Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart

On June 5, 2002, a 14-year-old girl named Elizabeth Ann Smart was kidnapped by Brian David Mitchell from her home in the Federal Heights neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah. She was held captive by Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, and later, in San Diego County, California. Her captivity lasted approximately nine months before she was discovered in Sandy, Utah, approximately 18 miles (29 km) from her home.

Smart was abducted at knife-point by Mitchell, while her younger sister, Mary Katherine, pretended to be asleep. Mitchell, who claimed to be a religious preacher, held Smart at a camp in the woods with Barzee, where he repeatedly raped her. During her captivity, Smart accompanied her captors in public on various occasions dressed head-to-toe in white robes and went largely unrecognized by those she came in contact with.

After her rescue, Smart became an advocate for missing persons and victims of sexual assault. Barzee was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in 2009 for her role in the abduction, although she was granted early release on September 19, 2018, for previously uncredited time served. Mitchell was diagnosed by forensic psychologists as having antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders. Extensive disputes over his competence to stand trial lasted several years before he was deemed mentally capable in 2010; Mitchell was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in 2011.

Backgrounds of the kidnappers

Brian David Mitchell was born on October 18, 1953, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the third of six children in a family belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). His mother was a teacher and his father was a social worker. In order to teach Mitchell about sex, his father reportedly showed his adolescent son explicit photos from a medical journal, and, in order to teach him about independence, would drive him to unfamiliar parts of the city, drop him off, and leave him to find his way back home.

At age 16, Mitchell exposed himself to a child and was sent to a juvenile hall. At age 19, he married sixteen-year-old Karen Minor, with whom he had two children. After their divorce, Minor was awarded custody of both children, after which Mitchell temporarily fled with the children to New Hampshire. He resided there for two years, joining a Hare Krishna commune.

Mitchell had a history of drug and alcohol abuse in his adult life; upon returning to Salt Lake City, he was inspired to seek sobriety by his brother, who had recently returned from an LDS Church mission. In Salt Lake City, Mitchell had two additional children with his second wife, Debbie, who herself had three children from a previous marriage. Debbie alleged that Mitchell was abusive during their marriage, and they divorced in 1984. After their separation, Debbie alleged that Mitchell had sexually abused their three-year-old son; the claim could not be medically confirmed, but Mitchell's future visitations with his children were ordered to be supervised by the Division of Child and Family Services. One of Debbie's daughters from her previous marriage would later claim that Mitchell had sexually abused her for four years.

On the day his divorce from Debbie was finalized, Mitchell married Wanda Elaine Barzee (b. November 6, 1945, in Salt Lake City), a then-40-year-old divorcée with six children. Barzee had a troubled relationship with her children; one of her daughters would later refer to her as a "monster," and she also claimed that when she was a child, Barzee fed her pet rabbit to her for dinner.

Together, Mitchell and Barzee became actively involved in the LDS Church. Eventually Mitchell began going by the name "Immanuel David Isaiah," claiming to be a prophet of God who experienced visions. The name relates to Mitchell's belief that he was the "Davidic Servant" spoken of in Avraham Gileadi's book The Literary Message of Isaiah. For this, the two were excommunicated from the church in absentia in June 2002. Barzee began going by the name "Hephzibah Eladah Isaiah" and the two would panhandle and preach in downtown Salt Lake City. Mitchell presented himself in an image that was akin to the image of Jesus, dressing in white robes and tunics, and growing a beard.

Abduction

In the early hours of June 5, 2002, Mitchell broke into the home of Ed and Lois Smart in the Federal Heights neighborhood of Salt Lake City, where they lived with their six children. He abducted fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart from the bedroom she shared with her nine-year-old sister, Mary Katherine. Mary Katherine was awakened but pretended to be asleep, and later reported that:

• The man was white, about the height of her brother Charles (5 ft 8 in; 172 cm), about 30 – 40 years of age, and wearing light-colored clothes and a golf hat (he was in fact actually wearing black, did not have a golf hat, and was 48 years of age).
• The man had dark hair, and also had dark hair on his arms and on the backs of his hands.
• The man threatened Elizabeth with a knife (which 9-year-old Mary Katherine thought was a gun at the time).
• She never got a good look at the man's face, a fact kept secret by the police during the investigation.
• When Elizabeth said "ouch" after stubbing her toe on a chair, the man said something that sounded to her like "You better be quiet, and I won't hurt you."
• When her sister Elizabeth asked "Why are you doing this?" the man's reply was not clear to her, but Mary Katherine thought he may have said "for ransom."
• The man was calm and soft-spoken‍—‍even polite‍—‍and nicely dressed.
• The man's voice seemed somehow familiar to her, despite his having spoken quietly to her sister Elizabeth throughout; however at the time, though she tried, Mary Katherine was unable to pinpoint the circumstances under which she might have heard it.

When she thought Elizabeth and the abductor had gone, Mary Katherine attempted to go to her parents' bedroom, but only narrowly avoided being seen by Mitchell and Elizabeth, who were outside the bedroom of the family's boys. She crept back into her bed, where she hid for an undetermined time‍—‍possibly over two hours. Just before 4:00 a.m. Mary Katherine woke her parents and told them what had happened, but thinking she had been dreaming, her parents did not believe her until they found a window screen that had been cut with a knife.

Search and investigation

On June 6, 2002, Ed and Lois went on television and pleaded for the kidnapper to return their daughter.

A massive regional search effort, organized by the Laura Recovery Center, involved up to 2,000 volunteers each day, as well as dogs and planes. Various websites carried flyers that could be printed or circulated via the internet. After many days of intensive searching, the community-led search was ended and efforts were directed to other means of finding Elizabeth.

Mary Katherine's observations were of little use, and there was little usable evidence found at the scene such as fingerprints or DNA. A search using bloodhounds was unsuccessful. Police questioned and interviewed hundreds of potential suspects including a 26-year-old who was cleared after being located in a West Virginia hospital. The investigation had the side effect of returning several at-large criminals to prison, but Elizabeth was not found.

The Salt Lake City police considered Richard Ricci a person of interest early in the investigation. Ricci was a handyman with a history of drug abuse who had worked for the Smarts; he had been jailed on an unrelated parole violation prior. Ricci died of a brain hemorrhage in August 2002.

To keep Elizabeth's name in the press, her family used a variety of strategies, including making a website about her abduction and providing home videos.

Captivity

After her kidnapping, Mitchell repeatedly told Smart that she was blessed that this was happening to her, and that she should be thankful, though Smart refused to believe him. Mitchell forced Smart to walk four miles in her red pajamas into the woods to an encampment outside of Salt Lake City, where she was met by Wanda Barzee. According to Smart's testimony, Barzee "eventually just proceeded to wash my feet and told me to change out of my pajamas into a robe type of garment. And when I refused, she said if I didn't, she would have Brian Mitchell come rip my pajamas off. I put the robe on. He came and performed a ceremony, which was to marry me to him. After that, he proceeded to rape me many times." Mitchell claimed to be an angel and he also told Smart that he was a Davidic King who would "emerge in seven years, be stoned by a mob, lie dead in the streets for three days and then rise up and kill the Antichrist." Smart, he insisted, was the first of many virgin brides he planned to kidnap, each of whom would accompany him as he battled the Antichrist.