fact he also went onto add that a couple of the motion sensors apparently were not functioning. So you know this a community that's very affluent, I'm guessing it's not a high crime area, yet, you know people want to take as many precautions as they can, but they get lax. It's human nature sadly.

Let me also add that these light blue ribbons are being circulated by the community. This is apparently Elizabeth's favorite color and they want the community to use these as a symbol of support during these hours.

NEVILLE: Sure.

HATTORI: Arthel.

NEVILLE: Sure. Mr. Clark, before we go, once again you heard Jeff here from Texas in our audience expressing concerns about having the alarm system on, not just having it there, because as you said earlier, if you have it and it's not on, it doesn't -- it doesn't matter to have it. Once again reiterate that, it doesn't matter what neighborhood you live in these days, no one is exempt from these unfortunate situations.

CLARK: Well, that's absolutely correct and the gentleman was accurate, but I also noted that he said I live in a safe community, and I think you would ask many residents and they'd say I live in a safe community, some safer than others by degrees, but nonetheless, no one is immune from someone who really wants to attack and invade their privacy and take their kids and their possessions from doing so. So you've got to guard against that. And it's absolutely -- and I realize the parents are in pain here today, but in general terms it is absolutely ...

NEVILLE: OK.

CLARK: ... ridiculous to have an alarm system and not have it working.

NEVILLE: Absolutely.

Listen, I am going to go to break right now. Don Clark and James Hattori, thank you both for being with us, and we will remind you -- we are going now to Leon Harris who's standing by in the news room.

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