Brett Edmunds IDX Nurses

NurseDennie, BSN, RN · Jun 22, 2002

Wow! Hadn't heard that! What happened to him? Did they find her? I'd better go check CNN or something! (holding breath and fingers crossed!)

Love

Dennie

Huganurse · Jun 22, 2002

I believe they found high levels of drugs in his system. They are not sure he is gonna make it and fear he will die before they can question him. They still have not found Elizabeth but her family is very positive that they will. I heard about it on Fox News. I hope he wakes up enough to tell what he did. I believe he fried his liver in the process of ODing. I wonder if he was trying to commit suicide b/c of what he did.???

NurseDennie, BSN, RN · Jun 22, 2002

Oh sheesh - I know that I wouldn't want to be on the team taking care of him, but from THIS distance, I think it would be perfectly justified to do ANYTHING to get him alert enough to tell where he put her - even if the result was bad for him.

Love

Dennie

Huganurse · Jun 22, 2002

Nurse Dennie, I was thinking the very same thing and was wondering what the nurses might be up to and weather or not they try to get him to talk. I'm sure they are not allowed to question him if he wakes but I think it would take control not to ask him what he did with Elizabeth especially if he was tetering in and out or was at deaths door.

MQ Edna · Jun 22, 2002

I believe he's in WV

RNforLongTime · Jun 22, 2002

Yes Marj, You are right. The man is in West Virginia.

sunnygirl272 · Jun 22, 2002

Bret Michael Edmunds, 26, remained in serious condition Saturday in a secure section of intensive care and under the guard of U.S. marshals.

"He is conscious, he is alert and he is speaking with them," Martinsburg City Hospital spokeswoman Teresa McCabe said.

Edmunds had checked himself into the hospital Thursday under a phony name after an apparent drug overdose. McCabe said Edmunds would remain at the hospital and would not be transferred elsewhere for several days.

Authorities have said Edmunds could be a witness and is not considered a suspect in the disappearance of Smart.

Edmunds, 26, who has no fixed address and was living out of his Saturn sedan, had been seen near the Smart family's neighborhood.

A milkman was able to partly recite his license plates. Those plates, stolen from another car, were found ditched Thursday along a road in Centerville, a suburb north of Salt Lake City.

The green Saturn was found at City Hospital in Martinsburg, W.Va., about 75 miles west of Baltimore. Elizabeth was not in the car, which West Virginia State Police photographed but did not enter before impounding it and towing it from the hospital, authorities said.

Police were awaiting a search warrant Friday evening.

Hospital officials said at a news conference Friday that Edmunds checked himself at 5:15 Thursday morning and was admitted to the critical care unit five hours later. They said Edmunds was in serious condition but would discuss his diagnosis or prognosis because of privacy rights.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse, who told reporters that Edmunds had drug-related liver damage, said police hoped Edmunds could be returned to Utah for questioning but said they would send officers to Martinsburg if he could not travel. Authorities were working quickly on details of how to question Edmunds because "there is a possibility that he could be critical to the point that he might not survive," the chief said.

In the meantime, Edmunds was being kept under guard in the critical care unit, whose three other patients were moved to other parts of the hospital.

Dinse stressed that Edmunds was not a suspect in Elizabeth's disappearance "at this time." He was arrested not because of his possible connection to the case but because he was wanted on outstanding charges of fraud and assault on a police officer in Utah and federal charges of unlawful flight, said Special Agent Dan Roberts of the FBI.

"He's a question mark, and we want to put a period on that question mark," the chief said.

But Dinse acknowledged in response to a reporter's question that police were interested in taping Edmunds' voice and playing it for Elizabeth's 9-year-old sister, Mary Katherine, who was in the bedroom at the time police believe a man abducted Elizabeth.

EDMUNDS TOLD INCONSISTENT STORY

Although Edmunds checked himself in through the emergency room early Thursday, it was not until Friday afternoon that hospital officials realized that he might be the man wanted for questioning in a case making national headlines 1,800 miles away.

Edmunds used a false name when he arrived, authorities said.

June 21-FBI and police officials in Utah discuss the arrest of Bret Michael Edmunds.

The FBI was notified of the hospital's suspicions Friday afternoon and needed barely an hour to confirm Edmunds' identity.

The discovery resolves one facet of a baffling case.

Police have administered polygraph tests to a number of people both inside and outside Elizabeth's family, authorities said Thursday. Police would not elaborate on what the polygraph tests found, and 16 days into a case they are investigating as an abduction, they said they still had no suspect.

Dinse said police had also searched the hard drives of 12 computers but had found nothing "that creates a nexus to this crime." Other officers said police examined computers owned by the immediate family and others.

FBI agents are looking at other kidnappings, including two teen-agers taken from the same apartment complex in Oregon and one in Idaho Falls, Idaho, that ended with the suspect's suicide, Roberts said. The abduction in Idaho Falls, which is about 190 miles from Salt Lake City, took place the same morning Elizabeth disappeared.

In addition, police said they were aware of one e-mail ransom note, but Dinse said they considered it a hoax.

sunnygirl272 · Jun 22, 2002

Bret Michael Edmunds, 26, was captured Friday after checking himself into Martinsburg's City Hospital for an apparent drug overdose, the U.S. Marshals Service said. He remained in serious condition Saturday.

"He is conscious, he is alert and he is speaking," hospital spokeswoman Teresa McCabe said.

Salt Lake City police arrived Saturday and joined the FBI in interviewing Edmunds, doctors and hospital staff. His physicians recommended that he remain at the hospital rather than be transferred to another facility, McCabe said.

Police described Edmunds as a "wanted fugitive," but insisted he still is not a suspect in the June 5 kidnapping in Salt Lake City, more than 1,800 miles away.

Authorities said they looked in Edmunds' green Saturn and opened the trunk but found no sign of Elizabeth.

Edmunds first came under scrutiny in the kidnapping case after neighbors and a milkman reported seeing him near the Smarts' sprawling 6,600-square-foot home a day or two before Elizabeth's abduction.

Edmunds -- 6 feet 2 inches and 235 pounds -- also was seen almost two weeks ago at a vigil for Elizabeth in Salt Lake City. Police approached him, but he fled in his vehicle.

Marshals were asked Wednesday to look for him because he is wanted on federal charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He is also wanted on local charges that include assaulting a police officer.

Authorities had issued an all-points bulletin for his vehicle with Utah license plate 266XJH. When the vehicle was found, it had Washington license plate 350KPH.

'He was in pretty bad shape'

CNN NewsPass VIDEO

CNN's Michael Okwu reports police say Elizabeth Smart's sister saw the suspect a second time and went back to her room in fear (June 19)

Play video