SALT LAKE CITY, June 14 (UPI) -- Federal authorities were disappointed when a man arrested in rural west Texas Friday turned out not to be Bret Michael Edwards, the transient wanted for questioning in the disappearance of Salt Lake City teenager Elizabeth Smart.
After a manhunt across the panhandle that became national headlines, FBI agents rushed to rural Littlefield late Friday attempting to determine if the man jailed by local police was in fact Edmunds, however the bureau's Lubbock office announced early in the evening that his fingerprints were not a match.
Lubbock television station KAMC reported that the suspect lodged in the Littlefield jail was a mere car thief whose name was not immediately released.
Police do not consider Edmunds to be a suspect in the reported kidnapping, and a search of the vehicles driven by the individual who matched his description turned up nothing to indicate that Elizabeth was ever in his company.
"There was no indication that he was accompanied by anyone else, let alone a female," Curry County, N.M. Sheriff Roger Hatcher told reporters at a news conference in Clovis. "He was seen by two or three individuals here in Curry County and we believe he was also seen in Hereford, Texas, and no one has said anything about him being with anyone else."
There was no immediate comment from Salt Lake City police who have been hunting for Edmunds since earlier this week when they announced they had determined that it was his car that a milkman had seen slowly cruising the Smart's secluded neighborhood two days before Elizabeth was reportedly kidnapped by a gun-wielding stranger.
They did confirm earlier Friday that Edmunds had been spotted but not apprehended in the crowded park last weekend during a candlelight vigil for the missing girl.
"He was seen at the candlelight vigil last Sunday," Police Capt. Scott Atkinson told reporters Friday. "At that point, he got into his car and left and was not pursued."
Police have said publicly that they want to ask Edmunds why he happened to be in the upscale neighborhood and whether or not he himself had seen anything unusual. Edmunds has two outstanding arrest warrants pending against him for fraud and assault on a police officer.
The man who was believed to be Edmunds first surfaced Thursday night when he was spotted at a convenience store in Hereford where he walked out of the store without paying for a $1.59 bottle of water. He apparently ditched his car in the Texas town and stole two more vehicles Friday as he made his way 50 miles down Highway 60 to the Clovis, N.M. area and then back into western Texas where he was finally picked up.
Despite a flood of tips and daily searches by scores of volunteers, there was again little progress reported Friday in either finding Elizabeth or zeroing in on a suspect.
"God knows where you are," Elizabeth's aunt, Cynthia Smart, tearfully appealed to the kidnapper during the televised news briefing. "The satisfaction you might have dreamed of by having Elizabeth cannot possibly be there. The best you can do is let her go."
Atkinson said the seeming lack of progress was not entirely accurate because behind the scenes, the investigation had been steadily eliminating many of the leads and information they had received and was moving slowly closer to the truth. He confirmed that the extended Smart family, which includes an estimated 70 cousins, had not been eliminated as possible suspects, though they were being cooperative with the investigative team of roughly 100 detectives and FBI agents.
Edmunds is physically larger than the 5-foot-8 kidnapper described by Elizabeth's 9-year-old sister, Mary Catherine, early on the morning of June 5. The suspect allegedly broke into the Smart house and forced 14-year-old Elizabeth to leave with him at the point of a gun.
Because it was dark in the room the two girls shared, Mary Catherine did not get a good look at the suspect's face, meaning it was unlikely that a sketch of the suspect would ever be produced.
Mary Catherine was said to have waited nearly two hours before she mustered up the courage to awaken her parents after the gunman allegedly warned her not to tell what had happened or else Elizabeth would be harmed.
There were new concerns Friday that there could have been further delays before police were summoned. Reporters asked Atkinson to verify a report that a police patrol log showed that neighbors and relatives were at the house when the first units arrived, indicating that the Smart family might have spent precious minutes on the phone with others before calling 911 at 4:01 a.m., and may have inadvertently contaminated the crime scene by having outsiders in the house before it could be examined by crime scene investigators.
"Any time that people enter the scene before police do, there is that possibility," Atkinson said, adding that he also believed that the Smarts had called police promptly.
"I believe that was pretty immediate," he said.
(Reported by Hil Anderson in Los Angeles)
