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.
Geez, how many Mormons do you know?
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...
Never mind.
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.
When police first questioned the group at the side of the road, Elizabeth called the couple her parents, Sandy Police Officer Troy Rasmussen said.Source"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
Why would a normal father with young children bring a strange drifter into the house to do some work for him?
Trotta said when he asked once for her name, Mitchell ordered the girl not to respond.
Yup. Brainwashed.
That fact in and of itself is highly unusual in a missing-persons case, in my opinion.
My neighbors are Mormons and I just know they are beaming thoughts into my head.
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