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CNN Live At Daybreak

Police Return to Utah After Questioning Edmunds

Aired June 24, 2002 - 06:08   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: Turning now to the case of that missing 14-year-old Salt Lake City girl, investigators have returned to Utah after questioning a drifter in West Virginia. A law enforcement source described Bret Michael Edmunds as pretty cooperative. Edmunds had been reported in the area around Elizabeth Smart's home a day or two before her abduction on June 5. Police say Edmunds is not a suspect, though they had been looking for him for two weeks.

A former handyman at the Smart home is also being questioned in the girl's disappearance. Police say they are looking very closely at 50-year-old Richard Albert Ricci. Ricci is now in custody on a matter unrelated to the Smart case.

Reporter Scott McKane of CNN affiliate KSTU has more on Ricci.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCOTT MCKANE, CNN AFFILIATE KSTU REPORTER (voice-over): Police won't call him a suspect, but they do say he is suspicious.

CHIEF RICK DINSE, SALT LAKE CITY POLICE: Scott Richard Ricci is somebody that we are looking at very closely. He is somebody that has come into our -- come to our attention through the investigation. As we speak now, we haven't been able to satisfy ourselves that he is not involved.

MCKANE: In fact, police and FBI agents were at Ricci's Kearns trailer home, looking for clues. In an exclusive interview with Fox 13 News, Chief Rick Dinse says Ricci has been talking with police for more than a week now, but his answers only leave them with more questions.

DINSE: We have stayed with him for a while, because it's very difficult to find something that would say, in our minds, that we can possibly eliminate him. He is potentially a big piece of the puzzle. Just how big, we are not sure at this point.

MCKANE: Dinse says several factors make Ricci a possible suspect. Fox 13 News has learned the 50-year-old Ricci has a 30-year criminal record in Idaho, Arizona and Utah. Some of his older offenses include home burglaries, but he most recently spent 15 years in the Utah state prison for attempted murder on a police officer back in 1983. He was paroled in 1998, and within the past year apparently found work as a handyman at the Smart home. Ricci apparently did several jobs there and knows the home very well. He is also familiar with the neighborhood. Police have questioned and released at least three other possible suspects, men with criminal histories and some connection to the Smart home.

Ricci, though, was arrested June 14 on a parole violation, and he has been in jail every since, talking with detectives and taking at least one polygraph test. The chief won't comment on the results, but he does say his detectives are having a tough time trying to pin down exactly where Ricci was the morning of June 5, when Elizabeth was kidnapped.

DINSE: Well, it's obviously something that we are looking at with a lot of scrutiny. I mean, it's important, we think, an important part of this investigation, and we are devoting a considerable amount of our resources to looking at Mr. Ricci. If, in fact, he is not the suspect, we want to prove that also. So I mean, you know, we are working both directions here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And that report from Scott McKane of CNN affiliate KSTU.

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