Free Republic

The woman convicted of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart over two decades ago was arrested Thursday for violating her sex offender probation. Wanda Barzee, who abducted then-14-year-old Smart with her husband Brian David Mitchell in 2002, is accused of illegally ... In 2002, Barzee and Mitchell, who was a street preacher, went through an open window and abducted Smart from her Salt Lake City bedroom at knifepoint. The teen was raped on a near-daily basis, and lived with the couple in run-down homes and campsites in Utah and San Diego. Smart was found nine months later after a good Samaritan saw the...

SALT LAKE CITY – A woman who helped kidnap Elizabeth Smart is living several blocks from a Salt Lake City elementary school following her release from prison in September, according to Utah's sex-offender registry. Wanda Barzee, 73, is listed in the registry as living in an apartment near the school after her initial placement in a halfway house. She was released on parole much earlier than anticipated, despite her refusal to cooperate with mental health professionals while incarcerated. ... She was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2010 after pleading guilty to helping her husband, street preacher Brian David...

Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, the two accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart and holding her for nine months, made their first in-person court appearances Tuesday afternoon. The hearings were held separately. Mitchell and Barzee were not in the courtroom at the same time and did not see each other. Barzee did not say a word during her brief hearing and did not look at the people sitting in the courtroom gallery. But watching her was Barzee's mother, Dora Corbett. "I just wanted to see her and see what's going on," Corbett told reporters outside the courtroom. She said she...