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CNN Live Saturday

Relatives and Police Speak About Efforts to Locate Elizabeth Smart

Aired June 08, 2002 - 13:34   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We want to take you now to Salt Lake City, the focus of the search for 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart. She was abducted from her home earlier in the week. Now, some children, along with Elizabeth's uncle, David Smart, talking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We love her. We want her to come home and we want her to be safe with us again.

DAVID SMART, ELIZABETH'S UNCLE: Guys, do you have anything else to say?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We love you, Elizabeth, and we're praying for you and we love you.

Whoever -- just bring her back safely.

D. SMART: OK. Thanks, guys.

Just the resilience of these young kids -- if you're wondering different things that you can do to help, even though you can't come out for the volunteer -- help to come out and volunteer, because of your age, there's many different things you can do.

As you know we have this light blue ribbon here that was Elizabeth's favorite color. And you can tie-bows and do things with that also. You can do bracelets in light blue and tie bows to your antennas on your cars. We love you and we appreciate everything you've done for us to help in this effort to get Elizabeth back. Thank you.

TOM SMART, ELIZABETH'S UNCLE: Hello, I'm Tom Smart. I'm Elizabeth's uncle, Edward's brother. Edward -- first of all, I just met with Edward and Lois. We had our first meeting -- first -- we met as a family together for first time since this thing started about an hour ago. And we had a family meeting, family prayer. We -- and we wanted to -- we hit kind of a stage yesterday. The family, at least I know myself, hit a stage of exhaustion where maybe I've been somewhat incoherent, and we keep hoping every day as the day and I really honestly thought yesterday was going to be the day, but I want you -- I'm very, very happy.

Edward and Lois look great. They're in -- having this family meeting between the both families was one of the most wonderful things that I've ever experienced. And what we feel is that we believe that Elizabeth is alive. We feel in our hearts, we know she's alive. That's a very strong thing. And we -- we have a great sense of comfort and are feeling support all over, and I think that -- I'm sorry.

Both families feel this great love and this feeling from the community, and it is so important that we continue doing this for the next few days. And it may take a while, but we know that in our hearts, and I don't have any evidence to say this or anything like that, she's there, she's alive, somebody has her, she's somewhere. Check your basements, check your houses.

And it may not be today. It may be tomorrow. It may be in a week. We don't know when it is, but we feel that it is there. And we appreciate that support from everybody. We'll talk to you a little bit later about it. Thank you.

CAPT. SCOTT ATKINSON, SALT LAKE CITY POLICE: Good morning. This is our morning update. I've passed out to the media presently a composite sketch which was done by a police artist here with Salt Lake City police. We're looking for the man in this artist's rendition. He's a male white, 5'6" to 5'8", medium build, with a ruddy complexion and a lined face. He is in his late 30s or early 40s with light brown or medium hair, possibly has a gold ring in his right ear. He wore a red Rastafarian style beret and has a missing right front tooth.

Elizabeth has had contact with this man prior to the events that occurred. This man is not a suspect. He's wanted so that we can have some questions that would help us in this investigation. We're asking for your help in locating this man. Any information that you have can be called into our 799-3000 number or the 1-800 number, which is 932- 0190. Give that information to detectives who will then come and follow up.

Other events overnight is -- we had some information brought to us again by the Laura Foundation of -- they brought in some FEMA dogs, or some dogs that are FEMA trained, and they went to the Red Butte Canyon area and they thought that there might be some possibility of a scent that was located in that area. This morning we've conducted a grid search of that area and at this point there are negative results to that -- that investigative lead.

At this point, we're continuing to receive leads. We got about 100 more telephone calls during the night. Overnight, we're continuing to follow up on those leads. The FBI has their profiling team together. This morning they were interviewing our investigators to get more information to put together the profile of this person. With that, I'll take any questions that you might have at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where did Elizabeth have contact with the individual?

ATKINSON: I'm not able to divulge where that contact was.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you tell me about the context of this contact? ATKINSON: It was in a social setting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: I'm not able to tell you that. The rest of the family recognizes this person and in fact has helped us with this, but we are not aware of the name of this person or where he might be.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: I'm not aware of the number that have been here today. In the past two days there has been a couple of thousand, maybe up to 3,000.

We appreciate all their efforts and all that they're doing to bring us any information that they have.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: I'm not able to answer that question. I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He may have information that could help us to find Elizabeth, and we need to talk with him and maybe eliminate him as a possible suspect, but at this time he is not considered the person who went into the house.

OK, with that we'll get -- go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: The Red Butte Canyon search was based upon these dogs that believe that they might have been a scent there that was familiar to them. And at that point we did have detectives go with those dogs and do a grid by grid search of that area and we had negative results in that search.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: They were -- the dogs were part of this foundation that came up to volunteer to go search that area. That was -- I believe that was one of their assigned places to go search.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: I'm sorry. I can't answer that. They would have more information on that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: That's correct. The description is a male white, 5'6 to 5'8 with medium build and a ruddy complexion and lined face. He's in his late 30s or early 40s, light brown or medium brown hair. Possibly a gold earring in his right ear. He wore a red colored Rastafarian style beret and he has a missing right front tooth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) ATKINSON: The police department is concentrating their efforts on following the thousands of leads that we have. We have about 100 people working those leads at this point, and we'll be continuing to follow those up to see if they lead anywhere. I know that the people here at the Laura Foundation are -- have -- again, are going over areas they've searched before and trying to find any new areas that have been missed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: Again, the police department has not. I don't know how far out the Laura Foundation has gone out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: There is that possibility that any suspect may have left the area. And, again, we have put out a nationwide alert describing the little information we have on his description.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: The composite? That's something that the family brought to us. The person -- this person here? There is -- again, we don't believe that this person is currently a suspect. We just need to talk to him. We thought that we might be able locate him by ourselves, but with your help, we hope to locate him sooner than we might be able to ourselves.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: I can't answer that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are the volunteers doing today? (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

ATKINSON: Yes, the volunteers mostly today are continuing again to search different areas of the valley that they believe that need to be covered. Again, the foothills, the neighborhoods, those kind of things. OK. If -- we'll try to do one at 4:00 p.m. if there is any information. And with that, we'll conclude this.

WHITFIELD: All right. The only breakthrough now coming out of the investigation in the ongoing search for 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart is right there, you heard it from the Salt Lake City Captain Scott Atkinson.

He said that based on information provided by the family given to police, they were able to come about with a composite sketch, not of a suspect, but of a man they believe, the family believes, Elizabeth Smart had contact with not long before she was allegedly abducted from her own home on Wednesday night.

She was abducted while her other sister was in the room, but the sister did not say anything to the parents until two hours later because this alleged abductor, this man, apparently at gunpoint, threatened the little girl that if she said anything then something terrible would happen.

So the composite sketch that's being described to us -- of course, when we get that sketch we'll be bringing that to you. But the description, as we know it from authorities there, is that it is a sketch of a white male, 5'6" to 5'8", in his late 30s or 40s. He is of medium build. He has a light brown medium haircut and was last season with a red beret of some sort, a gold earring in his right ear and a missing right front tooth.

If you have any information about this individual or if you have seen anything suspicious in that area of Salt Lake City or otherwise, the number that you're being encouraged to call is 1-800-799-3000. We'll be updating you on this situation.

We now have a suspect or a composite picture of this person that police are not willing to say is a suspect, but of a person believed by the family to have had contact with Elizabeth Smart. She is 14 years old. This is the sketch of the man who may have had contact with this young girl. Police want to at least question this person and find out what, if anything, he may know.

There is no name to give, though, just this description. The family says they don't actually know this person, but they remember that Elizabeth Smart had contact with this person, and this is the description, and he was last seen wearing a red beret, a front right tooth missing, and they also say he has a very ruddy complexion, with a lot of wrinkles as well. We'll be updating you on this situation.

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