Good find. Maybe the Feds will at least be able to identify Ricci's friend...and more:
"The law enforcement official said authorities are seeking telephone records, and said he believes Moul is a "credible witness."
He is denying taking the jeep out now? Well the mecanic saw Ricci with his own eyes and had the incident documented so it doesn't look to good for Ricci if he is going to claim that absurdity. I thought he told the cops he went 4 wheelin? I knew the father in law and mother in law was denying he ever took the jeep out.
Did anyone here follow the Sund/Pelosso case in CA? Cary Stayner is on trial now for the murder of the mother, daughter and young family friend from Argentina.
Anyway, I followed it closely and the FBI and the locals rounded up just about every parolee in a hundred mile radius and made the public think they had their man.
Big surprise when the motel maintenance guy where the women were last seen was arrested after he decapitated another young woman who worked in Yosemite.
I see the same thing happening here, similar family finances from the victim's side, no good leads and a baying media. I wonder if it could even be some of the same FBI agents.
Yosemite and the surounding area wanted it all cleaned up quickly IMO and the FBI let the public think they had their man or men.
SO goes this case, from one ex-con to the next, while the real perp is still close by like he has been all along. Laughing, possibly waiting to do it again.
Marc Klaas draws criticism in new role as Fox analyst
Family of missing Utah girl keeps him at a distance
Sunday, June 30, 2002
San Francisco Chronicle.
Salt Lake City -- Asked for his business card as the kidnapping saga of Elizabeth Smart began here earlier this month, Marc Klaas produced one that bore a sketch by Michelangelo and the telephone number for Klaas Kids, the Sausalito nonprofit foundation he runs in memory of his slain daughter, Polly.
Certainly, providing aid to Smart's distressed parents was a major reason for his coming to town. But it was not, first and foremost, what had brought him here.
"Yesterday, a woman came up to me and she said, 'God sent you,' " Klaas relayed, standing at the edge of the search command post as volunteers massed nearby. "I said, 'No, Fox.' "
Indeed, Klaas explained, Fox News had hired him "to contribute and help" the network -- a common practice that gives air time to retired four-star generals and political analysts who lend context to an unfolding story.
But as the search for Elizabeth wore on, Klaas would move past the peripheral role he has assumed in other probes, mixing advocacy and criticism in a way that made some central participants in the case uneasy.
Family members said they were initially unaware of his affiliation with Fox,
while investigators said the connection caused them to regard him somewhat warily as well. And in thrusting him onto the scene as both commentator and protagonist, some media experts felt Fox had taken "analysis" a step too far.
"It's dumb, it's lousy journalism, it's questionable ethics," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism. "The obligation of the news organization is to be very clear about the biases of anybody who's providing information. . . . People won't tell you the truth if you're a combatant in the action."
Klaas became one of the country's best-known children's advocates after his daughter was abducted from her Petaluma home in 1993 and subsequently murdered.
Quickly galvanized by the crime, Klaas became a part of a foundation bearing his daughter's name -- a step frequently taken by parents of victimized children. He was voted from its board about a year later after having formed a separate advocacy organization of his own.
Klaas went on to lobby for various federal and state child-protection laws, and has since been involved in several other cases of missing children. Most recently in California, he helped lead volunteers searching for Vallejo's Xiana Fairchild in 1999, and last year heeded a request to counsel the parents of San Diego's Danielle van Dam.
Similar intent brought Klaas to Salt Lake City earlier this month, he said.
"One thing I can do is give some context for the parents," he said. As the veteran of his own sorrowful search, it helps "if you can talk to someone who relates to this."
Of possible criticisms, he said: "I'm not too concerned about that. I know what I do. I'm here because of what happened with my kid."
In the early days of the investigation, Klaas was allowed to meet with parents Ed and Lois Smart. At the time, however, the couple was "unaware he was working for Fox," said Mike Grass, a spokesman for them.
Soon thereafter, Klaas appeared on Fox programs such as "The O'Reilly Factor." While clearly identified as a representative of his foundation, Klaas offered critiques of the investigation even while continuing to lobby for his own suggestions to be taken up.
Appearing on a June 12 "O'Reilly Factor," Klaas focused on the refusal of the Smarts and investigators to have forensic artist Jeanne Boylan work with Elizabeth's 9-year-old sister, Mary Katherine, who was in the room when her sister was abducted.
Klaas told Bill O'Reilly that Edward Smart had agreed Boylan should be involved, but said one of Elizabeth's uncles had disagreed, blocking the move.
"It had been arranged that I'd be able to have a meeting with Edward and Lois to share the benefit of my experience," Klaas told O'Reilly. "I mean, that's one of the things Fox was trying to bring to the table here."
He continued: "We were having increasing difficulty getting any kind of access to the family. And then, all of a sudden, it turned out they were going to be giving an interview to somebody else. I called, I said, 'Why is this occurring?' . . . And it just fell apart from there."
"This is so strange," O'Reilly said.
"It's a puzzlement, yes, sir," Klaas replied.
To be sure, child advocates -- and the foundations born from their life tragedies -- often tumble into the limelight of new abduction cases. John Walsh, after all, became an icon of a veritable missing child industry through Fox's popular "America's Most Wanted," which sprang from his advocacy efforts after his son, Adam, was slain.
The Carrington-Sund Foundation, which took shape after the 1999 Yosemite National Park murders of 42-year-old Carole Sund, her 15-year-old daughter Julie and Julie's 16-year-old friend, Silvina Pelosso, went on to advise the Modesto parents of Chandra Levy while she remained missing.
And in Utah this month, the Smarts welcomed the assistance of the Laura Recovery Center Foundation, which marshaled hundreds of volunteers.
But the family's decision to include the Texas foundation -- while at the same time rebuffing Klaas -- drew a bead on what media experts found objectionable. At UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, former NBC News and ABC News producer Robert Calo said Klaas' own tragic experience certainly made him a valuable TV consultant. Cast in such a role, however, "they have to behave like journalists and not have secondary agendas," he said.
Rosenstiel agreed. Klaas, he said, "may be forming these opinions not because the family has made a mistake, but because they just didn't take his advice."
Indeed, those close to the Smart parents said Klaas' comments on Fox -- especially those which criticized Elizabeth's uncle -- were viewed as unhelpful, causing the family to keep him at a distance.
Salt Lake City police, meanwhile, had noted that Klaas "was brought in as a contract employee of Fox," said one investigator close to the case, who added, "there could be nothing that he could really offer us."
Joseph McNamara, a criminal justice expert at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, said that as both an adviser and critic, Klaas' roles in the Smart case hit against an insular police culture that craves leads -- not outside suggestions.
Investigators "instinctively prefer (for others) to let us do our job, and we have enough to do without stroking this group or that group," said McNamara,
who also served for years as San Jose's police chief.
"Sometimes, a well-meaning group can interfere with an investigation," he continued, "and other times, they help the family and place the police on notice that they can't just follow their (normal) routine."
McNamara, who joined Klaas in an unsuccessful campaign against the passage of California's "Three Strikes" law, said he has long admired Klaas and finds him "to be concerned for the public good."
The need for Klaas to make clear his affiliation with Fox in Salt Lake City was important, McNamara said, but "as long as it's articulated that he's paid for what he's doing, I don't particularly see what the problem is."
McNamara said he was inclined to agree with Klaas' basic point that including a sketch artist in such a case "is extremely important. (But) the family really has control . . . of whether they want the child to be interviewed or not. There are times they don't."
Initially, investigators said Mary Katherine Smart had not seen her sister's abductor well in the girls' darkened bedroom. They later revealed she had gleaned a second look at him elsewhere in the home and provided a more detailed physical description.
But as time went on, the Smarts came to feel "that they don't want to even acknowledge Marc," Grass said. To the family, it seemed, Klaas' expert advice had been defined by his subsequent on-air criticism of them for not following it.
"He's entitled to his opinions," Grass said. "It was very disheartening to know that his intentions might have been good -- and I'm not faulting him for that -- but also to know he was there as a reporter."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/06 /30/MN212521.DTL
All very true, except LE is now bringing in their 3rd ex-con, the sex offender from the same mobile home park. They've grabbed him up on a parole violation and now 'maybe' HE was the man with Ricci when he returned the jeep (and cleaned it out in front of everyone, yeah right).
I've been thinking about all these people reporting all they know about the possible perps we've seen paraded across TV....that $$$$$, that $250,000 must look very good to each one of them.
Just something to keep in mind when 'witnesses' speak....what is their real motive?
Could the reward $$$ be the cause for waffling between 500 and 1000 miles added to the odometer....did they do a little creative bookeeping themselves, in hopes of collecting the reward?
I sure don't know...but there's been a motley crew of people supposedly in the know about both possible suspects, who all look like getting $250,000 would be a dream come true.
All you say is true. Parnell was even interviewed in his doorway after Cary was arrested.
I read the book that the movie is based on, "I Know My Name is Steven." This book was the first time I had heard of NAMBLA.
It sure opened my eyes.
I didn't know the guy got a short sentence for the kidnapping of Stephen. If I remember right, Stephen died young in a motorcycle accident. Later when his brother, Cary, killed those people, I wondered how the original crime affected the whole family, including Stephen's siblings.
Stephen was killed in a motorcycle accident after marrying. It was a very trying time for all the Stayners while Stephen was gone I'm sure. Maybe more so after he got back.
Cary has comented on it, he always felt like the family put everything they had into Stephen's disappearance and nothing was left for him.
Cary also said his thoughts about murder came at a young age. Such a tragedy for all concerned.
I read the book too. The time Parnell served in jail (I'm thinking just 2 years) was ridiculously short for the crimes he committed.
Did you hear anything about Angela Ricci possibly being called up again before the Grand Jury tomorrow? I thought I saw this on the MSNBC ticker last night.
Wow, that is very strange twist to the story. It is very bizarre. I remember the story about Steven, apparently,he never recovered mentally from that kidnapping, understandably so. But, I had never heard about that part about his own brother.