Wanda Barzee, Elizabeth Smart Kidnapper, Released From Prison

Wanda Barzee, a woman held Utah teen Elizabeth Smart captive for nine months along with her husband, was released from prison, despite heavy criticism from the families of Smart and Barzee.

The Utah Department of Corrections said that Wanda Barzee, 72, was released from Utah State Prison, NBC News reported at 8 a.m. on Sept. 19.

Barzee was convicted and sentenced for helping to kidnap Smart, who was 14 at the time, from her bedroom in Salt Lake City in 2002, drawing international headlines. Nine months later, Smart was seen walking the streets of a Salt Lake City suburb with Brian David Mitchell and Barzee.

Barzee and Mitchell were both arrested. Smart said there was repeated sexual assaults by Mitchell, and Barzee would sit near the girl and “encourage her husband to continue to rape me,” NBC noted.

Earlier this week, Smart, who is now 30, said that she believes Barzee is a danger to the public.

Regarding Barzee’s release, she said, “It’s been a rollercoaster. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotion, of worry, of wondering what’s going to happen… But I think at the end of it, what I’ve just come to… is that I really have spent the last 15 years of my life trying to move forward,” CBS News reported.

In this April 24, 2015, kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart looks on during a news conference in Sandy, Utah. Wanda Barzee, a woman convicted of helping a former street preacher kidnap Smart in 2002 will be freed from prison more than five years earlier than expected, a surprise decision that Smart called "incomprehensible" on Sept. 11, 2018. Rick Bowmer/AP Photo

Elizabeth Smart Speaks Out

Smart recalled the moment she was captured and Barzee’s demeanor.

“I don’t know, just the feeling that kind of radiated from her. It just was dark. And it was evil. And I just knew that she... she wasn’t there to help me, that she wasn’t there to protect me,” she told CBS.

She added: “That first morning when he brought me into the camp and told me I was now his wife and kept telling me it was time to consummate our marriage, I just -- at first, I didn’t know what he meant. And then I remember having this idea come to my mind of what he could mean. And I remember thinking, ‘There’s no way.’ … And I was raped. And, I was raped every day after that, multiple times a day.”

Smart then added that: “ I have been reassured multiple times that she will be kept a very close eye on. And as soon as she messes up, which I’ve been reassured that she will, she will be taken back to federal prison for the duration of the five years.”

She continued: “I do believe she’s still a danger. ... Through my sources, I’ve heard that she’s still carrying around this ‘book of revelations’ that Brian Mitchell wrote... that said he should kidnap me, and not just kidnap me but six other young girls, and that we’d all be his wives... clearly, she hasn’t let it go.”

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