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CNN Live Today

Police Say Ricci Not a Suspect in Smart Case

Aired June 25, 2002 - 11:18   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The Salt Lake City police, now, are saying that Richard Ricci's alibi is suspicious, but, as of this morning, they are not calling this handyman a suspect yet in the abduction case of Elizabeth Smart. CNN's Ed Lavandera is standing by in Salt Lake City. He's got the latest for us. Good morning, Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon. Police here in Salt Lake City, and the FBI agents, continue their investigation into 48-year-old Robert Ricci. They say that the alibi that he has given them, and other information he's been giving to police over the course of the last 11 days just isn't panning out. They're not confident in what he is saying.

Ricci was picked up June 14 on a parole violation. He was paroled from prison in September of 2000, and it turns out that the police were turned on to him after they were doing a search and a list of all the people who might have had access to the Smart's home over the course of last year or so.

And it turned out that Ricci was one of the construction workers who had access to the home. He was doing some painting jobs over a couple of month period last year. And, now, when they went back and checked his background, they found out that he had a long criminal history here in Utah, dating back 30 years, which includes aggravated assault, burglary, attempted murder of a police officer, escape from a state prison in 1982, and was on the run for two weeks.

So all of this panned out. Now, Ricci lives in a trailer park community with his wife, just on the southern edge of Salt Lake City. And we had a chance to catch up with his in-laws, who live just nearby in that same community. They tell us that Ricci was home the night of the early morning hours of June 5. He was home with wife on the morning that Elizabeth Smart was abducted.

But for some reason, police just aren't confident enough with that explanation, we understand, as they continue to say that he's at the top of the list of the many theories, or the several theories, that they're looking at at this point. Now, last night in Salt Lake City, here in a park called Liberty Park, about 100 people gathered for a vigil for Elizabeth Smart.

Elizabeth's parents and family were all in attendance, as several of her friends performed musically. There's another harpist playing there, as well as other musical groups.

The family continues to say that the best way they can be effective now that we're going to into the third week that Elizabeth Smart has been missing, is to organize in the search efforts. So they hope that by attending these vigils that it will organize people and inspire people to continue their search and not to give up hope that Elizabeth Smart could be returned home safely. So they attend these. We've had a chance to speak with several family spokespeople who say that the last couple of days have been very rough on the family as they -- the pressure of having their daughter missing for so long takes its toll.

But they do find a lot of inspiration among their family and their friends here, in this community in Salt Lake City, attending church services on Sunday. So they continue to do that.

Another press briefing is scheduled for later on this morning, about 11:00 a.m. Mountain time, 1:00 p.m. Eastern, Leon. So family is expected to be there. Not sure yet as to whether or not the police will be in attendance today. As we've been reporting, they've been holding out, only trying to attend these press briefings if there's major news to report from the investigative front at any given point -- Leon.

HARRIS: Got you, Ed. Let me ask you something before we let you go here.

I just want you to clarify something that I've been hearing. I've been hearing, here, that police did not show Elizabeth's little sister a picture of Richard Ricci, this man who they're saying is not exactly a suspect, but they are saying he's interesting. Do you know that to be true? And do you know why they may be withholding that from her? Or not, at least, taking -- if they say they're going after every single different -- every possibility, here, why haven't they shown her this picture?

LAVANDERA: Now, they mentioned yesterday that they hadn't shown her the picture. But, as police have been saying all along, they hold a lot of things close to the vest and they have been in this investigation. So, quite honestly, publicly they're saying they haven't done so as yet, and that's what we can report. That's not to say that, perhaps, it hasn't done or it's not a possibility that they're looking into it at this point.

So a lot of the details as to what they're getting from Richard Ricci -- they've haven't revealed a lot, just to say that he's in custody, and that he's at the top of the list, and that his story isn't panning out. But where they're taking it from there, the police are holding that very close to the vest and not sharing a lot of that information.

HARRIS: Got you. Tactical information releases. There you go. Ed Lavandera in Salt Lake City. Thanks, Ed. We'll check back with you, later on. All right.

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