SALT LAKE CITY — A man who police once questioned in the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart is going to prison for bank robbery.
A federal judge sentenced Bret Michael Edmunds to nine years and four months behind bars followed by three years probation for robbing a Zions Bank in Draper and a Utah First Credit Union in Provo last year. In both cases he handed the teller a note demanding money and claiming to have a gun. He made off with a total of $2,117.
Edmunds, 42, pleaded guilty to the two robberies in exchange for prosecutors dropping five other robbery counts against him.
Edmunds was the focus of a nationwide manhunt shortly after 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Federal Heights home in 2002. A milk delivery driver told police he saw Edmunds’ car in the area of Smart's house on the morning of the abduction.
Edmunds was finally found in a West Virginia hospital following an apparent drug overdose. He was questioned by federal authorities and cleared in the kidnapping. He has a long criminal history, including being sentenced to prison in 2002 for failing to stop for police and assault on a peace officer.