Smart family: Ricci's death doesn't end search

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) -- The family of missing 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart offered condolences Saturday to the widow of former handyman Richard Ricci, and said they believed police would solve their daughter's case despite his death.

"This change in Richard's health has been shocking to us, to put it mildly, but we have great faith that this is all in God's hands," Elizabeth's aunt, Cynthia Smart Owens, said. "We are very hopeful that the change in events will facilitate other people who do have information to come forward so we can find Elizabeth."

Ricci, 48, was taken off life support Friday night after suffering a stroke earlier in the week. He had been the focus of police attention in Elizabeth's June 5 disappearance because he had worked in the Smart home as a handyman and had a 30-year criminal record.

He denied involvement in Elizabeth's disappearance and was never charged. Elizabeth has never been found.

Ricci had six hours of emergency surgery Wednesday to correct a spontaneous brain hemorrhage that left him in a deep coma.

He died at 7:28 p.m. Friday at the University of Utah Hospital, less than 10 minutes after he was taken off a ventilator, University Hospital Spokeswoman Nancy Pomeroy, said.

Ricci, who was being held at the Utah State Prison in Draper for a parole violation, told a guard he was suffering from a headache Tuesday evening, said Jesse Gallegos, deputy director of the Utah Department of Corrections. Medical personnel found Ricci unconscious when they arrived at his cell.

The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Department found no indication of foul play, Gallegos said.

Ricci not called a suspect

Smart was abducted at gunpoint from the family's 6,600-square-foot home on June 5 while her parents and four brothers slept. Her younger sister, who was in the bedroom with Elizabeth, witnessed the abduction.

Police later charged Ricci with two counts of theft and one count of burglary unrelated to Smart's abduction.

One of the theft counts relates to about $3,500 worth of items he allegedly stole from the Smart home on or about June 6, 2001 -- nearly a year before Elizabeth disappeared. Ricci also was charged with burglary and theft from another home in the same Federal Heights neighborhood.

A federal grand jury last month indicted Ricci in a bank robbery that took place near Salt Lake City last November, along with two other men, according to the U.S. attorney's office. No one was injured in the robbery.

Ricci was charged with one count each of armed bank robbery, brandishing a firearm in the commission of a violent crime and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Owens said Ricci's death was a blow to the investigation, but she said, police have a "short list" of other people who could have been involved in taking the girl.

"We know that there are specific people they are still investigating, and we're hopeful that information will be forthcoming that will allow us to pursue more directly, given good evidence, the people who've been involved," she said. She declined to give specifics.

Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart, described Ricci as a "very likeable person" but said he had told too many lies to be believed.

The Smart family said Friday that searchers would take another look in Fairview Canyon near Manti, where hikers reported seeing a man digging a rectangular hole a few days after the abduction.