According to the radio this morning, Elizabeth Smart and the people that took her spent some time before Christmas in the unincorporated San Diego suburb of Lakeside, about 20 minutes' from my house. They may have been camping in the woods there. Reports say Elizabeth and the woman were dressed in white head-to-toe veils, but this isn't uncommon for that part of town. There are many people that hail from the Middle East living in that neighborhood that dress similarly.
What's disturbing is that the owner of a small grocery and liquor store in the area recognized the man from "America's Most Wanted", and called authorities, who utterly failed to follow up. It's not clear what authorities he contacted, whether they were federal, Salt Lake City, or the San Diego Sheriff's Department. Whoever dropped that ball is gonna get bitch-slapped...
