SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) -- Salt Lake City police said Wednesday that missing teenager Elizabeth Smart was found alive in a Salt Lake City suburb earlier Wednesday, and her uncle told CNN she has been reunited with her family.
"We just believe in miracles and thank God she's alive," Tom Smart told CNN by telephone.
He said the reunion involved her immediate family.
Sandy City Police Sgt. Michelle Burnette said two people called police with a tip that led them to a certain address.
"Two separate women called in and said they thought they had spotted `Emmanuel,"' she said. Emmanuel's real name is Brian David Mitchell. He is a drifter who had once done work on the Smarts' home.
Elizabeth, now 15, was wearing a wig when she was found, The Associated Press reported.
Elizabeth was abducted at gunpoint from her family's 6,600-square-foot Salt Lake City home June 5, 2002, while her parents and four brothers slept. Her younger sister, Mary Katherine, 9, who was in the bedroom with Elizabeth, witnessed the abduction.
The younger sister said she pretended to be asleep and later said the kidnapper had threatened to hurt Elizabeth if she didn't keep quiet.
Last October, Mary Katherine told her parents that "Emmanuel" looked like the man who had taken Elizabeth.
Police earlier had focused on 48-year-old handyman, Richard Ricci, calling him "a possible suspect."
He was later imprisoned for a parole violation stemming from burglary charges related to the Smart family. Ricci died in the Utah State Prison August 30, 2002, when he was taken off life support following a brain hemorrhage three days earlier.
posted by Chris O. @ 3/12/2003 03:08:00 PM
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