Three-year-old William Smart knows "Biffy" may be gone for a long time.
Still too young to pronounce Elizabeth's name, the youngest of the five Smart children can sense the heartbreak since his 14-year-old sister was taken at gunpoint from her bedroom June 5.
More than five weeks have passed without any sign of Elizabeth or police naming an official suspect.
"William said yesterday that Elizabeth's not going to be back for a long time," his father, Edward Smart, told the Deseret News during an interview Wednesday. "To hear a 3-year-old say that, you know it's impacting him.
"There's a big hole in our family," he added. "I really thought this would be over long ago, and I don't know how long it's going to go on. . . . There's no way I'm going to be able to forget Elizabeth and get her out of my mind, but life goes on. You can't just shut down and crawl in a hole."
So, while life is far from normal at the Smarts' million-dollar Federal Heights home, they've done their best to strike the difficult balance between continuing their search for Elizabeth and helping their other children cope with such a tragedy.
They take them swimming and pray with them daily. The family even finds time to laugh together, albeit less than they used to.
"The kids are doing the normal kid things," Smart said. "I don't hear them say that much about Elizabeth."
Still, Smart acknowledges there's hardly a time he doesn't think about his missing daughter. Elizabeth's five siblings still sleep in their parents' master bedroom each night. Smart hardly answers his home phone because of constant calls from well-wishers, psychics and others wanting to help. And he herds his children back inside their home every time television cameras show up outside their driveway.
Instead of the frequent summer trips to their cabin in Brighton, Smart's children have spent time at the homes of various family and friends who have tried to offer some sort of "safe haven" for the children while Smart and his wife, Lois, search for their daughter.
Kathleen Garn lives just a few blocks from the Smarts and lives over the fence from Edward Smart's parents, Charles and Dorotha Smart. Since the kidnapping, Elizabeth's five siblings and countless cousins have spent time at the Garn home swimming, playing basketball, jumping on the trampoline and eating grilled cheese sandwiches.
"They love my grilled cheese sandwiches," Garn said.
While the Smart children don't spend every moment talking about their missing sister, there is a noticeable void, Garn said.
"The older ones, I think, it's harder for them because they understand the implications of her missing for so long," Garn said. "The little ones, I think, they just know that she's not there, and they miss her."
Smart admits sleep is still hard to come by, and he often finds himself in the bedroom Elizabeth was taken from while her 9-year-old sister Mary Katherine feigned sleep.
He became especially emotional when he wandered in about two weeks ago between 1:30 a.m. and 2 a.m. — roughly the same time Elizabeth was kidnapped.
"It was just hard to imagine what she went through, what she saw, what Mary Katherine saw," Smart said.
After about 15 minutes, Lois got out of bed and joined him.
"We were just thinking about Elizabeth and how difficult the whole thing would have been," Smart said.
Smart said he worries daily how his daughter is coping. He believes strongly she's still alive, although acknowledging if they do bring her home, the reunion could be another difficult time for his family.
"I do worry about that," he said. "I have worried about it more, wondering how she's coping. I feel like if we had her back that I know it's not going to be a cakewalk for her, but I feel the love and support for her in the family. I feel that she'd be able to recover."
Smart made a plea Wednesday to his daughter's abductor after receiving a letter from someone claiming to have spoken with the kidnapper.
"The person indicated that the perpetrator was wanting to release Elizabeth," Smart said.
Police, however, are questioning the authenticity of the one-page, typed letter, which was unsigned and postmarked July 3.
"I didn't sense any hostility or fear. The way that it was written, a woman was typing the letter and saying she'd heard from the abductor," Smart said.
While Smart admitted he also questioned the letter's credibility, he wanted to send the real perpetrator a message: "Please contact or communicate with me. . . . We are anxious to receive any correspondence that are credible."
Smart made the announcement before consulting police, prompting two detectives to show up at the Federal Heights Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shortly after the press conference.
While police have not officially released any new leads in their investigation for at least two weeks, the heat seems to once again be turned up on handyman Richard Ricci, who is in custody on a parole violation.
Ricci is also being investigated for a burglary at the Smart house prior to the kidnapping. Edward Smart said items were stolen from his house. After his arrest, police say Ricci admitted to the thefts. At press time Thursday Salt Lake police were planning a press conference to announce charges against Ricci not related to the kidnapping.
"I'm going to really look forward to explaining my feelings on Richard when the time is right," Smart said. "I'll say this — that when this happened and they (police) where having me go through the list of people who'd been in our house . . . I didn't think that Richard was any different than anyone on that list."
Although Ricci has not officially been declared a "suspect," Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse told the Deseret News Tuesday the public shouldn't get caught up in the verbiage. Depending on how you want to look at it, Dinse said, no one has been declared a suspect, and no one has been eliminated as a suspect.
Meanwhile, other law enforcement sources have told the Deseret News more witnesses were called Wednesday to testify before a federal grand jury regarding the Smart investigation. The identities of those people were not revealed.
E-mail: djensen@desnews.com; preavy@desnews.com