GUILTY UT - Brian Mitchell & Wanda Barzee for kidnapping, Salt Lake City, 5 June 2002

[Skeptic in Texas]

This whole story stinks... and has from the very beginning. If Ed is so concerned about Elizabeth being traumatized by a trial then why didn't he talk to the DA about that back in March of 03 when the DA was filing charges? All they had to do was say that they would not let Elizabeth testify and the DA probably wouldn't have even filed the sexual assault charges and no one would have officially known what (alledgedly) happened. But Ed let them go ahead and do it. Now, after numerous interviews, a movie, and a book, all of which had the effect of reminding her of the experience, they're concerned about her well being.

In my opinion, from the moment the Police tried to rescue Elizabeth off the streets, and she resisited them for 45 minutes (she took on three different cops), she has acted like an accomplice rather than a victim.

Ed doesn't want her on the stand because he fears that she will break under cross examination and tell the real story.

 

[Casshew]

Ed doesn't want her on the stand because he fears that she will break under cross examination and tell the real story.

I do not agree with this statement, but welcome to WS anyway

 

[Sudzi]

This whole story stinks... and has from the very beginning. If Ed is so concerned about Elizabeth being traumatized by a trial then why didn't he talk to the DA about that back in March of 03 when the DA was filing charges? All they had to do was say that they would not let Elizabeth testify and the DA probably wouldn't have even filed the sexual assault charges and no one would have officially known what (alledgedly) happened. But Ed let them go ahead and do it. Now, after numerous interviews, a movie, and a book, all of which had the effect of reminding her of the experience, they're concerned about her well being.
.

Telling a stroy in interviews, movies, and books is different than sitting before a court room at a trial. I can fully understand why Ed wants to keep Elizabeth out of the courtroom.
It's much more traumatic to open yourself to whatever questions are asked than it is to sit for an interview, or advise on a movie where you can stop and walk out if the questions go someplace you don't want to go.

 

[Newswolf]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBPBJPS66E.html

The man charged with kidnapping teenager Elizabeth Smart was kicked out of his mental competency trial Friday after he began singing a religious hymn, the fourth time he has been removed from hearings for singing.
As Brian David Mitchell was led away, he shouted, "He mocks and scorns the son of God. ... You know I speak the truth. You know I speak the truth."
The hearing then resumed with defense expert Stephen Golding testifying that Mitchell has become increasingly more mentally disturbed and unfit for trial...

 

[nicbok]

This whole story stinks... and has from the very beginning....
In my opinion, from the moment the Police tried to rescue Elizabeth off the streets, and she resisited them for 45 minutes (she took on three different cops), she has acted like an accomplice rather than a victim.

It's fairly classic Stockholm Syndrome, and there have been several similar cases where the victim has become so used to behaving a certain way to save her own life that she can't just break away from that in an instant.

 

[nicbok]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

 

[nicbok]

This is also a good link, well wriiten articles, and explains how the Stockholm Symndrome often interplays with a man & woman abduction team. I think this is exactly what happened to Elizabeth Smart. http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/hybristophilia.htm

The case is quite similar to Cameron and Janice Hooker. It was a VERY famous case at the time and it wouldn't surprise me if Elizabeth's was a somewhat copycat crime. Note that they took Elizabeth to California - which is where the Hookers held Colleen Stan

 

[stlouischili]

I think Elizabeth Smart was deprogrammed awfully quickly for someone who had Stockholm Syndrome. It is my understanding that people who have truly suffered from this have taken months of therapy to recover. If I recall correctly, Elizabeth, according to her father, was back to her old self, playing the harp and modeling new clothes for her family within hours of her return.

 

[Casshew]

Children are really resilient with minds like sponges, perhaps adult stockholm syndrome is much more complicated to 'deprogramme'?

 

[Bhodirasta]

I would like to bump this up. I have never really really followed the case before (websleuths style) but I would like to try and figure some of this out. I don't beleive she had stockholm syndrome. I beleive that Elizabeth was taught to listen to Mormon authority figures without question. She was taught this from the time she could walk. Mitchell had a "knack" as some will say for enrapting his "followers". He would preach on the sidewalks in Salt Lake. His old girlfriend even said that there was "something about him" that made her just sit there and listen, and she said that if she was as young as Elizabeth was, she doesn't think she would have ever left...

I think she was brainwashed, but not only by Mitchell, but by her family as well.

 

[CaliKid]

This whole situation is just sad. Elizabeth seems like a nice girl, and as a parent I can see not wanting to have her life put on trial. But I also don't think Mitchell and Barzee should get off on a deal.

 

[Bhodirasta]

I just heard my favourite program on radio. THIS AMERICAN LIFE on NPR.
As I have said, I didn't follow this case WS style..

On of the acts on the Life (there are usually 4) featured Salt Lake city Mormons. One of the family members that was so close to Elizabeth, as well as the gal that saw her at the party, and told her that she looked "familliar". (she was in her white veil). It was VERY INTERESTING that all of these people actually KNEW that this man Mitchell had "taken on" another wife. They turned their heads. The family that grew up just a block from Elizabeth (a boy, now seventeen that went to school with her) saw Mitchell with his new wife, and didn't say anything. The gal who saw her at the party, KNEW that this was his new wife, and actually said "I didn't think anything of it" My favourite part of the story was this...

Mitchell was no boogy man. The boogy man hides under your bed and jumps out and attacks you- he is mean and he is a MONSTER. Mitchell was no "monster". And somehow he figured out how to trick an entire town because when people see something they don't like, or feel pity for, they simply turn thier heads. Mitchell knew this, and he held power over the entire land with this knowledge.......................


The trail will not go through, because of embarassment- the actual FACT that these people KNEW he had taken on a plural wife, a plural wife so young that it would constitute pedophilia- but yet, the town turned its head.


Wasn't it 1973???

 

[wordsnmorewords]

Widow of Kidnapping Suspect Sues Police Investigator

<snips> Angela Ricci alleged in the suit filed Friday that Cory Mack Lyman fingered Richard Ricci to avoid allegations of incompetence and to "satisfy the public's need to identify a suspect" in the high-profile abduction -- even though no evidence linked the handyman to the crime.

Ricci, an ex-convict who had done odd jobs for the Smart family at their home, came under suspicion after then-14-year-old Elizabeth was kidnapped on June 5, 2002. He was returned to prison on an alleged parole violation and died of a cerebral hemorrhage on Aug. 30, 2002.

She reached a $150,000 settlement last year with the Corrections Department, which denied any wrongdoing. Her lawsuit against the police department is pending. <snips>

 

[solosamtheman]

Ya know, I have researched, very diligently, some cases like this one and to tell ya the truth as much as I wanna look at Elizabeth Smart as a kidnap victim I am having a real problem makin some of the pieces fit the puzzle. There are too many things that just, are not making any sense. I kinda wanna say she was just out for an adventure knowing that she wouldn't get into any trouble and as a matter of fact, take her cousin with her. For some 3 days she was within yelling distance of her home and later she assisted her "kidnapper in an abduction attemp on her cousin but they had switched the childrens rooms around since elizabeth had been gone and it didn't work. When she was found she said "I'm not that elizabeth smart girl you're lookin for". Lot of mystery around the whole thing and she played music for guests what, 2 or three days after she was found? I'm just a country boy somebodies gonna have to explain that one.

 

[Sprocket]

One of my big questions has always been,

Why hasn't the original 911 tape been released to the public?

 

[solosamtheman]

think about this....they never ID'd the guy who was with ricci and they never figured out where ricci was for that 6 or 7 days. I think ricci was helping Smart's so-called kidnappers. Remember dirt all over the jeep? and bags being removed from the jeep at the repair shop by ricci and an unidetified guy? Where was he?

 

[therunner]

Hey does everybody with Websleuths believe everybody is guilty. This poor guy is dead and was lock up because of bad police work. What if that was you. People here have too much time on there hands.

I'm here trying to help a poor family whoses daughter was murdered. I need your help but hey get a life.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

I don't know if she'll be successful this time around, or even if she's justified, but I sure understand her desire to sue over false allegations.

 

[Sprocket]

Hey does everybody with Websleuths believe everybody is guilty. This poor guy is dead and was lock up because of bad police work. What if that was you. People here have too much time on there hands.

I'm here trying to help a poor family whoses daughter was murdered. I need your help but hey get a life.

What an interesting post.

 

[jannuncutt]

I don't know if she'll be successful this time around, or even if she's justified, but I sure understand her desire to sue over false allegations.

I hope that she sues and wins. The police villianized her husband. IMO he would be alive today if the police hadn't falsely accused him and locked him up.