Dad Says Utah Girl 'Brainwashed' by Alleged Captor

Reuters (via Netscape) ^ | 3/13/03 | Sue Pleming

[exile]

I'm sure the girl left voluntarily. After all chicks really dig filthy bearded drifters.

[LWalk18]

When you compare this with the DC sniper case it is amazing how singleminded the police can be.

[Theophilus]

Like Rasputin!

[AppyPappy]

She's been "Brain Washed" all along, by her parents and their religion

Geez, how many Mormons do you know?

[hispanarepublicana]

Brian David Mitchell's family says he has great power over women and especially children.

He looks like THAT and has great power over women?! I like to think I'm kinda cute, and I can't talk a state trooper out of a speeding ticket!! Maybe I'd better get a mirror and re-evaluate...

[Utah Girl]

And your evidence for all these assertions is? Life in Utah is good, we do have problems, but I wouldn't live anywhere else.

[Freedom2specul8]

.

[Redcloak]

Oh! The other Utah Girl. That's very different.

Never mind.

[Fitzcarraldo]

and watches the video of Trouble with Angels?

I submit it's the child's upbringing that predisposed her to be trusting with strangers, especially ones espousing a religious lifestyle.

Not that it's bad, but that upbringing did not include lessons in cautious discernment.

[Utah Girl]

Thanks for your comments. It is a true miracle that Elizabeth is home.

[tracer]

Now, now. Don't spoil this for her (Al's Child)........

[george wythe]

When police first questioned the group at the side of the road, Elizabeth called the couple her parents, Sandy Police Officer Troy Rasmussen said.

"She only admitted right at the last moment," said Sgt. Victor Quezada. "She was very nervous looking, she wouldn't look at us directly."

Daniel Trotta, 24, told The Associated Press that he believed Elizabeth, Mitchell and Barzee had stayed in his basement apartment in Salt Lake City for nearly a week in October. Trotta had befriended Mitchell, a customer at the health-food store where he once worked, and invited the couple and the girl who was with them to stay because they had no home.

Mitchell introduced the girl as his daughter, Trotta said. She said little, always wore a veil and made no effort to escape. Trotta said when he asked once for her name, Mitchell ordered the girl not to respond.

Trotta went to police Sunday after he recognized Mitchell on "America's Most Wanted." He said police dusted his apartment for fingerprints Tuesday. A police spokeswoman could not immediately confirm that officers had been to the apartment

Source

[AppyPappy]

That's because you are brainwashed. Utah is really flat and borders the ocean on one side.

[Alberta's Child]

Why would a 14 year old girl leave voluntarily in the middle of the night with a drifter who had worked 1 day for her family over a year ago?

Why would a normal father with young children bring a strange drifter into the house to do some work for him?

[AppyPappy]

She was very nervous looking, she wouldn't look at us directly."

Trotta said when he asked once for her name, Mitchell ordered the girl not to respond.

Yup. Brainwashed.

[AppyPappy]

He wasn't IN the house. He was on the roof and outside.

[MineralMan]

"Geez, how many Mormons do you know?"

My guess is that he/she knows none at all. But he/she read something somewhere, or heard someone somewhere, say bad things about Mormons. Certainly there are those who preach that the LDS church is evil...right from their pulpits. That would be my guess as to where this attitude came from.

[Theophilus]

she is the innocent Of course!!! Innocent regardless of why. She is a minor. She was kidnapped. But it looks like she left and abided away, willingly - something else is wrong here! This is NOT NORMAL. Her father should not be touted as an expert.

[Alberta's Child]

The police sat on the sketch until the Smarts persuaded (pestered) them to release the sketch.

That fact in and of itself is highly unusual in a missing-persons case, in my opinion.

[AppyPappy]

Yup. He's an expert on them because he doesn't know any. They haven't been able to brainwash him yet.

My neighbors are Mormons and I just know they are beaming thoughts into my head.