Elizabeth Smart Reuninted with Her Mother**picture***

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE ^ | March 13, 2003 | Elizabeth Neff

[Kentucky]

Police found Elizabeth Smart alive and in the company of a transient panhandler Wednesday, some nine months after she disappeared from her Salt Lake City home. Sandy police located Elizabeth in the suburb with Brian David Mitchell, who had worked odd jobs for the Smarts for five hours in November 2001 and was wanted for questioning. Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse said investigators are convinced Elizabeth was kidnapped, and released the name of Wanda Eileen Barzee as a second suspect in the crime.

[utahagen]

I think you (impliedly) answered your own question by mentioning you'd thought Elizabeth was 10 or 11. Photos and videos of (pre-kidnapping) Elizabeth reveal a girl who had not started puberty: at five foot six, she was only 100 pounds and flat chested. She looked two or three years younger than many of us are used to seeing 14 years olds look like. Plus she was clearly childlike (as opposed to adoloscent): she didn't even have pierced ears and her favorite activity was playing the harp. A guiless young girl who is obedient by nature and upbringing is traumatically taken from her bed in the middle of the night. Perhaps the kidnapper told her, "If you escape from us, friends near your parents' house will grab your sister." Why wouldn't she believe this could happen, given that the guy had managed to kidnap her?

[utahagen]

Prekidnapping photos of Elizabeth show a flat-chested girl. At the time of the kidnapping, Elizabeth was 5 foot, six inches and only 100 pounds. Thin girls, particualrly thin white girls, develop later than other girls. This is because the lower the body fat, the lower the estrogen.

[stands2reason]

Unfortunately, I don't think the Smarts or the police like this outcome and will repress it. It is always easier to execute a street person than for the Smarts to admit there was a problem at home.

As you can see, it doesn't matter what facts come out, as there is already a "coverup" in the making...

[MHT]

Was the Utah execution in question that of Gary Gilmore?

[marktuoni]

My life experiences are that people of this guy's ilk are usually either insane or criminal!

Charity is fine...but to bring these people into your HOME with children is ignorant at best!

[marktuoni]

As I write....sounds like Rush agrees.

To attack Sensenbrenner is an odd thing for the father to do!

[Hildy]

But you have to understand that your life experiences aren't the same as Mrs. Smart. She probably grew up in SLC, member of the Church, never experienced crime or the evil things people do. She did what the teaching of her Church dictated. I'm sure she kicks herself on a daily basis.

[Hildy]

I don't think so. He feels passionately. He's been living this nightmare for 9 months. It's all he thinks about. When you have no control over something, you look for things you can control. Lobbying for this Amber Alert thing was the only thing he was able to do. You just can't TURN IT OFF.

[marktuoni]

I'll meet you half way. I pity her for her ignorance....may it be a lesson to any who would do the same!

[Hildy]

Amen to that.

[stlnative]

Ed Smart is on TV now...

Says it was not a gun but a knife and the screen was cut from the outside. She also was held up in mountains until August. She heard people calling for her. She did not have knowledge of the "massive" search that was going on for her.

[Mamzelle]

re: To attack Sensenbrenner is an odd thing for the father to do! )))

Yup. Goofy. I missed Rush's comment, anything other than that?

[Spiff]

“News of the Church,” Ensign, May 2001, 110 Church leaders have called on members, news organizations, and others to use the Church’s full and correct name—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—and to avoid use of the terms “Mormon Church” or “LDS Church.”

Avoid. Not dis-avow. Not stop. As in, use the term "Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints" in favor of "Mormon Church" or "LDS Church".

There is no "Mormon Church" except for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We don't have different denominations or sects or groups or whatever. If you leave, you are apostate, you are no longer a Mormon. I know there are various flavors of Baptist, Lutheran, etc. There are not various flavors of Mormon. There are people in sects and cults of their own design who are now ex-Mormons because they no longer hold membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[stlnative]

Ed Smart says the family is not pressuring her to talk about what happened to her over the last 9 months. He feels it will all come out when she is ready. He wants privacy for his daughter before she comes out and makes a statement. So eventually she may come out in public to talk about it.

[homeschool mama]

Agreed. My daughter is almost 13 and fits the description you share exactly.

[The Coopster]

Well, it won't be a court-sponsered execution.

Put him in GP........

[AppyPappy]

Q: How recent were the pictures to the kidnapping?

[Mamzelle]

re: a mother who routinely has homeless men come into her home in some sort of act of charity)))

Is this indeed the assertion? Is it now bad mother-hood to hire handymen, plumbers, electricians, landscapers....? The incident has indeed made me think twice about who I hire, and another reason to do things myself, but we are not allowed police or mental health dossiers on the past lives of every kind of household help.

[RecentConvert]

BTW, what are you a "RecentConvert" to or from?

I just came up with this screen name randomly. But if you ask me what I've been converted to, I'd say to paleo-conservatism over last few years. Nothing religious, although I love Mormons for their close-knitness, large families and convictions despite all attempts here at disparaging and deriding them.

[Iwo Jima]

I told you that I didn't think that there was a gun. I also don't think that there was a knife. I don't think that there was an abduction. I even question if there was an intruder or if Elizabeth didn't just walk out the open garage door.

I have said some harsh things about the police that I am now re-thinking and may have to take back. I have also said a few things about Ed Smart that may be proven to be inaccurate if events unfold as I think that they might.