Handyman Denies All In Smart Case
The handyman who may top a police list of possible suspects in the kidnapping of a 14-year-old Utah girl has denied any knowledge of Elizabeth Smart's disappearance and said he prayed for her safe return.
"I would not — nor could not — hurt a child in any way," Richard Albert Ricci, 48, who has a criminal record dating back decades, said in a statement released late Friday by his lawyer David Smith.
Ricci, who was arrested on June 14 and is in custody on an unrelated parole violation, performed work last year in the missing girl's upscale Salt Lake City home. Police said they decided to hold him after they found discrepancies in his alibi. The girl was kidnapped from her bedroom on June 5.
"First, I would like to say I have no knowledge of Elizabeth Smart's abduction, disappearance or whereabouts," Ricci said in his statement. "I want to say to the Smart family from my family, (wife) Angela, my stepson and myself, that we pray for her safe return."
Ricci said he lost his 9-year-old son in an accident in 1985, adding that he knows what Elizabeth's parents are going through.
"I have cooperated fully with the FBI, police and AP&P (Adult Probation and Parole)," he added in the statement. "I have taken polygraph tests, been through 26 hours of questioning, given blood, DNA and surrendered my vehicle. The police and FBI have searched my home and shed and have even dug up my garden — and they have found nothing. I think the reason I'm involved is because of my past."
Police have stopped short of calling Ricci a formal suspect in the case, but have said he is at "the top of a list" of people who might be targeted.
Ricci's wife Angela has said her husband was with her the night the girl was kidnapped.
Police have seized records on a vehicle belonging to Ricci, a mechanic said earlier Friday. Neth Moul, owner of Neth's Auto Repair, also said when the vehicle was brought to the repair shop on June 8, it was dirty and full of insects on the windshield.
Moul said he testified this week before a federal grand jury looking into the girl's disappearance.
Police originally confiscated three vehicles belonging to Ricci, but returned two of them, keeping Ricci's Jeep Cherokee for more analysis.
According to Moul, police seized his log books that recorded the Ricci repair work, dates and mileage. The mileage is important because the vehicle apparently had recorded 1,000 extra miles from the time Ricci picked up the vehicle from the mechanic on May 30 and brought it back for more repairs on June 8.
Hundreds of volunteers have been combing the area near the Smart family's million-dollar home as well as in the desert west of Salt Lake City in a search for Elizabeth.
In Martinsburg, West Virginia, Bret Michael Edmunds, a 26-year-old drifter who authorities questioned last weekend as a possible witness in the case, was taken to jail Friday afternoon following his release from a local hospital.
A nationwide search had been conducted for Edmunds after a milk delivery man said he may have spotted Edmunds near the Smart home two days before the girl was kidnapped. Utah police interviewed Edmunds at his hospital bed over the weekend, said he cooperated and have appeared to have lessened their interest in him.
Edmunds was arraigned by Berkeley County Magistrate Carlton DeHaven on fugitive from justice charges and ordered held on $100,000 bond.