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CNN Live Today

Three Computers Seized from Smart Home for Investigation

Aired June 21, 2002 - 11:22   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Law enforcement officials say investigators are making progress in the search for Elizabeth Smart. It's been a week of confusing and sometimes conflicting developments in the case of the missing Utah girl.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve is live in Salt Lake City with a recap -- good morning.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Different assessments of exactly where this investigation is, depending on who you talk to. Several law enforcement officials say the trail is getting hotter. They believe they're better off than they were a week ago, and that there are several promising suspects.

Salt Lake police are more subdued in their assessment. When they talk about progress, they talk about it in terms of having winnowed down the number of leads. They believe they now have a more focused investigation.

Now, the federal officials do believe that the next week could bring some progress, because they hope to get back some of the laboratory testing on some key pieces of evidence, including the kitchen screen that was discovered torn just hours after the abduction. That's at the Utah state lab. They're doing some very sophisticated, even groundbreaking, tests on this. They're trying to determine if this is the way the abductor entered the Smart home.

Now this week we did learn several things. Amongst them, that there might have been another route into the house. Ed Smart revealed that he had left the garage door open for several hours the evening of the abduction, leaving open the possibility that the kidnapper could have come into the garage and hidden until the family was asleep and then gone up to take Elizabeth.

We also learned this week much more about Mary Catherine, the younger sister of Elizabeth, who witnessed the abduction. We're now told that she was never directly threatened, Elizabeth was. Mary Catherine stayed in bed, pretended to be asleep, until the abductor left the room with Elizabeth.

She then got out of bed to see where they were. Federal law enforcement officials tell me that she saw them in the hall. She was terrified, went back into bed, stayed there for a couple of hours before she then got up and told her parents.

We now understand that she was interviewed a total of four times, and the police took her on a tour of the neighborhood. They were going along a jogging path that she and Elizabeth used to run, in hopes of finding some more possible clues to this case.

We also found out this week that nothing was stolen from the Smart home. We found out that 12 computers were seized; three of them from the Ed Smart home. Investigators say they have looked at those, found nothing on them that is relevant to the investigation. The Smart computers have now gone back to the family.

We also this week got a much better description of the kidnapper. We are told that he was wearing a tan golf-style hat. That he had dark hair on his arms and hands. That he was wearing a Polo brand shirt, and that he was calm and polite during the abduction.

Now on the downside, police have still not tracked down Bret Michael Edmunds. He is the drifter who was seen in the area of the Smart home. Also was seen at a vigil for Elizabeth.

They want to question him. They still are not saying he's a suspect. They do believe he is still in the Salt Lake area, because this is where he has family and friends.

Also, the search has been seriously scaled back. A week ago there were aerial searches, dogs were being used. We were told 8,500 people had been involved. Now that's been seriously scaled back to a much more localized effort. As far as we know, no evidence has been turned up during any of those searches.

Another change as of today. No more daily police briefings for us. Police felt they just didn't have enough new information to put out every day. They were being asked the same questions, giving the same answers. They say that was distracting them from the matter of the investigation.

They also say they didn't want to come out here and get subjected to criticism for the way they've conducted things so far. The bottom line is still no sign of Elizabeth or the man who abducted her -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jeanne Meserve, reporting live for us from Salt Lake City this morning, thank you.

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