Because it would be difficult to avoid detection in the Smarts’ quiet neighborhood, the kidnapper would have needed tremendous audacity. He or she would also have required the agility to squeeze through the tall, thin kitchen window that the Smarts suspect the kidnapper used to enter their home.
So when investigators began to learn about 48-year-old Richard Albert Ricci, a handyman who did odd jobs for the Smarts more than a year ago, warning bells started ringing. Ricci is a convicted felon with a 29-year criminal record. He’s currently being held in state prison on a parole violation. “He’s a cat burglar,” one law-enforcement source told NEWSWEEK. “His M.O. is going in at night when people are sleeping.”
Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse announced this week that Ricci had moved to “the top of the list” of potential suspects. Ricci roughly fits the description of the kidnapper, who had black hair and was around Ricci’s height, according to the crime’s only witness, 9-year-old Mary Catherine Smart. Police theorize that Ricci would have been comfortable with the Smarts’ home and neighborhood. And police have also said they have questions about Ricci’s alibi. “The circumstantial stuff is pretty substantial,” a police source told NEWSWEEK. “He knew the house better than Ed Smart [Elizabeth’s father] himself.”
But so far, law-enforcement sources tell NEWSWEEK that they’ve been unable to uncover any hard evidence linking Ricci to the crime. “The minute we had forensic evidence, he would be charged,” one source said. “That’s the thing we continue to look for. It’s that slow, tedious phase.” Adds another law-enforcement source: “There aren’t those ties right now.”
As a result, police aren’t yet willing to call Ricci a suspect, and are continuing to take a hard look at other possible perpetrators. Law-enforcement sources told NEWSWEEK that they’re “very interested” in four or five other potential suspects, though they declined to give specific names. The Smart family has also said that they’re not yet convinced Ricci is their man. Still, Ed Smart, said he was shocked to learn about Ricci’s criminal history. “I never would have hired him had I known that,” Smart told reporters.
Why did it take police so long to focus on Ricci? Police initially questioned him the day after Smart was abducted. Then they let him go. At that point, police say, they had so many leads that it would have been impossible to do a thorough investigation of Ricci. It wasn’t until nine days after the kidnapping that Ricci’s parole was finally revoked. “Do we feel bad that we didn’t drill deeper? Yes,” says one law-enforcement source. “Do we wish it would have been different? Yes.”
This week, teams of investigators canvassed Ricci’s neighborhood in the Salt Lake suburb of Kearns, where Ricci lives in a trailer park with his wife and stepson. One law-enforcement source told NEWSWEEK that investigators recovered items from Ricci’s trailer that appeared to have been stolen from the Smarts’ home.
Ricci’s lawyer, David K. Smith, didn’t return calls from NEWSWEEK, though Smith has said in interviews that Ricci denies involvement in the kidnapping. “There’s no way he did this,” Ricci’s wife, Angela, told the local newspaper.
Criminal charges may not be imminent. Since Ricci has such a long rap sheet, sources say his parole violation could keep him in jail for an extended period. “We have a lot of time to assemble our case,” one law-enforcement source told NEWSWEEK. “He’ll be there forever.”
