Posted on 03/13/2003 9:51:55 AM PST by SarahW
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The drifter suspected of snatching a 15-year-old Utah girl rescued after a nine-month ordeal was described on Thursday as a man who believed he was a prophet and who likely brainwashed the child.
Elizabeth Smart was found alive on Wednesday in what relatives described as a "miracle," and reunited with her family after police received a tip from two people in a store just miles from the girl's home where she was abducted from her bedroom last June.
The teen-ager's father, Ed Smart, told reporters he believed his daughter had been "brainwashed" by her alleged abductor, identified by police as Brian David Mitchell, a street preacher and itinerant who once did work around the Smart's home.
"I can just tell that he (Mitchell) did an absolute brainwashing job on her," Smart told ABC's "Good Morning America."
When police picked up the girl in a car in Sandy, Utah, on Wednesday, she was wearing a white veil. A woman identified as Wanda Barzee was also picked up by police.
No charges have been filed against Mitchell and Barzee and little information has been disclosed about the girl's ordeal.
Smart, who broke down at times, said the man had held his daughter at knifepoint until August in the mountains directly above their Salt Lake City home. Elizabeth heard rescuers calling her name but could not reply.
"It kills me she was there for three months, literally up in the hills (behind our house)," Smart told NBC's "Today" show.
Mitchell's stepsons, Mark and Derrick Thompson, told morning television that Mitchell and their mother, Barzee, had traded an "average life," started wearing white robes and sold their possessions to live on the street to preach and panhandle.
Mitchell's stepdaughter, Louree Gayler, said she moved out of their home in her early teens.
"Brian was always hugging me the wrong way and kissing on me and I just didn't like it over there. So I went and moved back with my dad and I haven't seen my mom since," Gayler said on morning television.
After hearing of Smart's disappearance and reports their stepfather might be involved, the Thompson brothers said they had a "gut feeling" Mitchell had taken the little girl and they scoured homeless shelters for them.
They described a bizarre life with their stepfather who had told them he was a prophet and spoke continuously of talking to angels.
Ed Smart said his daughter spent her first night back at home with family members holding them close and watching her favorite video, "The Trouble with Angels."
Investigators renewed their search for Mitchell last month based on descriptions by Elizabeth's younger sister, Mary Catherine, of the intruder who took Elizabeth away at gunpoint for their bedroom.
Smart said the reunion between the two sisters had been particularly poignant.
"It was just tears and hugs. As they fell asleep, they were hand in hand in bed. It was just the thing that I had hoped for and looked forward to," he told ABC.
That's very true.
hawk
In November, the Kirkland Police Department and the King County Sheriff's Office began investigating a letter found at a Kirkland convenience store indicating Smart was alive and in this area.SourceSheriff's Sgt. Kevin Fagerstrom said the note appeared to have been written by a girl living in the Firloch neighborhood in the Kingsgate area. The note, Fagerstrom said, indicated Smart was staying with this girl and was "safe and well and did not wish to be reunited with her family, but wanted her parents to know that she was safe."
"There was just enough of a hint of sincerity and a hint of maturity that we felt it couldn't be ignored," Fagerstrom said.
Why not? The moment this story hit the news (at the family's insistence, BTW), it became fit for public consumption and speculation. If nobody wants me to speculate about the specifics of a case, then shut off the damned "amber alert" system and don't bother me when I drive down the highway.
To repeat what I said in my first post, this is going to be an interesting criminal trial indeed.
And to expand on what I said in a later post, there are a few "catch phrases" that grab my attention in any kind of criminal case. They include such things as "hate crime," "brainwash," "voices told me," "he was in the church choir," "he was going to be a doctor " (this for someone who is 17 years old and still in seventh grade), etc.
D&C 132:61-62 61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood-if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else. 62 And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.
Sure. It's called relief. Now, you've seen Elizabeth Smart exactly how much since she got back? I've seen just a couple of photos. So, you have no basis on which to judge her mental state, do you? So why judge it at all? Why not STFU and wait to see what happens?
I agree; Elizabeth's mental status (and quality of interaction with her family) after two weeks would be a better indicator of her true condition than now. I certainly wish all of them the best.
A person who has been truly "brainwashed" does not feel relief immediately upon rescue.....he or she feels fear and confusion. "Brainwashing" doesn't just disappear. It has to be undone. Apparently the authorities didn't find the need for any such "undoing" before releasing Elizabeth to the care of her family. I've seen three photos of Elizabeth since her homecoming.....one of her smiling as she gets into a car with her mother, one of her smiling in her parents arms at the end of the driveway and one of her smiling as she holds her brother on a sofa. In all of those photos, Elizabeth appears relaxed and joyous. Why the defensiveness?
Mitchell's relatives have described him as a self-proclaimed prophet and outdoorsman who has lived in a teepee in mountains outside the city.source
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