The fact is, she did do it. AND the fact is, she may not do the crime again, I am sure there a a lot of people who do not want this person near thier communities.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/03/13/life.after.kidnapping/
"There's no question at the time of the abduction she was in fear, and was fearful for a period of time," said Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse.
He also said the fact that she was walking around with the couple in an area where she might have been able to escape indicted that they had some sort of psychological control over her.
Patricia Hearst Shaw understands what that is like. She was a college student when she was kidnapped from her apartment in 1974, imprisoned in a closet, sexually assaulted and forced to participate in a bank robbery before being freed.
"You have been so abused and so robbed of your free will and so frightened that you come to a point that you believe any lie that your abductor has told you. You don't feel safe. You think that either you will be killed if you reach out for help, or you believe your family will be killed," said Hearst."You've, in a way, given up, you've absorbed the new identity they've given you. You're surviving -- you're not even doing that � you're just living while everything else is going on around you," she said.
Hearst said that for some time after Elizabeth is back with her family she may still believe "her kidnappers have some sort control over her."
Hearst said she didn't feel free until she faced her abductors in court and "knew for sure that they could never, ever hurt me again."
Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart, also believes his daughter was brainwashed. He and his family have not pressed her for details to spare her further trauma.
The Patty Hearst conviction struck me as a flagrant miscarriage of justice at the time, so much so that had I been the judge I'd have set the jury verdict aside without a second's hesitation. You had a case in which a very naiive 20-year old girl had been subjected to techniques which broke down trained soldiers in the Korean war and the criteria of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was clearly not met.
The cases of Homolka and Smart are entirely similar. They walk around entraped in whatever it is ignoring obvious chances to escape, and this is incomprehensible to most people but, at some point, the control had become internalized.
Homolka's words on her interview last night tell much of the story:
Napier: You said a few minutes ago that you will always have to live with what you did. Do you feel any remorse?Homolka: Yes.
Napier: How does it manifest itself, that remorse?
Homolka: I cry often. I can't forgive myself. I think about what I did and often I think I don't deserve to be happy because of what I did.
Napier: How do you judge now what you did? When you think about it, how do you judge yourself?
Homolka: What I did was terrible and I was in a situation where I was unable to see clearly, where I was unable to ask for help. Where I was completely overwhelmed in my life and I regret it enormously because now I know I had the power to stop all of that. But when I was living through it, I thought I had no power.