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Girl's uncle pleads: 'Just let Elizabeth go'

Elizabeth Smart disappeared June 5.
Elizabeth Smart disappeared June 5.  


SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) -- An uncle of missing 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart pleaded Monday with the Utah girl's abductor to release her and said the family was cooperating with investigators.

Chris Smart said the family suspects the kidnapper was "somebody who may have been obsessed with Elizabeth" and "probably didn't realize what he was getting into."

"The only thing we can do is to plead with the individual to please, just let Elizabeth go," he told CNN's "Larry King Live."

"Take her out anywhere, out on the highway ... let her off where she can go to a truck stop or where another car can be able to see her," he said.

An open door

Earlier Monday, the girl's father, Ed Smart, acknowledged he had left the garage door open the day before his daughter's abduction. But the import of the action was unclear.

"The garage door was open during the day. I did close it that night," Ed Smart told reporters who asked him about a newspaper story in which he admitted leaving the door open after dark the night Elizabeth Smart disappeared. The door might have been open for about two hours that evening.

Ed Smart said it is possible the man might have entered through the door and hidden inside the home until the family went to bed. Police have not said how the intruder entered the house.

"We don't know where the perpetrator went through or went out, and the police are trying to take care of that," Smart said.

Police Capt. Scott Atkinson said at the news conference he could not comment on whether the open door may have been a factor in the girl's disappearance.

Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart has not been seen since June 5 when according to her younger sister a man entered their bedroom in the upscale Federal Heights neighborhood and took her with him.

On Sunday, police displayed a cap they said was similar to one worn by the man who kidnapped the teen. Authorities asked that anyone who had seen someone wearing a tan golf-style cap in the girl's neighborhood to contact the police.

The search for a transient wanted for questioning in connection with her disappearance continued Monday after police reported another false sighting of the man.

Police say Bret Michael Edmunds, 26, is not a suspect, but he was seen in the neighborhood of the Smart home days before the abduction.

False leads

Saturday night, a patron at a Denny's in nearby Woods Cross told police she spotted a man at the takeout counter who resembled Edmunds, according to Lt. Clarence Montgomery with the Woods Cross Police.

The man fled into a nearby field when a police car pulled into the parking lot and a subsequent five-hour search failed to locate him.

Sunday night, Salt Lake City police said the man, identified as Brian Reeves, was picked up after a high-speed chase. They said they did not believe he was connected to the Smart case. The man, police said, had a build and features similar to Edmunds.

Police had another false sighting of Edmunds Friday evening in Texas, but the man picked up on suspicion of shoplifting clothes from a department store turned out to be someone else.

Atkinson said Monday the number of tips in the case had declined considerably, with only about 200 received over the weekend.

Since Elizabeth Smart was reported missing, he said, the department had received 6,500 calls, and followed up on about 600.

"We're going down the list," Atkinson said. But despite the police work and extensive search efforts by volunteers, he said, "I don't know that we're closer in finding her."

-- CNN Producer Mike Ahlers contributed to this report.



 
 
 
 






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