SALT LAKE CITY — A South Carolina man was charged Wednesday with trying to extort $3 million for the safe return of Elizabeth Smart, the 14-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom in June.
The FBI said it couldn't rule out Walter Holloway, 18, as the kidnapper until they found him Tuesday in Charleston, S.C., typing his latest demands by e-mail.
According to an arrest warrant, Holloway confessed he kept up a regular correspondence with Salt Lake City police and the Smart family, boasting he was "the only real kidnapper," threatening to hurt the girl and saying, "Tell [Elizabeth's father] Ed he can have Elizabeth back as soon as I get the ransom."
Holloway sent 38 messages over the last two months before the FBI found him in front of a computer at his parent's house. The family did not return a telephone message Wednesday.
