He managed to brainwash and seduce both her and Elizabeth Smart while he was her captor.

For her having served her sentence for time already served, I don't see her as much of a threat anymore now that she's away from him. And she's now 72, an elderly woman. Her own family has turned against her. The Parole Board finds her able to resume life outside of penitentiary.

Elizabeth has tried to speak publicly against her release, to no avail. For Barzee, today is her first day of freedom in a very long time.

Wonder what she'll make of the rest of her life now that she's free of both prison and David Brian Mitchell? It's the mental prison that's the hardest to escape!

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/elizabeth-smart-kidnapper-wanda-barzee-due-be-released-prison-wednesday-n910966

Do we know what ward she'll be in? I hope she gets assigned a decent pair of visiting ministers!

I think this 72 year old woman with no support system is just as dangerous as she was before.

However, I am sure the Utah parole board knows exactly what they are doing. (sarcasm)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2018 10:44AM by sbg.

No, I don't see her as a victim. I see her as a victimizer along with her husband. Fifteen years is a short amount of time when it comes to a conspiracy to kidnap and rape a minor. Hopefully she learned her lesson, but I'm not optimistic about it.

He didn't brainwash and seduce Elizabeth. Have you read her book? She was 14 years old!!! She knew she wasn't his wife all along. She lived in fear of her family being killed and of the fact nobody would want her as she was now soiled. That her family wouldn't love her because she had sex before she was married.

Seduce? Are you kidding me?

Barzee also victimized Elizabeth. Read some of what Elizabeth HAS SAID since she found out Barzee was getting out. She talked in Utah and she was on CBS morning news. She said when she first found out that there was a woman waiting up in the mountains, she had some hope that things wouldn't be so bad, but SHE WAS WRONG. Barzee prepared Elizabeth for her "wedding," for her rape. The lady belongs in prison for the rest of her life. I don't trust the people who are in charge of watching her. They tend to get a lot of things wrong. None of her family wants her. Would you?

Like Patty Hearst, Elizabeth fell victim to the Stockholm Syndrome.

For as much as she believed she was 'unworthy' etc., she sympathized with her abductors. Otherwise, she had ample opportunity to leave them in populated places, but didn't when she had the chance to escape. Even when the police finally apprehended her with Mitchell, she was reluctant to say who she was.

Mitchell was evil, no doubt about it. Barzee had the opportunity to walk away like Smart did. The difference I see was their age. She was the mature one and culpable for her actions. Where Smart was not. She was truly a victim.

There is the possibility that Barzee in her weakness of mind, was one herself at some point when she succumbed to the con man Mitchell.

I understand why she didn't say anything to people who might have been able to rescue her. I think she was scared to death. And I would have done the same thing she did at her age. I wouldn't even call it stockholm syndrome. She was 14. That is the huge difference between she and Patty Hearst. I don't think you can make a comparison between her and Barzee. To even try to compare them is an insult to Elizabeth.

It's possible they were both victimized by their abuser.

That's the only comparison I'm making between them.

I empathize with Elizabeth as well. It does make me wonder what the parole board sees that she doesn't?

Amyjo Wrote:
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> Like Patty Hearst, Elizabeth fell victim to the
> Stockholm Syndrome.
>

Do you really think so? I've read her book and one that her parents wrote. It didn't sound like Stockholm syndrome. It sounded more like a case of the poor child not speaking up in public because she was terrified.

Exactly.

Stockholm Syndrome would have Elizabeth become an affirmative, positive member of the conspiracy: going out, for example, and helping recruit or kidnap other girls. I am not aware that Elizabeth ever became convinced of, and positively active in, the broader scheme.

She was a terrified child, afraid of her captors. That has nothing to do with Stockholm Syndrome.

No.
According to Elizabeth she liked to watch and egged him on.

Stupid pervs.

She deserved the sentence she received.

I have no doubt she still belongs behind bars, unless the parole board believes she has rehabilitated. Or they make a judgment call based on the economy of the taxpayers footing the bill.

She'll fade into the Twilight Zone, but I honestly don't perceive her as a threat without Mitchell by her side. She still has to answer to her parole officer for years to come.

I think Barzee was definitely influenced by Mitchell, but she was also mentally ill and she was an active participant. Whether she belongs in jail or a mental facility is a good question, but she doesnt belong on the street. She is a danger to herself and others esp since she has no suppoet from family.

At 72 she isn't likely to be able to make a living as a convicted felon, now that she's been released.

She'll still be a welfare case, going forward. Just not in prison.

I agree, bona dea. Barzee was obviously manipulated by Mitchell and mentally ill, which makes her a victim of Mitchell, at least in a way...

Elizabeth was the victim of Mitchell AND Barzee, and they were both rightly convicted.

Elizabeth was also a victim of the religion into which she was born... but that's another subject.

Tom in Paris

All of them were born into the same religion.

The effect it had on Barzee and Mitchell who were predisposed to mental illness, speaks for itself. It led them into religious fanaticism and beyond.

I once read a book written by Wanda Barzee's son, detailing his personal story. It touched only briefly on Mitchell.

It has been many years since I read the book, but I remember one thing very clearly.

ALL of Barzee's children, and she had a lot of children, stated that Barzee was crazy-mad long before she met Mitchell. They all testified that at the very least she belonged in a mental health facility. She should not be turned loose into society.


I don't know what this says about me, but another thing I remember is her son saying that Barzee used to block out the chaos created by her many children by playing the piano non-stop and tuning everything else out.

I remember thinking "what a good idea," and I started taking piano lessons.

Whatever else you can say about WB, she was a gifted musician. She was the first woman ever to play the organ for the MTC, or whatever they call themselves these days.

Lois

P.S. Th name of the book is "Raised by Wolves." He makes a good case for Barzee's madness surfacing long before she met Mitchell.

Very eerie. She sounds like she is mad by her child's description.

In my opinion both Wanda Barzee and Brian David Mitchell are victims of LDS Corp. This doesn't excuse their own management of their actions but they are just on the other side of the LDS tracks. Miss Smart is a victim too of LDS Corp but she will never connect the dots of her experience and her church.

Very astute insight, EB.

You said it better than me EB (see above, in reply to bona dea) but I agree. Very succinctly summed up.

My guess is that she is potentially however dangerous the next person onto whom she latches herself happens to be, and she seems to go for the total crazies. I don't think she should be loose, either.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2018 02:54PM by saucie.

But I feel safe in saying his answer would be the same as mine:

"Beats the $#!% out of me."

I'll honor him by stealing one of his lines, and I'll just use this as a little background for this story: Right after Elizabeth Smart was rescued, my cell phone rang...

"Cabbie? (actually, he used my first name) Robert Kirby here."

"Yo."

"Did you know Brian David Mitchell at (name of high school we attended*)?"

I said I didn't think so, but I dug out the old yearbook, and his name was in it (no picture), but then I realized he did look vaguely familiar...

And now I see someone else has brought up another "famous kidnapping" that involved a young girl...

I remember Patty Hearst--after she served prison time--reached out to Elizabeth Smart...

That's definitely something I think is awesome.

They certainly share some things in common (Hearst and Smart.) Both sympathized up to a point with their kidnappers.

Let's blame the victim...

Elizabeth did not sympathize with the kidnappers. Read her books.

Not consciously did she. She may have done so subconsciously. In "Elizabeth Smart, what kept her from escaping besides fear. It's in the public record that she resisted going to the police or identifying herself when they came to her.

"Stockholm syndrome is not brainwashing -- it is a means to endure the violence, a survival technique that the brain uses," says Alan Hilfer, PhD, child psychologist with Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. Brainwashing typically involves withholding food and sleep, he says. Yet Elizabeth appears to be healthy.

He speculates that in Elizabeth Smart's case, she came to identify with her kidnappers. She began to understand and empathize with their reason for kidnapping her -- whatever that reason was.

"It's not a conscious process," Hilfer explains. "It's not that she made a conscious decision that these people were right to kidnap me. It's her mind trying to understand the horror of the situation and justify the reasons for it. It's the mind's way of saying 'This is what I need to do survive. I need to believe there's a reason for this, that these people make sense in their demands.'"

For Elizabeth Smart, this unconscious attachment to her captors could develop to prevent more harm. If she resisted their violence, she likely would get beaten more, for example. But if she says, "I understand, I understand," she won't get hurt as much, he tells WebMD.

This attachment process takes time to develop, Hilfer says. "It's a process of indoctrination. It's why a girl who appears to be a relatively bright, articulate 15-year-old doesn't run to a policeman in a town 15 miles away from her home. It's because there's a level of identification with her aggressors."

https://www.webmd.com/balance/news/20030313/what-kept-elizabeth-smart-from-escaping#1

Many victims become victimizers. That's one good reason not to judge others, even when they commit horrible crimes.

Protect ourselves, yes. Judge, no.

East Coast Exmo Wrote:
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> Protect ourselves, yes. Judge, no.

Totally agree. There is mounting evidence that some abusers come from genetic changes that only happen if they are abused as children if they have some variants of certain genes.

I'm sure that genetic susceptibility exists, but I don't know why or how childhood could produce "genetic changes."

Could you clarify your views?

This link has good information explaining the genetic changes victims of childhood abuse can undergo.
https://www.genome.gov/27554258/child-abuse-leaves-epigenetic-marks/

The best information appears to come from her sister, who maintains that Wanda is seriously mentally ill and has been for a long time. Her mental illness made her an easy target for Mitchell.

She reminds me of that woman with all the kids that kept them chained in the house.

That woman had no clue she was doing anything wrong.

Yup. Kids crying, dinner needs fixing, diapers need changing, quarrels need resolving/

Where is Wanda?

She is playing the most beautiful, the most celestial, the most spiritual music you ever heard.

Everywhere she goes, Wanda gets complimented on her music. Wanda's kids have to listen to the compliments. They just want a mommy who is being a mommy.

Wanda's first husband was also really weird.

Raised by wolves indeed.

a real understanding of this person can only begin with her childhood & probably her parents childhood also.

How long had she been with Brian, & what prior to that?
schools, neighbors, church, peers.



If I ever have time & still interested, I'll look her up on wiki.

has someone written a bio on her & 'hubby'?

It will be interesting to see whether she writes one now that she's been released from prison.

Amyjo Wrote:
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> It will be interesting to see whether she writes
> one now that she's been released from prison.


I do wonder who would be willing to tackle her story as she is apparently, detached from reality.

It's a very high profile story. She could have a ghost writer.

I think the best book written on the entire kidnapping saga was the one written by Elizabeth's uncle.

I think it was called "In Plain Sight" or something like that.

He goes heavily into BM's background. I forget what he said about WB. Heavily researched, carefully documented.

WB's son's book "Raised by Wolves was very revealing of his bizarre childhood, and what it was like having WB for a mother.

Brian Mitchell definitely had a thing for musical women.