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.
Feminized male syndrome?
Assuming she was brainwashed by a self proclaimed prophet, perhaps it is more likely that she was not sexually abused. I dearly hope that is the case.
I know a woman who--under the umbrella of "her Christian charitable ways" has taken under her wing (and defended and forced her loved ones to hire, tolerate, or otherwise deal with) every loser that comes her way--she's like a magnet. And, they're not neccessarily homeless bums--they're people that through their own fault have burned relationship bridges and have no friends due to their own weird idiosyncrasies, people who keep losing jobs because they're prima donnas, teenagers with attitude that just need a good kick in the a55, etc. Most of these people have turned around and taken advantage not only of her, but of everyone else in her life that she's forced these "projects" of hers upon.
Ed Smart indicated he had not pressed his daughter on the details of her ordeal. He said that her abductor carried a knife rather than a gun, and that Elizabeth was kept in the mountains near her home though August.source
Wasn't it her mother who brought him into the home in the first place? Maybe extremely naive, bleeding hearts who believe homeless are just down on their luck, plus some of these weird mentally ill people have some kind of charisma even if the look weird to less susceptible kinds.
You're making the assumption that the way he looks today is the way he looked back then. He may have been clean-shaven back then, because we've seen a picture of him that way.
Michael
But the father is using the word "brainwashed", he isn't saying that Elizabeth was held against her will by guns.
Have you not seen the picture of the guy clean-shaven? Don't make the assumption that the way he looks today is the way he looked last summer.
Michael
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