Ricci's wife: Husband home night of abduction

Smart neighbors submit fingerprints, blood samples

Elizabeth Smart

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) -- Richard Ricci's wife said Monday he was home in bed with her the night 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home about 25 miles away, and she would have heard him if he had left in the middle of the night.

"I truly in my heart, my mind and my soul I know that Richard did not have anything to do with this, and I will stand by him," Angela Ricci said in an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live."

Ricci, a handyman once hired by the abducted girl's father, Ed Smart, remains the focus in the investigation in the June 5 disappearance, a senior law enforcement official told CNN on Monday. He was arrested for a parole violation and is now being held at a state prison.

The arrest was for drinking alcohol, which violated a condition of his parole, said his attorney David Smith. Smith said his client has been cooperative with authorities, undergoing 26 hours of questioning, taking a lie detector test, consenting to searches of his house and vehicles and giving a blood sample.

"His attitude is that he wants to do everything he can to help," Smith told "Larry King Live."

The Riccis married on Valentine's Day this year in Nevada, and Angela Ricci said she was aware of her husband's extensive criminal record, which includes the attempted murder of a police officer.

While she has pain medication for injuries from a vehicle accident, she said that contrary to news reports she had taken no medication the night of Elizabeth Smart's disappearance, which could have prevented her from hearing her husband leave the house.

She also said he acted normally the next morning when the couple learned of the girl's abduction on television.

"He said, 'I wonder if that's Ed's [daughter],'" she said. "Then when he saw Mr. Smart on the TV, he was very heartbroken. He really liked the Smarts, especially Ed. He has a lot of respect for him."

Husband not surprised

CNN NewsPass VIDEO CNN's Ed Lavandera profiles Richard Ricci (June 28) Play video   MORE STORIES Utah handyman: I would not hurt a child    EXTRA INFORMATION Images of Elizabeth Smart  • Missing children facts    Web site: ElizabethSmart.com Tip lines: 800-932-0190 or 801-799-3000

She said that given Ricci's criminal record and the fact he had worked for Ed Smart and bought a vehicle from him, Ricci told her he expected to be questioned.

Angela Ricci said she went to bed that night about 1:30 a.m., about three hours after her husband, and that they woke up at 6 a.m. Police have indicated the abduction happened between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m.

Smith said the timeline argues against Ricci as the perpetrator because it is a half-hour drive each way from his home in Kearns -- a suburb southwest of Salt Lake City -- to the Smart home, which is in the Federal Heights neighborhood on the city's northeast side.

If Ricci had waited for his wife to fall asleep, Smith said, he would have been hard pressed to drive to Salt Lake City, break into the home, take the girl, dispose of her and any evidence and then drive back to Kearns before his wife woke up.

Angela Ricci said her husband, who lost his only son in an auto accident caused by a drunken driver in the mid-1980s, would not have harmed a child.

"That put a very big hole in his heart, and I just know that he would never put a hole in another human being's heart such as that," she said. "He's expressed the emptiness in his heart, so I know how strongly he feels about that."

She said her husband does not have dark hair on the back of his hands. That was part of the description of the suspect provided by Elizabeth's sister, Mary Katherine, who said she witnessed the abduction.

'Mystery man' and car trouble

A senior law enforcement official described the investigation as "frustrating" and "difficult," but said it is far from hopeless, adding that evidence is still being gathered and analyzed and that crime lab results that could prove important to the case are still being awaited.

Meanwhile, another law enforcement official said investigators were working to identify a person they refer to as "the mystery man" -- the man an auto repair shop owner told police he saw Ricci with June 8.

Making this case particularly difficult is that Ricci had worked for the Smart family at their home doing painting and yard work, and that Elizabeth, the victim, had been in Ricci's Jeep before her family gave him the vehicle in exchange for his work.

That, according to the source, would complicate the analysis of any forensic evidence that might be found.

Repair shop owner Neth Moul has said Ricci took that Jeep out of the shop May 30 and returned it June 8, with "500 to 1,000" more miles on the odometer.

Ricci denies he took the Jeep, but Moul said there is "no doubt" it was Ricci.

Moul said that after Ricci brought the Jeep back, he removed a post-hole digger, put two "Indian-style" seat covers in a black bag, and carried away another bag filled with unidentified material.

According to Moul, Ricci then walked across the street with the tool and the bags and met an unidentified man who had waved to him from a convenience store parking lot.

Ricci's wife said a set of keys to the Jeep had been stolen around April 18-20 so that someone else could have driven the vehicle. She also said the Jeep never had seat covers.

Method of entry

Authorities have asked neighbors of the Smart family to provide fingerprints and blood samples, but a source said such evidence is frequently used to rule out material found at crime scenes and that neither the Smart family nor their neighbors are the focus of the investigation.

One law enforcement source said a number of prison parolees have been interviewed and that known associates of Ricci have been questioned. One convicted sex offender, now on parole, told CNN he was polygraphed and denied any knowledge of the kidnapping.

One of Ricci's neighbors said she was asked by police if she had seen anyone "remove a body" from Ricci's home or vehicle. The woman said she saw nothing like that and knew very little about Ricci.

On another angle in the case -- how the intruder entered the Smart home -- the source said investigators consider it unlikely it was through the kitchen window, where a screen was damaged.

While he declined to reveal how authorities believe it actually happened, he said investigators have never backed off their suspicion the kidnapper was familiar with the house.

Investigators were still working on a number of theories about why the kidnapping occurred, including that it was a botched burglary, a sex crime, or a kidnapping for ransom. The source said police and agents were "keeping an open mind."