Posted on 09/04/2002 8:39:12 PM PDT by IamHD
ES missing since 6-5-2002 and will have been missing for 3 months in a few hours, so I thought that this would be an approriate time to start a new thread.
No, because it specifically said Spencer Dixon from Salt Lake City.
http://www.stgeorgemarathon.com/registration/lottery/results.php?start=s --Shows people registered for the 2002 event, as well as results for 2001.
Of course, maybe there are dozens of men by this name in SLC.
I'm sorry but you are wrong here.
I've posted on this before but there is absolutely no logic in this assumption of yours. Let's assume that the police are going to frame poor Richard. The description that was given the first day was that it was a white baseball style hat. If you're framing the guy and you can't find a white ball cap in his house then you would just plant one. Nice and simple. Why go search the house next door in a desperate attempt to find any old hat and then go and change the story. There is no logic in the hat as a frame up scenario.
Let's look at the official version of events. The police have stated that the original interview with MK was conducted by someone untrained in child psychology. The main goal in my estimation was to get a description of the perpetrator out in the hopes that someone had seen a man in a white hat with a blonde haired, blue eyed, teenage girl. They couldn't wait for the psychologist because of the need to get a description out right away.
LE has stated that it was in the second interview that they discovered the additional detail from MK. This was obtained because the interviewer knew how to properly question a 9 year old child. We don't know when this interview occurred yet but I would guess it was probably the next day.
The lead investigators must have decided not to release the new details because announcing that could hurt the case. By now Elizabeth would have been secured away or dead. Correcting the erroneous initial report would have told the abductor that he needed to get rid of this potential piece of incriminating evidence. So when they did go into Angela's parent's home and they spotted the hat they keyed on it, because it matched the description given by MK to the trained psychologist who interviewed her the second time.
To believe that they would change MK's story to match some hat that they came across in a trailer next door is preposterous.
No. The Smart's meeting house is very close to Shriners Hospital. You can easily see it in Brigettes aerial photos of the Federal Heights area. It is a rather large white structure just south of the hospital. If I remember right the Governor’s mansion lies between Shriners and the meeting house.
I think that the perp was in the habit of wearing a white ball cap. On the night of the abduction he grabbed something different in case he was spotted. Something that he normally didn't wear. Something that his father might wear.
I think they changed the description of the hat to a hat Ricci was known to wear to make the kidnapper relax and think they weren't onto him.
No, I think the abductor wore the tan golf hat that hung above Angela's fathers sink.
Several people entered home after kidnapping © Copyright 2002 Deseret News
By Derek Jensen Deseret News staff writer
Police waited nearly three hours after Elizabeth Smart was reported missing to seal off her parents' Federal Heights house as a crime scene.
That "oversight," as Salt Lake Police Chief Rick Dinse termed it, means investigators likely will never know what evidence may have been lost from the Smart residence because police allowed several neighbors and family members inside the house during that critical time.
Elizabeth's father, Edward Smart, called police at 4:01 a.m. June 5, about two hours after his daughter was taken at gunpoint from her bedroom. Police arrived at the residence 12 minutes later but did not begin sealing off the house entirely until 6:54 a.m.
"It was a pretty big issue," said Lt. Cory Lyman, who's part of a team of detectives overseeing the Smart investigation. "We were very upset."
No officers were disciplined for failing to cordon off the scene more quickly, but Dinse said the mistake has prompted more training within his department.
"The people who were responsible for controlling that have been talked to," Dinse said. "In this case, the crime scene was not well-controlled, and that's something we have to live with in the investigation. It's a matter of training and educating our officers who slipped."
Failure to secure a crime scene properly can cause evidentiary problems if a case is taken to court, Deputy District Attorney Kent Morgan said.
"Securing the crime scene eliminates the possibility that somebody came there after the incident and before the evidence was collected," Morgan said. "When you don't secure the crime scene until later, it makes it more difficult to find which evidence found in the crime scene is relevant."
So far, investigators have not uncovered enough evidence to charge anyone with Elizabeth's kidnapping. While admitting their mistake, police also downplayed the impact it could have on this case, which has remained unsolved for three months.
"If there was anything that was damaged or tainted by the virtue of people being in and around the scene, that can only be guessed," Dinse said. "We didn't find anything, at this point, that we believe is contaminated. On the other hand, we don't know what was there."
Lyman said the patrol officers who first responded to the Smart house acted appropriately by making their first priority that of finding Elizabeth instead of taking time to cordon off the entire house. Sealing off the entire area around the Smart's million-dollar home would have taken at least four or five officers, meaning less manpower for trying to find Elizabeth as soon as possible.
"That's absolutely what they should be concerned with," Lyman said. "We always put life ahead of an investigation."
Police say it's virtually impossible to seal off every crime scene immediately. Still, Lyman said, "I can give you justifications for why it didn't happen the first 15 to 20 minutes, but not why it didn't happen" until almost three hours later.
More than anything, waiting so long to cordon off the house simply made more work for investigators, who had to determine each individual who entered the house following Elizabeth's reported abduction, then determine what, if any, evidence those people may have brought in with them.
Lyman estimated that number to be more than a dozen people. Ed Smart said he recalled 40 to 50 different people inside his house that morning, most of them family and members of his LDS ward whom he called for help after first contacting police.
"As soon as I found out that my daughter was gone, I wanted all the help I could get to find her," Ed Smart said. "I wasn't thinking about contaminating the scene. . . . Looking back on it, I would think that they (police) would have said something to me because there were a lot of people there."
Although previous reports have indicated that neighbors arrived at the Smart house before police, recent interviews with neighbors seem to indicate otherwise.
"When I came up, there was already a policeman inside the house," said Smart neighbor Suann Adams, whose family Ed Smart said was the first he called after phoning police at 4:01 a.m. Adams said she was the first neighbor to arrive at the Smart house.
Some neighbors who spoke with the Deseret News also said they entered the bedroom Elizabeth was abducted from as her then 9-year-old sister Mary Katherine feigned sleep. Those neighbors said they entered the room only to comfort Elizabeth's mother Lois, who was in that part of the house.
Authorities admit that after allowing so many people into the house, it became much more difficult to secure it as a crime scene.
"In this case I'm not criticizing them," Morgan said. "We had neighbors running around trying to find Elizabeth. It was the ward function of the year where everyone was trying to help. By the time the police got there, they had to undo the chaos before they could begin reasonable forensic procedures." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ex-bishop accused of sex abuse of teen girl
By Brady Snyder
Deseret News staff writer
A former bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been charged with a sex crime involving a 13-year-old girl who attended his ward.
Spencer Dixon
Spencer Dixon, 38, was charged Thursday in 3rd District Court with aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony. He was arrested and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on a $100,000 warrant Thursday morning without incident, said Salt Lake City police Sgt. Fred Louis.
Dixon posted bail and was released later in the day. Calls to his house seeking comment were not immediately returned today.
A first-degree felony is punishable by five years to life in prison.
The crime of which Dixon is accused would normally be a second-degree felony, but because Dixon was the religious leader of the alleged victim, the crime was elevated to a first-degree felony, Salt Lake County prosecutor Kent Morgan said.
"He's the bishop over the flock, and if you fleece your own flock, you're in trouble," Morgan said.
Dixon was bishop when the incident occurred Aug. 24. Court documents state that a 13-year-old girl was watching a group of younger children at an LDS ward house near 1300 South and 2400 East, when Dixon entered the room and asked her to come with him to retrieve some videos from the building's library.
Inside the library Dixon sexually abused the girl, court documents state.
The victim "was finally able to get away" and told her parents about the incident the next day, court documents state.
Other than the girl's testimony, Louis said there is no evidence linking Dixon to the crime. Still, Morgan said the case is strong because the girl reported the crime directly after it occurred.
"She made a prompt complaint," he said.
Added Louis: "It was reported quickly. There was no hesitation on the victim's part."
The LDS Church said Thursday that Dixon is maintaining his innocence.
"We understand that he denies the allegation," church spokesman Dale Bills said in a written statement.
Still, Dixon has been relieved of his duties pending further investigation, Bills said. If the allegations prove true, Dixon is subject to discipline, including excommunication, Bills said.
"We are saddened by any allegation that a child has been harmed by improper, abusive conduct," Bills said. "Children are one of the greatest gifts of God and should be lovingly nurtured and protected."
In the coming days or weeks, detectives will interview ward members to discover if there are other victims who had previously been fearful to come forward, Louis said.
"That's a real concern for us," he said.
E-MAIL: bsnyder@desnews.com
This is the adress of the church were Spencer Dixon (sexoffender) bishop of the LDS was a leader, and where the abuse of the 13 year old girl took place aug 24, 2002:
Same address as the Smart's church?
church at 1320 S. Wasatch Drive (2520 East) (salt lake city)
No. The press conferences have been held at the Federal Heights meeting house where the smarts worship. It is just south of the Shriners Hospital. You can see it in Brigette's aerial photo. It is a large white structure.
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