You guys got any info on this?
And rather than turn this thread too OT, privately FReepmail me with questions. I"ll answer them the best that I can.
Thompson said his mother for years carried around dolls, pretending they were alive. He said she had also been forcibly removed from a local hospital -- as recently as last year -- "for touching other people's kids."
After "America's Most Wanted" aired a segment about Mitchell as a possible suspect in Elizabeth's disappearance, Thompson contacted police and helped look for his stepfather.
"We just knew it was him," he told The Times. "I've never liked the guy and felt he's always had something to do with this. I'm having a hard time breathing right now."
Long before, Mitchell had lost touch with his Mormon faith. LDS Church records indicate that he and Wanda were excommunicated, said spokesman Michael Otterson.
C. Samuel West, a self-described medical researcher in Orem, allowed the couple to live with him on and off for several months in the late 1990s. During their stay, West says he tried to convince them to return to the LDS Church.
"When I started talking to him about the church, he took off," West said Wednesday.
But some months later Mitchell and his wife returned. This time he was wearing his robes and telling tales of a hand-made cart he pulled across the Golden Gate Bridge. The two called themselves "David" [pronouncing it "Daw-veed"] and "Eliza [pronounced "Ell-is-a"].
West dubbed Mitchell and his wife "my little Israelites," and marveled as they meticulously built a covered wagon on the back porch.
"He felt he was playing the role of Jesus," West said. Mitchell told him that "giving anything to him was like giving it to Jesus."
After several months the Wests could no longer afford to support the Mitchells, and the couple went on their way. That left Mitchell without work, so he turned to panhandling and handyman services.
In August 2001, a kind homemaker employed him for a day -- Elizabeth's mother, Lois Smart.