Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart

On the day Mitchell and Debbie's divorce was finalized, he married Wanda Elaine Barzee (b. November 6, 1945, in Salt Lake City), a then-forty-year-old divorcee with six children.

Barzee had a troubled relationship with her children; one of her daughters would later refer to her as a "monster," and she also claimed that when she was a child, Wanda fed her pet rabbit to her for dinner.

Together, Mitchell and Barzee were actively involved in the LDS Church.

Eventually Mitchell began going by the name "Immanuel," claiming to be a prophet of God who experienced visions.

For this, he was excommunicated from the church.

Barzee began going by the name "Hephzibah," and the two would panhandle and preach in downtown Salt Lake City.

Mitchell presented himself in an image that was akin to the image of Jesus, dressing in white robes and tunics, and growing a beard.

One of Smart's abductors, Brian David Mitchell, was born on October 18, 1953, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the third of six children in a Mormon family.

His mother was a teacher and his father was a social worker.

In order to teach Mitchell about sex, his father reportedly showed his adolescent son explicit photos from a medical journal, and, in order to teach him about independence, he would drive Mitchell to unfamiliar parts of Salt Lake City, and drop him off, leaving him to find his way home.

At age 16, Mitchell exposed himself to a child, and was sent to a juvenile hall.

At nineteen, he married sixteen-year-old Karen Minor, with whom he had two children.

After their divorce, Minor was awarded custody of both children, after which Mitchell temporarily fled with the children to New Hampshire.

He resided in New Hampshire for two years, where he joined a Hare Krishna commune.

Mitchell had a history of drug and alcohol abuse in his adult life; upon returning to Salt Lake City, he was inspired to seek sobriety by his brother, who had recently returned from a mission.

In Salt Lake City, Mitchell had two additional children with his second wife, Debbie, who herself had three children from a previous marriage.

Debbie alleged that Mitchell was abusive during their marriage, and they divorced in 1984.

After their separation, Debbie alleged that Mitchell had sexually abused their three-year-old son; the claim could not be medically confirmed, but Mitchell's future visitations with his children were ordered to be supervised by the Division of Child and Family Services.

One of Debbie's daughters from her previous marriage would later claim that Mitchell had sexually abused her for four years.

Elizabeth Ann Smart was kidnapped at age fourteen on June 5, 2002, by Brian Mitchell from her home in the Federal Heights neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah.

She was held captive by Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, and later, in San Diego County, California.

Her captivity lasted approximately nine months before she was discovered in Sandy, Utah, approximately 18 mi from her home.

Smart was abducted from her home at knife-point by Mitchell, while her younger sister, Mary Katherine, pretended to be asleep.

Mitchell, who claimed to be a religious preacher, held Smart at a camp in the woods with Barzee, where he repeatedly raped her.

During her captivity, Smart accompanied her captors in public on various occasions dressed head-to-toe in white robes and went largely unrecognized by those she came in contact with.

Since her abduction and rescue, Smart has become an advocate for missing persons and victims of sexual assault.

In the early hours of June 5, 2002, Mitchell broke into the home of Ed and Lois Smart in the Federal Heights neighborhood of Salt Lake City, where they lived with their six children.

He abducted 14-year-old Elizabeth from the bedroom she shared with Mary Katherine, Elizabeth's nine-year-old sister.

Mary Katherine was awakened but pretended to be asleep, and later reported that:

When she thought Elizabeth and the abductor had gone, Mary Katherine attempted to go to her parents' bedroom, but only narrowly avoided being seen by Mitchell and Elizabeth, who were outside the bedroom of the family's boys.

She crept back into her bed, where she hid for an undetermined time—possibly over two hours.

Just before 4:00a.m. Mary Katherine woke her parents and told them what had happened, but thinking she had been dreaming, her parents did not believe her until they found a window screen that had been cut with a knife.

On June 6, 2002, Ed and Lois went on television and pleaded for the kidnapper to return their daughter.

A massive regional search effort, organized by the Laura Recovery Center, involved up to 2,000 volunteers each day, as well as dogs and planes.

Various websites carried flyers that could be printed or circulated via internet.

After many days of intensive searching, the community-led search was ended and efforts were directed to other means of finding Elizabeth.

Extensive disputes over his competence to stand trial lasted several years before he was deemed mentally capable in 2010.

Mitchell was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2011.

Barzee was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in 2009 for her role in the kidnapping and abduction, although she was granted early release on September 19, 2018, for previously uncredited time served.

Mitchell was diagnosed by forensic psychologists as having antisocial and narcissistic personality disorder.