TheHorns, Please accept my condolences on your wife being kidnapped! Who knew? ... I hope that she is back, safe and sound, with you.
Yeah, someone gets kidnapped by stranger, gets killed within a matter of days usually a matter of hours. That's actually what the statistics show, recovery almost never happens. And yes I am happy she returned. I'm glad she wasn't found slain.
Interesting piece in the NYTimes about the couple that Elizabeth was found with: Family Member Describes Utah Couple's Downward Spiral By MICHAEL JANOFSKY In their early years, Brian D. Mitchell had been a jewelry designer and Wanda Barzee an accomplished pianist who knew Tchaikovsky and Beethoven and once played the Mormon Tabernacle Choir organ. They met at their Mormon church. He was in drug rehabilitation for a heroin problem, two of Ms. Barzee's sons said yesterday. But later, as their lives and families began spinning apart, Mr. Mitchell and Ms. Barzee, who married, shared more meager lives in Salt Lake City, moving from apartment to apartment, scraping by on what they could earn from various odd jobs and other low-paying jobs. Then Mr. Mitchell began hearing voices, his stepson Mark Thompson recalled in an interview yesterday. "He said prophets were starting to talk to him," Mr. Thompson said. "They told him to sell all his worldly possessions, and he did." And so began, as Mr. Thompson and his brother, Derrick, described it, a downward spiral for the couple. Yesterday they were taken into custody after the police in Sandy, Utah, found them with Elizabeth Smart, the teenager who was abducted from her bedroom in Salt Lake City nine months ago. The Smart family knew Mr. Mitchell as a handyman who called himself Emmanuel and once worked for them, raking leaves and fixing a roof. As Elizabeth was reunited with her family, the authorities said Mr. Mitchell, 49, and Ms. Barzee, 56, would be charged with kidnapping. Mark Thompson, 32, said he was not surprised that investigators now believe that his stepfather was responsible for the kidnapping. He recalled a scene some years ago, when he and Derrick, 33, and their sister, Lou Ree, 27, were still living with their mother and Mr. Mitchell. Lou Ree, who was about 14 at the time, could bear it no longer, he said, and left to live with her father. Mr. Thompson said Lou Ree at 14 looked a lot like Elizabeth Smart, who was 14 when she was abducted. "I was there the day Mom found out" Lou Ree was gone, Mr. Thompson said. "She started screaming, kicking things. She didn't blame anybody, but she was angry and very unhappy. I figure, Brian just tried to get her another child. Who knows, he's so out there." Once Lou Ree left, the family unit crumbled, the brothers said, with Mr. Mitchell sliding into a world of fundamentalist Mormonism, writing his own bible, launching into unsolicited sermons to anyone who might listen, locking the family television to stations only he wished to watch. After Lou Ree, Derrick and Mark moved to live with friends; three other siblings had also left. "I'd come home and he'd be praying, every night for two hours," Mark Thompson said. Derrick Thompson remembered the couple "doing seances around their bed and talking to God." After the instructions to sell everything they owned, Mark Thompson said, the couple began wandering downtown streets, panhandling, spending winter nights in shelters and summer nights in a tepee they pitched in the mountains. "They shot animals, skinned them and ate them," he said. As the years went on, contact with their mother and stepfather grew less frequent. Once, Mark Thompson said, his mother called him at work, an optical laboratory. "I started crying," he said. "She told me she wanted to let me know she was doing fine." "I told her not to forget about her family," Mr. Thompson said. "But she slowly weeded us out of the family. We've had almost no contact with her at all since 1993 or 1994. We had no way to call her. There's no way to contact the homeless. No way." Last month, a police composite sketch in the Smart case appeared on the television program "America's Most Wanted." Mark, Derrick and Lou Ree all saw it and recognized the face as their stepfather's. They contacted the authorities. The brothers began looking for Mr. Mitchell and their mother in homeless shelters around Salt Lake City, certain that Mr. Mitchell was involved in the kidnapping. "We just knew it was him," Mark Thompson said. "I've never liked the guy and felt he's always had something to do with this. I'm having a hard time breathing right now."
Actually, I saw an article yesterday that said that most kidnapped kids are returned safely. Lemme find it. Here it is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17185-2003Mar12.html
My question from the beginning has been why in the world the family (who seem rather wealthy) would hire a drifter to work at their home, especially considering they had 2 young daughters.
Hammer, Maybe they were trying to help out the homeless. They seem very religious, and charity begins at home. DD
I find that to be somewhat misleading. The reason being, most kidknappings are by family members or some one who the child knows and usually deal with a custody battle. Now, if there was a stat about the % of kidknappings by strangers I think the numbers would be dramatically different. That was the second homeless / drifter they hired. The other guy who died in jail who was thought to be the man had a strikingly similar story.
Good point, I never thought of that. But still, while it is a very charitable gesture, the safety of my family would be first and foremost in my concerns.
That's because they are usually kidnapped by family members, you should look at people kidnapped by strangers, BTW, I guess this guy wasn't completely a stranger.
Lots of rich people with pool houses or extra space do this, its not that abnormal. Even O.J. had a homeless p*rn star living in his pool house.
Also, I think the cost of living in Utah is not as high as it is in say...Austin, so you can have a bigger house for less money. If I am not mistaken. DD
As always, I DO NOT warrant the veracity of the stories I link to!!! http://kutv.com/specialsection/local_story_071193346.html Elizabeth Smart May Have Been Photographed With Street Preacher At Party in September KUTV Copyright 2003, All Rights Reserved These photographs are exclusive to KUTV. Any use, re-broadcast or distribution of these photographs without premission of KUTV is illegal. Email This Story Print This Story Mar 12, 2003 5:32 pm US/Mountain Elizabeth Smart may have been photographed at a party with transient street preacher Brian David Mitchell in Salt Lake City last September. A photo taken at the party by Dan Gorder and e-mailed to 2News shows Mitchell with two women wearing veils. One of the females may be Elizabeth. The photos were snapped three months after Smart was abducted from her home in June. She has been the focus of a massive search since that time. Smart was found with Mitchell Wednesday in Sandy. Police started looking for Mitchell after Elizabeth’s sister said he might be the man who took the girl from her bedroom last June. Mitchell worked at the Smart's home briefly before Elizabeth's abduction. Smart may have been traveling with Mitchell and his wife. There are reports that she spent time in the mountains above Salt Lake City and traveled as far as San Diego and Florida during the past nine months. Police and family members believe that Mitchell abducted Elizabeth and held her against her will. They said Elizabeth did not have the opportunity to escape. Smart family members said someone was always with Elizabeth and she didn't have a chance to get away or communicate with her family. It is unclear if Elizabeth was abused or threatened. Some speculate that she may have been the victim of some type of brainwashing. It is unclear how long Elizabeth was in the Salt Lake area after she disappeared from her home. The party where the photos were taken was on 10th East and 2nd South in Salt Lake City. Mitchell and the women just walked into the party, according to Gorder. “I just started snapping photos of them, they looked a little weird,” Gorder said. “ The women didn’t say a word, the man talked about Jesus and stuff like that. He really didn’t make a lot of sense.” The women never really looked around at people very much. “It seemed like they were sort of obedient to him.” Gorder said that the man believed to be Mitchell was drinking at the party.
Do ya'll remember the case a couple of months ago of a pimp in Detroit who was arrested for kidnapping and a host of other crimes. He had kidnapped a Chicago girl and transported her to Detroit. They had taken her to a Walmart for clothes, escorted by the pimp and a woman. She ran to a security officer and was saved and, in the process, took down the guy's whole operation. She did run away and successfully, but this pimp had been successfully using the same MO for years, kidnapping dozens of girls. He kidnapped them, raped them, forced them into prostitution and erotic dancing. Successfully. I'm not saying Emmanuel might be a pimp; it doesn't seem to be remotely the case. However, if a pimp can run an operation with dozens of kidnapped girls without getting caught for years, I find it somewhat more believable that Emmanuel could kidnap and successfully hold a girl against her will for 9 months. I won't rule out that the girl may have been complicit (I think it is somewhat possible that her little sister is also complicit), but I don't find it impossible that she could have been sufficiently afraid of and controlled by this man to actually help in her own concealment.
Maybe it's me, but have you notcied when the father cries, it kind of seems so fake? I mean you never see a tear, but you always see a face. Anway, this is really strange. I mean how stupid are these people to be walking outside with their robes on?!?!
If I'm this guy and don't want her to escape I tell her that if that happens, I'll sneak back in her room and kill her sister. Something like that would make an impression on a 14 year old girl I would think, especially since she knows the guy did sneak into her room. Let's just be thankful she's alive and that these losers are in custody and give the kid the benefit of the doubt here. No need to speculate at this point.
The aunt at last night's press conference said that picture certainly looks like Elizabeth's eyes and the fact she is with those two individuals, she thought it was her but wants to wait for Elizabeth to say if it is or not. I just can't get over the balls or ignorance of that guy to stay that close to the home from which he took her. I hope to God this guy is not found to be insane or mentally ill to the point he gets a light sentence.
Disturbing news and some confirmation there was brainwashing. According to her father, she was indeed brainwashed but he would not go into details to the degree or in what way. Also it is being reported that Elizabeth was being introduced as a spouse in some instances to people who came across this trio. Unfortunately, that makes me feel there is a higher probability she was sexually violated.
