WEST VALLEY CITY — Wearing an oil-stained Snap-on Tools ballcap and a shirt that says "Neth's Auto Repair, Foreign & Domestic," Neth Moul succinctly expresses how he feels concerning former customer Richard Ricci's much-publicized hospitalization for a brain hemorrhage.
"If he's not going to make it I'm going to feel very bad for the Smart family," says the mechanic. "Because I think he has something to do with it."
"It" is the kidnapping of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart on June 5 from her home on the upper east side of the Salt Lake Valley, a home where Ricci once worked as a handyman for Elizabeth's father, Edward. It was Ed Smart who paid Ricci with his 1990 Jeep Cherokee, and it was here, at Neth's Auto Repair on 3500 South and 4300 West, on the other side of the valley, that Ricci brought the Jeep for repairs.
As Neth has told the FBI and the Salt Lake police, Ricci's Jeep was in his shop May 30 awaiting work when Ricci came in and retrieved it. Ricci returned the vehicle, Neth insists, on June 8 — three days after the kidnapping — with nearly 1,000 additional miles on the odometer and mud caked on the exterior. Neth says he said Ricci left the Jeep at the shop and carried several items, including the car's seat covers, a post-hole digger and a machete knife, across 3500 South to a Phillips 66 gas station where he met a white man with dark hair and left in what Neth describes as a blue van.
When asked by investigators for an explanation, Ricci contradicted Neth's story, denying he picked up the Jeep or removed any seat covers.
But Neth is adamant it was Ricci.
"I know him very, very well," he says. "I will not let any car go without the owner's permission."
The mechanic adds, "I know there were seat covers because the last time the car was in, I left grease on them."
Neth Moul is 49 years old and in person comes off as what they'd call in New York "street smart." He's certainly been around. He left his native Cambodia in 1979 when he was 26 and the country was at war. He came to America and learned about cars. He opened his own business and 10 years ago became a U.S. citizen. His English is accented but as excellent as it is fast-paced.
All his instincts tell him that Richard Ricci has a story to tell that he hasn't told.
On June 8, the day Ricci returned the Jeep, Neth's memory is clear of a man looking over his shoulder.
"He kept looking across the street, he looked nervous," Neth recalls. "Before, he always came in the shop, he'd say, 'Hey buddy, how's it going?'"
But not this time. This time, "his face all sweat," Neth said. "He had a machete on the side of his body and a post-hole digger. I'm thinking maybe he's doing yardwork somewhere."
Neth didn't get a good look at the man Ricci met across the street, and didn't actually see them get in the blue van. But he saw the van drive off and assumes it was them. He did not get a license number. At the time, he was not suspicious, just curious.
Now, with Ricci in grave condition at University Hospital after collapsing in his prison cell Tuesday, Neth Moul is among those pulling for him to make it. And not just because Ricci still owes him $200.
"He knows more than he's saying," says the mechanic from Cambodia. "If he doesn't make it, it will be very sad."
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.