The Story of Elizabeth Smart

She spent 9 months in captivity with a self-proclaimed prophet and his wife.

Deep into the nights on June 5th, 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart woke up to a knife on her throat and the intruder threatening her to follow him. If she was to make any sound, he will not only kill her, but her whole family.

Elizabeth was overwhelmed with fear. She fought her instincts to wake her little sister lying next to her, as it would put her in immediate danger.

So, young Elizabeth did what she was told. She slipped on shoes of the kidnapper’s choosing and reluctantly went away with him.

All that while, Elizabeth’s younger sister, Mary Katherine, was awake. She heard the intruder threatening her sister, but she kept quiet in fear. Mary was merely 9-years-old at that time. When he left the room, Mary wanted to get help from her father, but she stopped in her tracks at her bedroom door when she saw the kidnapper was still in the house, at the staircase, with her sister.

Terrified, she climbed back into her bed until 2 hours later, she picked up the courage to tell her father, Edward Smart. Soon, horror dawned upon him as he realized it was not just a bad dream her daughter had, but a hellish reality.

The 9 Months of Captivity

Salt Lake, Utah

Elizabeth was led few miles into the mountain to a makeshift camp where a lady dressed in a white robe greeted the kidnapper with a simple,

“Immanuel.”

It is an alias of Brian David Mitchell, and the lady is Wanda Barzee with the alias Hepzibah.

Elizabeth was forced to change into a similar white robe. When her kidnapper, Mitchell, emerged into the tent, he claimed that he is a prophet, tasked to fight the Antichrist, and Elizabeth is one of the 7 wives between the age of 10 to 14 that he was meant to have. He performed some sort of ritual, claiming that Elizabeth is married to him as his 2nd wife, and they are to consummate the marriage.

She struggled and tried her best to fight him away, but he raped her in that tent. She was just a child, never even have her first period. She was stripped of her dignity and left battered on the floor, leaving her feeling worthless.

She woke up the next morning in pain, and her ankles bound to a tree with a metal cable. Barzee made it clear that she was the superior one with the title of the first wife.

Once, Elizabeth heard a familiar voice calling out for her. It sounded like her uncle, but she dared not call out. Not only was she facing immediate death threats, but Mitchell also threatened to kill those that come near to their camp and her family.

Again, she was just a child, forced upon every day, sometimes more than once a day. She was stripped of her identity as they burnt any items that reminded her of her real family. Mitchell tried to rename her to Shear-Jashub, a name from the book of Isaiah. Elizabeth could not retain her name as Elizabeth, but she was able to pick a biblical name of her choice, Esther.

Only Mitchell was allowed to leave the camp while both women stayed back. Elizabeth was forced to consume garbage, drugs, and alcohol.

Elizabeth was outnumbered and overpowered. She did what she had to to survive. She played by his rules, be the docile 2nd wife and even, offered to help out in the camp.

Eventually, Mitchell trusted her enough to remove the physical bound on her ankles. The three of them had more outings together, including an outing to a public library. They were looking at maps and places to move to when they were approached by a detective.

The detective attempted to get Elizabeth’s identity, whose face was hidden behind a veil. However, Mitchell acted as Elizabeth’s father and refused to permit the detective to lift Elizabeth’s veil. Mitchell claimed that in their religion, only Elizabeth’s husband would be able to see her face. On top of the father relentlessly asking the detective to respect his religious beliefs, Elizabeth kept quiet, and it ultimately made the detective turned away.

What was unknown to the detective was, Barzee was silently threatening Elizabeth under the table, with a strong squeeze on her thigh. Again, at this point, Elizabeth had been held captive and beaten down for 3 months.

Elizabeth ended up talking about her 15-year-old cousin, Olivia Wright, and the memories shared between them as a source of comfort. But, that conversation pinned a target on Olivia. Mitchell left camp the next day to kidnap Olivia and make her the 3rd wife. Fortunately, he messed up and ended up making noise. He managed to escape, but the police were alerted.

Mitchell decidedly to make good of his decision to move to Lakeside, California.

San Diego County, California

Elizabeth’s hope dwindled, knowing that she left her best chance behind, the city that knew her story well.

Elizabeth and Barzee battled starvation and dehydration as Mitchell left them alone at a dry creek bed. Mitchell only returned 6 days later, and he wanted to move again. This time even further away from Salt Lake.

Elizabeth used his twisted beliefs, baiting him by mentioning the girl camps in the mountains in Salt Lake and convinced him to return. She did not directly tell him what to do. Instead, she manipulated him by asking whether Mitchell could ask the Lord as the Lord would surely answer him.

He fell for it.

The Search for Elizabeth

By 4:13 AM, police arrived at Elizabeth’s home, but they failed to immediately secure the house before the rush of friends and family came flooding in with support. Any possible evidence was contaminated.

From the cut on the screen, it was deduced that Mitchell entered the house through an unlocked window that was barely left a crack open to air out a potato dish gone too long on the stove that night.

Even though Mary saw the intruder, the traumatic event caused the 9-year-old’s memory to fog up, remembering the event inaccurately. Steve Ceci, a memory expert, said,

“Her memory was like a tossed salad of perception. When you have this tossed salad in the aftermath of a trauma, sometimes what you do is you start gluing pieces together into a composite that actually doesn’t resemble the actual experience.”

But, she was right about one thing. His voice was familiar.

The search for Elizabeth was extensive. Large search parties were organized, reward money offered for information went up from $10k to $250k, and missing flyers were widely distributed. Edward Smart even went on TV pleading for the safe return of his child,

“To the person who has our daughter, I can’t imagine why you took her to begin with. There is no reason that you should have taken her. Please let her go. Please! Elizabeth! Elizabeth!”

Even with all the media attention, including coverage from American’s Most Wanted and a website specially made to aid Elizabeth’s return, Elizabeth was nowhere to be found. Days became weeks, and weeks became months. Search parties dwindled in size, and daily press conferences were significantly reduced.

Suspects

The Family The police first suspected Elizabeth’s family as many kidnapping cases from a white, middle-class family are done by a family member or a close friend. The family was interviewed for long hours, and Elizabeth’s two brothers were kept separated from the parents for almost a month.

Richard Ricci The police strongly believed ex-convict Richard Ricci was guilty. Unaware of Ricci’s past, Smarts hired Ricci as a handyman for 3 months. Ricci was let go along with other workers who had access to the house after the Smarts noticed they had missing items from the house.

When the police investigated Ricci, he admitted to stealing from the family but denied kidnapping Elizabeth. However, he was unable to explain the 1000 miles his Jeep traveled 9 days after the kidnapping.

To his death from an aneurysm on August 30th, 2002, Richard denied any involvement in Elizabeth’s case.

The Miracle

It came to Mary Katherine suddenly, 3 months after the kidnapping, as she was going through Guinness Book of World Records. Even though she was convinced that Richard Ricci was not the kidnapper, Mary kept to her version of the kidnapper’s description that was very different from Mitchell.

It was a picture of a muscular woman that somehow triggered her memory and the right description of Mitchell and, most importantly, his alias, Immanuel.

Immanuel (Mitchell) was not a complete stranger to the Smarts family.

Elizabeth’s mother once took pity and handed $5 to Mitchell, a homeless man stuck outdoors in the cold. That was when Mitchell first saw Elizabeth. At that time, he seemed like a normal guy. No nonsense of being a prophet with a prophecy that somehow self-justified his sick action to rape children. Later, Elizabeth’s father also offered Mitchell odd jobs in the house for a day. A kindness that was taken advantage of as it was likely that Mitchell got the house’s layout from it.

The police ran through their database with misspelled ‘Emmanuel’ and came out with nothing. The police did not release this new information as they only have an alias, and the 3 sketches of Mitchell provided by the Smarts were all different as Mitchell had only been in the house for several hours.

Coincidentally, it was the right decision because Elizabeth was in San Diego.

Only months later, American Most Wanted covered Elizabeth’s case for the 2nd time with the new information. They released Mitchell’s alias and a sketch of him. Ironically, Mitchell was already in prison for unrelated reasons, under a false name, Michael Jenson. The Lakeside police knew that Mitchell was using a false name, but there wasn’t any kidnapping alert on Mitchell.

That was why Mitchell did not return to camp for 6 days, and when he did, he wanted to move. With Elizabeth’s smart move, the 3 of them returned to Salt Lake, where her case was newly rekindled with new information.

It was Mitchell’s sister and Barzee’s son that pinpointed Mitchell after recognizing him from the sketch and description. When the Smarts confirmed that Immanuel was, in fact, Mitchell, American’s Most Wanted released Mitchell’s picture and actual name.

With help from the public, on March 12th, after 9 months in captivity, Elizabeth Smart was finally found and rescued.

Justice

Brian David Mitchell

Mitchell has a history of pedophilia, once exposing his private parts to a child. He was married twice before his 3rd marriage to Wanda Barzee. He was abusive to his children. His very own mother ordered a restraining order against him.

Mitchell’s trial had been delayed repeatedly for 8 years as he was declared incompetent by reason of insanity. He sang and shouted in court, disrupting the trials. The defense used it to reinforce Mitchell’s mental instability and incompetency by saying that it was a psychotic response due to stress.

However, Mitchell’s behavior was inconsistent as in stressful interviews, his singing would fade away when Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist, ignored it. When Mitchell was excused from the courtroom, he would stop singing. It was as if singing was a tool that he used to get out of unfavorable situations. After dozens of interviews, Dr. Welner testified that Mitchell has anti-social personality and pedophilia disorders, but Mitchell is competent to stand trial.

Finally, on December 10th, 2010, Mitchell was found guilty and sentenced to prison in life without the possibility of parole.

Wanda Barzee

Wanda Barzee was no beat-up victim of Mitchell but an accomplice of his. She was controlling, abusive towards Elizabeth and even encouraged Mitchell to rape Elizabeth.

In an interview with Oprah, Barzee’s biological children revealed Barzee’s abusive nature of physically beating them and emotionally depriving them. Barzee also fed her daughter her pet rabbit, trapping the child in guilt. Barzee’s daughter said,

“I think the media portrayed my mother as being a victim of Brian David Mitchell, and I think one of the reasons I wanted to come on this show is to kind of expose her for the monster she is.”

Barzee pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexual assault on Elizabeth and attempted kidnapping on Elizabeth’s cousin. She was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison and another 1 to 15 years in state prison.

After her release from federal prison in 2016, she was supposed to continue serving her time in Utah state prison until 2024, but she was released much earlier than expected. After a review, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole admitted to making the mistake of denying Barzee to credit her time in federal prison in her state charges.

72-year old Barzee was released on September 19th, 2018. She is registered as a sex offender and will be under federal supervision for 5 years.

Aftermath

Elizabeth Smart moved on from this ordeal. It was no easy feat, but she kept her mother’s words close to her heart,

“Don’t give them another second of your life.”

She graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Music and became a child safety activist. She is now happily married to Matthew Gilmour with their 3 children. She has written multiple books, including a memoir of the kidnapping titled ‘My Story.’ In 2017, she produced and narrated a film of her kidnapping titled ‘I am Elizabeth Smart.’

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