Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped at the age of fourteen on June 5, 2002 by Brian David Mitchell from his home in the neighborhood of Federal Heights Salt Lake City, Utah. He was held captive by Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, and later, in San Diego County, California. His arrest lasted about nine months before he was found in Sandy, Utah, about 18 miles (29 km) from his home.
Smart was taken from his home at knifeps by Mitchell, an event observed by Smart's sister Mary Katherine, who pretended to be sleeping during the kidnapping. Mitchell, who claims to be a religious prophet, holds Smart at a camp in the forest with Barzee, where he repeatedly rapes her. During his detention, Smart accompanied his kidnapper in public on numerous occasions and was largely unrecognized by the people he dealt with.
Since his abduction, Smart has been an advocate for disappeared and victims of sexual violence. Barzee was sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison in 2010 for his role in kidnapping and kidnapping. An extensive dispute over Mitchell's competence to stand trial took several years before he was considered mentally capable in 2010, although he was diagnosed by forensic psychologists as having antisocial and narcissistic personality disorder. Mitchell was sentenced to life in prison in 2011.
Video Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart
Background of the kidnappers
Smart kidnapper Brian David Mitchell was born October 18, 1953 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the third of six children in the Mormon family. His mother is a teacher and his father is a social worker. To teach Mitchell about sex, his father reportedly showed his son's explicit photo of a medical journal, and, to teach him about independence, would push Mitchell to an unknown section in Salt Lake City, and lower it, leaving him to find his way home.
At the age of sixteen, Mitchell exposes himself to a child, and is sent to the teenager's room. At the age of nineteen, she married and had two children with Karen Minor, who was three years her junior. After their divorce, Minor granted custody of his two sons, after which Mitchell escaped temporarily with the children to New Hampshire. He lived in New Hampshire for two years, where he joined the Hare Krishna commune. Mitchell has a history of drug and alcohol abuse in his adult life; Upon his return to Salt Lake City, he was inspired to find peace by his brother, who had just returned from a mission. In Salt Lake City, Mitchell has two additional children with his second wife, Debbie, who has three children from a previous marriage. Debbie accuses Mitchell of being rude during their marriage, and they divorced in 1984. After their separation, Debbie accuses Mitchell of sexually abusing their three-year-old son; the claim could not be medically confirmed, but Mitchell's future visit with his children was ordered to be supervised by the Child and Family Services Division. One of Debbie's daughters from her previous marriage will also claim that Mitchell has sexually harassed her for four years.
On the day Mitchell and Debbie divorced, she married Wanda Elaine Barzee (6th November 1945, in Salt Lake City), a forty-year-old widow with six children. Barzee has a problematic relationship with his children; one of his daughters would later refer to him as a "monster," and claimed that as a child, Barzee fed his pet rabbit for dinner. Together, Mitchell and Barzee are actively involved in the LDS Church, although Mitchell's religious views will become increasingly extreme. Mitchell and Barzee eventually left the church and he began to go by the name "Emmanuel," claiming to be a prophet of God who experiences a prophetic vision. Barzee began using the name "Hephzibah," and both would be babbling and preaching in downtown Salt Lake City. Mitchell presents himself in a picture similar to Jesus, wearing a white robe and tunic, and growing a beard.
Maps Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart
Kidnapping
In the early hours of June 5, 2002, Mitchell entered Edward and Lois Smart's home in the neighborhood of Federal Heights in Salt Lake City, where they lived with their six children. He kidnaps the fourteen-year-old Elizabeth from the bedroom she lives with her nine-year-old sister, Mary Katherine, who wakes up but pretends to be asleep, and then reports the following:
- A white man about his brother Charles height (5Ã, ft 8 inches, 172Ã,® cm) is about 30 or 40 years old, wearing light-colored clothing and golf caps. (He's really dressed in black, has no golf hat, and is 49 years old.)
- She has black hair, and also black hair on her arm and on the back of her hand.
- The man threatened Elizabeth with a knife (which according to Mary Katherine was a gun at the time)
- When Elizabeth says "ouch" after banging her toes on a chair, Mitchell says something that sounds like, "You better keep quiet, and I will not hurt you."
- He heard Elizabeth ask, "Why are you doing this?" and although the answer is not clear, Mary Katherine thinks the answer might be "for a ransom."
- Mitchell has a soft voice - even polite, calm, and well dressed. Despite Mitchell talking to Elizabeth secretly, Mary Katherine thought that Mitchell's voice was somehow familiar, but she could not determine where or when she heard it.
- She never saw Mitchell's face properly. This fact was kept secret by the police during the investigation.
When she thought Elizabeth and her captors were gone, Mary Katherine started for her parents' bedroom, but was barely visible to Mitchell and Elizabeth, who were outside the children's bedroom of the family. He crept back into his bed, where he was hiding for an unspecified time - maybe more than two hours. Just before 4 am, Mary Katherine wakes her parents and tells them what happened; thought he was dreaming, they did not believe it until they found a window of the screen that had been cut with a knife.
Search and investigation
On June 6, 2002, Ed and Lois appeared on television and begged the kidnappers to return their daughters.
The massive regional search effort, organized by the Laura Recovery Center, involves up to 2,000 volunteers daily, as well as dogs and airplanes. Websites carry leaflets that can be printed or distributed over the internet. After several days of intensive search, community-led searches ended and efforts directed to other ways of finding Elizabeth.
Mary Katherine's observations are of little use, and there is little useable evidence found at crime scenes such as fingerprints or DNA. Search using a bloodhound did not work. Police questioned and interviewed hundreds of potential suspects including a 26 year old who was released after being in a West Virginia hospital. The investigation had the side-effect of returning some big criminals to the prison, but Elizabeth was not found.
The Salt Lake City police considered Richard Ricci an interesting man at the start of the investigation. Ricci is a craftsman with a history of drug abuse who has worked for Smarts; he has been imprisoned for unrelated parole violations. Ricci died of cerebral hemorrhage in August 2002. (In 2015, Ricci's wife committed suicide, her son claiming that she never recovered from her husband's death.) The Elizabethan family keeps Elizabeth's name in the media, for example providing her home videos, and making the website about his abduction.
Captivity
After his abduction, Smart brought Mitchell into the forest to a campsite outside Salt Lake City, where he met Wanda Barzee. According to the testimony of Smart, Barzee "finally just washed my feet and told me to change my pajamas into a garment cloak, and when I refused, he said otherwise he would get Brian Mitchell to come tear my pajamas off I'm wearing robes He comes and performs ceremonies, who will marry me to him, after which he begins to rape me. "Mitchell claims to be an angel and also tells Smart that he is a god of David who will" appear in seven years, stoned by the masses, lying dead on the road for three days and then rise and kill the Antichrist. " Smart, he insists, is the first of many virgin brides he plans to kidnap, each will accompany him as he fights the Antichrist.
In order for Smart not to escape, he was shackled to a tree with a metal cable, allowing his mobility to be confined outside the tent he occupied. During his captivity, he was forced to take a new name, and chose Esther, after Esther of the Old Testament. It was later revealed during court testimony that Mitchell repeatedly raped Smart, sometimes several times a day, forcing him to watch pornographic films, and regularly threatening to kill him. He often forced him to drink alcohol and take medication to lower resistance, and both starved and fed his junk. Smart hardness is facilitated with the help of Barzee, who is then called Smart as the "most evil woman" she has ever met.
In September 2002, Mitchell and Barzee left Salt Lake City with Smart, moving to San Diego County, California, where they held Smart at a camp in a dry river on the Lakeside. Mitchell and Barzee moved with Smart several times to various camps in San Diego County, often moving in the middle of the night. On February 12, 2003, Mitchell was arrested in El Cajon for breaking into a church and spending several days in jail over the incident.
Public appearance
Smart accompanied Mitchell and Barzee publicly on numerous occasions, but his presence was either obscured or unknown through various methods of concealment, which often consisted of him wearing a veil and a veil on his face. In August 2002, about two months after Smart's abduction, Mitchell devised a plan to leave Salt Lake City with Barzee and Smart, possibly to Boston or New York City. To research potential places to be relocated, Mitchell and Barzee visit the Salt Lake City Public Library with Smart. There, they were noticed by the protector of the library for their unusual clothes, each wearing a long robe with veils covering most of their faces. The patron was convinced to call the police after observing Smart's eyes. A police detective arrives at the library and confronts Mitchell, Barzee, and Smart; however, he is blocked by Mitchell, who claims that Smart is his daughter, and that they can not take off their robe or clothing for religious reasons. When questioned by detectives, either Barzee or Smart speak, and Mitchell declares their religion forbids women from speaking in public. Smart would later claim that Barzee signaled him not to move, and clutched his feet under the table. He then remembered the incident: "I feel like I'm hoping to walk out the door, I'm angry at myself that I'm not saying anything, angry at myself for not taking a chance, so close I feel bad because the detective does not exist. " "I pushed harder, he just walked away."
Smart also visited a grocery store, restaurant, and spent a week in downtown Salt Lake City with Mitchell and Barzee, but not paid attention. In the fall of 2002, she attended a party with Mitchell and Barzee and was photographed wearing a headscarf and robe between Mitchell and other party guests.
Discovery
In October 2002, Smart's sister Mary Katherine suddenly realized that the kidnapper's voice was the voice of a man known to the Emmanuel family, an unemployed employed by the family for a day to work on the roof and sweep the leaves.
The police are skeptical because the short time "Emmanuel" has worked for the family, a long time has passed since then, and a short time Mary Katherine has heard the voice of her captor. However, the family has a sketch artist drawing the face of "Emmanuel" from their description, and in February this image was released to the media; it is shown on Larry King Live and America's Most Wanted. The picture was acknowledged by the family of Brian David Mitchell, who gave contemporary police photographs of him.
On March 12, 2003, Mitchell was found with two women in Sandy, Utah by lovers who saw Mitchell's photos on the news. The women were Elizabeth Smart - disguised with gray wigs, sunglasses, and a veil - and Wanda Ileen Barzee. Smart was admitted by officers during interrogation, and Mitchell and Barzee were arrested.
Legal process
Evaluation of competence
The court requested that Mitchell undergo a competency evaluation, based on his claim as a religious prophet. Pending evaluation, Mitchell was imprisoned at Utah State Hospital. Stephen Golding, a psychologist hired by defenders, distinguished between passionate beliefs and delusions, and concluded that Mitchell's beliefs went beyond enthusiasm and in fact fantasized. It was in Golding's opinion that Mitchell was incompetent to stand trial as a result of his delusions. The court, however, replaced Golding's opinion and found Mitchell to be competent in 2004. Plea negotiations then began between defense and prosecution. The defendant is willing to plead guilty to kidnapping and robbery for a 10-15 year sentence on condition that Smart does not testify. The prosecution refused to impose allegations of sexual assault on Mitchell, and no agreement was reached.
On 15 October 2004, the defense negotiations still have not determined the agreement. The defendants filed an appeal until October 21, asking prosecutors to rethink their position in terms of what they offer to Mitchell. To this end, defense does not highlight damage in competence as a factor contributing to the deterioration of defense negotiations; they mention the lack of coming to agreement as a result of their clients' sole discretion. The appeal was subsequently rejected.
Dr Jennifer Skeem, a psychologist who originally claimed that Mitchell was competent, interviewed Mitchell again at the plea request in February 2005. After this interview, Heidi Buchi, Mitchell's lawyer, made a brief suggestion that Mitchell was no longer competent to stand trial. Mitchell then proceeded to act in court, while the prison staff observed no change in his behavior and thought process. Finally, Judge Judy Atherton agrees with the defense, insisting that Mitchell's behavior reflects psychosis. The defendant re-entered Utah State hospital on August 11, 2005 and remained there until 2008. While at the hospital, no staff experienced Mitchell as paranoid in a pathological sense.
In February 2006, a bill was issued before the Utah legislature to allow prosecutors to apply for forced treatment to the defendant to return their competence to face the trial. The permission to forcibly treat Wanda Barzee is also sought, depending on the decision of the US Supreme Court in Selling v. United States of America (2003), which enables compulsory drugs when a country can show an interesting interest is served by restoring one's competence and the drug will not harm the person or prevent him from defending himself. In June 2006, a Utah judge approved Barzee's barter drug so he could be tried.
On December 18, 2006, Mitchell was again declared unfit to be tried in a Utah state court after shouting at a judge during the trial to "abandon the cloak and kneel in the dust." Doctors have tried to treat Mitchell without drugs, but prosecutor Kent Morgan said after the scene in court that a request would likely be made for permission to forcibly administer the drugs. On December 12, 2008, it was reported that Mitchell could not be legally forcibly infused by the State of Utah to try to restore his mental competence, also claimed it was "unnecessary and unnecessary," and therefore a violation of the state of Utah. constitution, to prolong the trial process for this length.
The case was eventually transferred to the Federal Court on October 10, 2008. The issue of competence proved to be the core of the case, and the court held a trial of Mitchell's competence on October 1, 2009 and November 30 to December 11, 2009. On a one-sided occasion in October, it was reported that Mitchell was singing praise in court. In one of these hearings, Smart described Mitchell as "smart, articulate, evil, evil, manipulative, cunning, slick, selfish, greedy, spiritual, irreligious, not close to God."
Wanda Barzee finally pleaded guilty and was sentenced to fifteen years in state and federal prisons. However, due to delays and mental evaluation, it took Mitchell nearly 8 years to come to court.
The Mitchell trial began on November 8, 2010. The defendant acknowledged that Mitchell was actually responsible for the crime, but argued that Mitchell was legally insane at the time of the crime, and therefore must be found not guilty for nonsense (NGRI) reasons. The insanity defense for Mitchell was beaten on December 11, 2010, when the jury found him guilty of kidnapping and transporting a child across state borders in order to engage in sexual activity. US District Judge Dale Kimball sentenced Mitchell to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Mitchell is currently serving his sentence at the United States Penitentiary, Tucson, a high-security federal prison in Tucson, Arizona.
In October 2003, Elizabeth Smart and her parents were interviewed for the Dateline NBC special segment. The interview conducted by Katie Couric, today's show, features Elizabeth's first interview with media outlets. Couric asked Elizabeth's parents about their experiences while Elizabeth was missing, including Smarts' personal opinion of Elizabeth's kidnapper. Couric then interviewed Elizabeth about her school and her life following her abduction.
Shortly after the Dateline interview Elizabeth Smart and her family were featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where Winfrey questioned Smarts about the abduction.
In July 2006, legal commentator and television personality Nancy Grace interviewed Elizabeth Smart, purportedly to talk about a pending law on the registration of sex offenders, but repeatedly asked her to get information about her experience. In response to that question, Elizabeth told Grace, "I'm really here to support the bill and not discuss what - you know what happened to me." When Grace insisted, asking Elizabeth what it was like to look out of a niqab kidnapped by her captors, Elizabeth stated: "I really will not talk about it at this point... and honestly I'm right do not appreciate you bringing this. "Grace did not pursue further questions about the kidnapping.
Literature
The Smart Family publishes a book, Bringing Elizabeth Home (ISBNÃ, 978-0385512145). Uncle Elizabeth, Tom Smart, wrote a book with Lee Desenset News journalist Lee Benson, entitled In Plain Sight: The Surprising Truth Behind Elizabeth's Intelligent Investigation (ISBN: 978-1556526213), who criticized the investigation process by the Salt Lake City Police Department, and noted the media's influence that led to his successful recovery.
Movie depiction
The kidnapping was portrayed in the 2003 Elizabeth The Story Smart Television film, directed by Bobby Roth, and was based on Bringing Elizabeth Home book . It stars Amber Marshall as Elizabeth Smart, Dylan Baker and Lindsay Frost as her parents, and Tom Everett as Brian David Mitchell. It was nominated for three Young Artist Awards in 2004. The film was first aired on CBS on November 9, 2003, just eight months after Elizabeth was found.
In 2017 on the 15th anniversary of his abduction, Lifetime aired a movie made for TV titled I Am Elizabeth Smart, narrated and produced by Smart, who told the story of his abduction from his own point of view. The film stars Alana Boden as Elizabeth Smart, Skeet Ulrich as Brian David Mitchell, and Deirdre Lovejoy as Wanda Ileen Barzee.
See also
- List of child abuse cases featuring long-term detention
- List of abductions
References
The work cited
- Haberman, Maggie; MacIntosh, Jeane (2003). Held Captive: Elizabeth Smart Abduction and Rescue . Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-060-58020-9.
- Smart, Elizabeth (2014). My story . St. Martin Griffin. ISBN: 978-1-250-05545-3.
External links
- Profile of Miss Elizabeth's Missing Children at America's Most Wanted
- Brian Mitchell's Profile at America's Most Wanted
- Multimedia
- NPR's This American Life episode # 286: "MAP Games: The Invisible Girl" - Author/narrator, Scott Carrier; producer, Ira Glass (segment started: 43:30 minutes in podcast)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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