Grim Ending Stirs Quest For Answers

For the grieving and the perplexed, it seemed hard to understand how two teenage girls with seemingly little money, few belongings and a distinctive blue station wagon eluded public notice for so long.

Smith family members declined to comment yesterday. The Crites family released a statement thanking the people who gave "heart and soul" to trying to track down the teenagers.

"It is a journey which we all wished had turned out so very differently," the statement said. "As we mourn the loss of both Rachels, we only ask that you be aware of the true risks of depression in your children, and most importantly, that you hug your child today, for we cannot."

Police were first called in the early hours of Jan. 20. Rachel Smith and Rachel Crites had told their parents they were headed to dinner and a movie. By 11 p.m., the Smith family wondered why their daughter, a high school junior, was not home.

By 2 a.m., they were on the phone with police.

"Their daughter was very punctual, and she always kept them informed of where she was," said Lucille Baur of the Montgomery police department.

The young-looking girls -- Crites, taller and curly-haired, and Smith, shorter, with straight hair -- were declared missing, and bulletins went out about the car they were driving: a dark blue 1997 Subaru Outback station wagon with a gray roof rack.

"I hope they have just run away for a few days and are not taken by some freak," someone posted on a WTOP blog that became a popular site for discussion of the case.

From the beginning, however, police said that they did not suspect foul play and said that the girls' "mental state" was an issue.

Troy Crites, father of the elder teenager, said in a broadcast report that his daughter had once made a suicide attempt and that Rachel Smith had been a "guardian angel" to her.

In other interviews, he described how he had examined his daughter's diary and found a disturbing entry that alluded to her death.

"Wherever I end up laying, whether buried or cremated, I want to stay with my true love, buried next to her," it said. "This is my choice. I'm sorry."