← America's Most Infamous Crimes with Katie Ring
America's Most Infamous Crimes with Katie Ring
Elizabeth Smart: She Was In Public For Months After Going Missing Pt. 2
00:30:28
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- [00:02]
Katie Ring
Hi. We have some exciting news. Crime House plus and Murder True Crime Stories are celebrating America's 250th by dropping a four part limited series on the crimes that built America. These are the crimes and cases that gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and a murder that built America's missing children movement. Follow Murder True Crime Stories for a new episode every Monday leading up to July 4th. Or you can listen to all of them right now with Crime House Plus. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of the show's page.
- [00:45]
Carter Roy
This is Crime House.
- [00:49]
Katie Ring
For eight months, Ed Smart cooperated with investigators, held press conferences, and kept the public's attention on his missing daughter. But when detectives refused to release a sketch that he believed could crack the case wide open, Ed went public anyway. Within days, the man in that sketch had a name and a past far darker than anyone expected. Today I'll introduce you to the man who called himself Emmanuel, the woman who followed him into madness, and the agonizing chain of close calls that kept Elizabeth Smart hidden in plain sight for nine months. Every crime tells a story about the people involved, the system that tried to stop it, and the nation that couldn't look away. Some cases are so shocking, so deeply woven into who we are, that decades later, we're still asking, how did this happen? I'm Katie Ring and this is America's Most Infamous Crimes. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I'll take you deep into cases that have a lasting imprint on society and still haunt us today. Crime House exists because of listeners like you want even more. Join Crime House plus and get all three parts of each week's America's Most Infamous Crime Stories dropped out once every Monday and ad free. You'll also get the rest of the Crime House lineup ad free and early and exclusive bonus episodes. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of America's Most Infamous Crime show page. And to help keep growing our community, be sure to rate, review and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Before I get started, please be advised that this episode contains descriptions of kidnapping, child sexual abuse, captivity and substance abuse. So please listen with care. This is the second of our three episode series on the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. Today I'll take you inside Ed Smart's decision to defy the police, how it led to the identification of a suspect and the multiple missed opportunities to bring Elizabeth Smith home.
- [02:59]
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- [04:14]
Katie Ring
app or@taskrabbit.com by late 2002, Elizabeth Smart had been missing for months. The police's primary suspect, Richard Reece, was dead and Elizabeth's nine year old sister, Mary Catherine, had just told her parents that she recognized the voice of the man who took her sister. She said his name was Emanuel. A sketch had been drawn that Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart, believed was a perfect likeness, but the Salt Lake City Police Department wouldn't release it. They argued that going public with a sketch could tip Emanuel off and give him a chance to run. Ed disagreed. He believed the public was their best shot at finding this man, but he bit his tongue and let the police handle it. That lasted until the end of January 2003. By then it had been eight months since Elizabeth was taken. Eight months of dead end leads, of press conferences that went nowhere, of watching the investigation stall out on a suspect who died in his cell without ever being charged. The police had no new leads. They had no active suspects. But they had a sketch and a first name, and they were keeping both of them locked away. Ed Smart was done waiting. On January 31, the Smart family made their decision. They were going to defy the police and show the sketch of Emanuel to the public themselves. On February 3rd, Ed and Lois hosted a press conference. They stood in front of a room full of reporters and laid it all out. How Lois had met Emmanuel panhandling near the temple, how he'd come to work on their house, and why they believed he was responsible for their daughter's kidnapping. They told the media that Richard Reece was most likely innocent, and they asked the public for help identifying the man in the sketch. It was a major gamble, and the police were furious. Their position was clear. If Emanuel saw his own face on the news, he might panic and disappear for good and take Elizabeth with him. Or worse. The way Ed saw it, doing nothing was the real risk. His daughter was out there, and every day they waited was another day she might not survive. And the gamble paid off almost immediately. On February 7, just four days after the press conference, an employee at the LDS Church office building in Salt Lake City named Tom Holbrook saw a photo of the sketch in the newspaper when he got home from work. He showed the article to his wife, Lisa. They both recognized the man instantly. Emanuel was Lisa's brother, Brian David Mitchell. Lisa called 911 the next day. She gave them Brian's name, his background, everything she knew. And just like that, after eight months of searching, the police finally had a real name to go with the face. But here's where the story takes a frustrating turn. The Salt Lake City Police Department took down Lisa's statement and then sat on it. They didn't share it with the Smart family. They didn't share the information with the media. They didn't. And they didn't share it with their own FBI partners, at least not through any official channel. For six days, the name Brian David Mitchell was out there. But almost nobody who could act on it knew about it. It wasn't until February 13, nearly a week later, that FBI Special Agent Augustus Mick Fenerty found out about the new lead, but only because one of the detectives casually mentioned it in conversation. Still, Agent Fenerty jumped on the information immediately. He ran Brian's name through every database he could find. And in addition to a criminal record that stretched back decades, he also located a photograph of Brian. Fenerty knew the Salt Lake City PD Detectives were in charge of Elizabeth's case, but he couldn't sit by and watch them hold onto a lead that could bring a missing child home. Like Ed and Lois, he believed the fastest way to find Elizabeth Was to get Brian's face in front of the public. So taking his career into his own hands, he made a risky call. He went around the Salt Lake City police department detectives and gave Brian's photo directly to the Smart family. His timing couldn't have been better. So who was Brian David Mitchell? And how did a man with such a brief connection to the Smart family Become the person who would tear their world apart? Brian was born in Salt Lake City in October of 1953, one of six children. His upbringing was troubled from the start. His father was mostly absent with bizarre religious ideas and a violent streak. Without any support at home, Brian struggled. Growing up, he was a loner and an attention seeker. The kind of kid who craved being noticed, but could never quite figure out how to earn it the right way. In high school, Brian was sent to juvenile detention for exposing himself to an 8 year old neighbor. He stole, he drank, he used drugs, and when he was 16, he dropped out of school entirely. Three years later, he got his girlfriend pregnant and married her. They split up after her second child. But rather than fight for custody through the courts, Brian abducted his own children and fled across the country to New Hampshire. While he was there, the 20 year old took LSD for the first time and had what he described as a spiritual epiphany. Although he'd never been especially religious growing up, the acid trip awakened something in him. He felt called back to his Mormon faith. So Brian returned to Salt Lake City and started attending regular meetings at the LDS church. For a while, it seemed like he might actually be turning things around. In 1981, he married a woman named Debbie Woodridge, who had three daughters from a previous marriage. But that marriage fell apart in 1985 when after Debbie suspected Brian was sexually assaulting her children. And here's a detail that tells you a lot about Brian David Mitchell. Just hours after the divorce was finalized, 32 year old Brian married a 40 year old woman named Wanda Barzi. He didn't even wait a single day. Like Brian, Wanda was deeply religious. Raised in the LDS church, Her connection to God was the only reliable thing in her life. Everything else was chaos. Wanda was prone to violent mood swings. She sometimes went days on end without sleeping. She'd had huge blowout fights with her previous husband. Her mental health was fragile and she was searching for something or someone to anchor her. That someone became Brian. When Wanda was in a volatile mood, he would lay his hands on her head, Utter a blessing, and she would immediately calm down. He presented himself as her spiritual guide, her protector, her direct line to God. Whatever he asked, she gave. Wherever he went, she followed. And over the years, his requests would become more and more extreme. Because unfortunately, Brian was leading Wanda down a very dark path. One that would eventually forever change the life of an innocent 14 year old girl named Elizabeth Smart. 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- [11:45]
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- [11:46]
Katie Ring
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- [11:52]
Carter Roy
Hi listeners, it's Carter Roy, host of Murder True Crime Stories. I wanted to let you know that Crime House plus and Murder True Crime Stories are celebrating America's 250th by dropping a four part limited series on the crimes that built America. These are the crimes and cases that gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and a murder that built America's missing children movement. Follow Murder True Crime Stories for a new episode every Monday leading up to July 4th, where you can binge all of them right now ad free with Crime House Plus. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, tap. Try free at the top of this show's page.
- [12:43]
Katie Ring
In the late 1980s, Brian Mitchell became increasingly drawn to fringe Mormon and libertarian groups that talked a lot about prophecies. They preached that the apocalypse was near and that someone strong and mighty would come to rescue the Mormon Church from sin. Sometime around 1993, Bryan had another episode. Epiphany. This time he became convinced that he was that anointed leader. He quit his job, grew out his beard, and spent most of his time preaching his own personal interpretation of Mormon scripture. He started writing his own religious texts and changed his name to Emmanuel, which carries significant meaning in Mormonism. It's a name associated with divine messengers and God's presence on earth. Wanda, as the wife of this self portrait proclaimed great prophet, took the name Hephzibah. She didn't question any of it. By now, Brian had complete psychological control over her. Whatever he believed, she believed. Whatever he said, she accepted. Whatever he asked her to do, she did. They put on robes, abandoned their children, and traveled the country as unhoused preachers. They begged for money on street corners, staying with family and friends where they could. The rest of the time, they slept in cars or out in the woods. They had no fixed address, no jobs, no real ties to the world anymore. They were living completely outside of society, and that made them almost impossible to track. By the time Lois Smart met Brian panhandling near the LDS temple in November of 2001, he'd already alienated virtually everyone in his life. Friends, siblings. Even his own children wanted nothing to do with him. His own mother, who'd tolerated his rants and erratic behavior for years, had finally reached her breaking point. In April of 2002, she took out a restraining order against Brian and Wanda after they became physically and verbally abusive during a visit that was less than two months before Elizabeth Smart disappeared. After that, Brian's family had cut him off completely. Completely. They didn't know where he was, they didn't know what he was doing, and they didn't care to find out. Then, In February of 2003, they saw his face in the newspaper. Now, over the last few months, Ed Smart had been building a relationship with someone who could amplify the search in a way local news couldn't. John Walsh, the host of America's Most Wanted. Walsh knew what it was like to lose a child. His own son, Adam, had been abducted and murdered in 1981, and he'd spent the rest of his career helping other families find justice. Ed and John had been working together on an episode about Elizabeth's kidnapping. And when Agent Fenerty got Brian's photograph to the Smart family, Ed knew exactly what to do with it. On February 15, 2003, the America's Most Wanted episode aired with an addition. The police hadn't authorized Brian David Mitchell's name and face. Broadcast to millions of viewers across the country, the reaction was instantaneous. Police phone lines across the country flooded with calls about Brian. People reported sightings of him from coast to coast. And as those tips poured in, investigators started piecing together a timeline that was equal parts horrifying and infuriating. Because it turned out, Brian Mitchell hadn't been hiding in some remote, remote bunker in the mountains. He hadn't fled the state or gone underground. He'd been right under their noses the entire time, walking the streets of Salt Lake City, shopping at convenience stores, eating at restaurants, and living in plain view of a city that had spent months desperately searching for the girl he'd taken. At 10:30pm on June 4, 2002, just hours before Elizabeth's abduction, Brian had shoplifted a case of beer from a gas station near her home. He was already in the neighborhood, and nobody stopped him. After the kidnapping, Brian had been spotted multiple times around Salt Lake City, and he wasn't alone. In early August of 2002, roughly two months after Elizabeth was taken, eyewitnesses saw Brian at an all you can eat buffet. He had two women with him, both wearing white robes and veils that covered everything except their eyes. Neither woman said a word the entire time. The sight was unusual enough that people noticed, but nobody called the police. It was just a strange man with two silent companions at a restaurant. And that became the pattern. In the weeks that followed, Brian still didn't try to hide. He panhandled on the street corners in broad daylight. He bought booze from convenience stores. He did his laundry at public laundromats, and he used every opportunity to preach his personal religion to anyone who would listen. Only now he had two companions. They followed him everywhere. Restaurants, homeless shelters, convenience stores, the downtown library, even public parks. In October, the three of them spent five days staying in an apartment just one block from a police station. Brian even brought the two women to a party once. During the gathering, they stood perfectly still and silent while Brian got drunk and belligerent. He had to be physically thrown out. And even then, nobody thought to question who the women were or why they never spoke or removed their veils. On September 27, 2002, Brian was stopped by police for shoplifting again. But because it was only a misdemeanor, the officers sighted him and let him go. They had no idea that one of the two silent women standing behind him was Elizabeth Smart. Shortly after that, Brian reappeared in Lakeside, California, just outside of San Diego. No one remembers exactly when he arrived, but he set up a tent in a public park and lived there openly with an older woman and a teenage girl, who he told people were his wife and his daughter. This time, all three of them were seen wearing robes, but not veils. Elizabeth's face was visible, and still nobody made the connection. Think about that for a second. Elizabeth Smart's face had been on every news channel in the country. Her father had done dozens of interviews. Thousands of people had searched for her. And here she was, living in a public park in California, eating at restaurants, walking down sidewalks with her face uncovered, and nobody recognized her. Brian had changed her appearance, given her a new name, and told her that if she ever tried to get help or reveal who she was, he would kill her entire family. And she believed him. So she stayed silent, even as the world was looking for her. From there, the close calls kept piling up. On February 12, 2003, just three days before the America's Most Wanted episode aired, Brian was arrested in the San Diego area. After getting drunk, breaking into a church and passing out on the floor, he was booked, processed and brought before a judge. Then on February 18th, he was released on probation. That was three days after the America's Most Wanted episode had broadcast his name and faced two millions of viewers. But there wasn't a nationwide bulletin out for Brian yet. He was using the alias Michael Jensen, and his prints weren't linked to any crimes in their database. So for the next two weeks, police across the country hunted for a man who had slipped through their fingers. Time and time again. Brian Mitchell had been stopped by police, questioned by strangers, arrested by officers, and released by a judge. And every single time he'd walked away. Elizabeth had been in public view for months and no one had pulled her out. But the clock was finally running out on Brian, because this time, millions of people knew his face and two of them were about to spot him on a sidewalk.
- [20:53]
Carter Roy
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- [21:54]
Katie Ring
At 12:51pm on Wednesday, March 12, 2003, 281 days since Elizabeth Smart was taken from her bedroom, multiple people spotted Brian Mitchell and his two companions walking near a bus station in Sandy, a suburb south of Salt Lake City. This time, the two women weren't wearing veils or robes. They were in jeans and T shirts and looked like they hadn't slept in a while. Their appearance was rough, but Brian's face, the beard, the wild eyes, the wiry frame was unmistakable to anyone who'd seen the news coverage over the past few weeks. Two couples driving in separate cars recognized Brian from the weeks of media coverage and immediately called 911. Within two minutes, a patrol car pulled up alongside the trio, the officers who stepped out asked Brian his name. He said it was Peter Marshall, a fake identity he'd used many times before. He told the officers that he and his family were messengers of God. Since they were on a holy mission, they had no need for driver's licenses or other forms of identification. He was calm, rehearsed, almost bored with the encounter. He'd been through situations like this before, stopped by police, questioned by strangers, and every single time he talked his way out of it. He'd figured this time would be no different. But this time was different. Both officers were immediately suspicious. They'd been looking at flyers with Brian and Elizabeth's faces for weeks. And the teenage girl standing in front of them, disheveled, dirty, with bits of blonde hair poking out from beneath a dark wig, looked familiar. One of the patrol officers turned to the other and said quietly, that looks like Elizabeth Smart. But when they asked the teenager her name, she insisted it was Augustine Marshall. Luckily, they wouldn't take that at face value, though. They asked Elizabeth a ton of questions. How old are you? When's your birthday? What's your Social Security number? When she claimed to be from Miami, Florida, one of the officers asked her to give a Miami area code, but she couldn't. By now, more police officers were arriving on the scene. They tried to reassure the girl that she was safe, that nobody was going to hurt her. They pressed her to tell them her real name, but she wouldn't. Or couldn't. She'd spent nine months being told that if she ever revealed who she really was, she, Brian, would kill her family. That kind of fear doesn't just disappear because a police officer tells you everything's going to be okay. The officers separated her from Brian and Wanda, then pulled her aside, away from their line of sight. And then one of the officers leaned in close and tried one more time. Gently. He told her that her parents missed her, that they loved her, that they wanted her home, that she didn't have to be afraid anymore. Through tears, she whispered three words. I am Elizabeth. The police took her to the station immediately, separately from Brian and Wanda, who were both taken into custody. Elizabeth sat for a long time in a small, empty room, trying to believe it was real, that the nightmare she'd been living for 281 days was actually over. Then the door opened and her father walked in. Ed Smart took one look at his daughter, her matted hair, her tattered clothes, the exhaustion and fear still written across her face, and he pulled her into his arms and held her tight his little girl had finally come home. Elizabeth was still in complete shock, but after a medical exam, the police let her go home that night. She arrived after 9pm the whole family was there waiting. Her parents, her brothers, and her little sister, Mary Catherine. They watched a movie together. All of them packed into the living room, nobody wanting to let her out of their sight, just trying to feel normal again. And then Elizabeth crawled into bed next to Mary Catherine. For the first time in nine months, Elizabeth slept peacefully through the night. The news of her rescue spread instantly. By the next morning, it was the top story on every network in the country. After 281 days, Elizabeth Smart had been found alive. It was the outcome everyone had prayed for and almost no one had expected. Stranger abductions almost never end with the child coming home. The statistics are devastating and everyone who'd followed this case knew it. But this time, against all odds, a 14 year old girl who had been stolen from her bed in the middle of the night had survived. But surviving and healing are two very different things. In the days and weeks that followed her rescue, Elizabeth started opening up to investigators about what she'd endured during those nine months in captivity. And what she described was far worse than anyone on the outside had imagined. On the very first night, after Brian had marched her up into the mountains, they arrived at a campsite where Wanda Barzi was waiting. They padlocked a steel cable around Elizabeth's ankle and hooked it to a tree. To keep her from escaping, Brian performed what he called a wedding ceremony. He told Elizabeth she was going to be his second wife. And then he sexually assaulted her. It was the first of hundreds of assaults that would continue for the entire duration of her captivity. In the days that followed, Elizabeth could hear search parties calling her name in the hills around the camp. They were close enough that she could almost taste freedom. But Brian kept a knife nearby and told her that if anyone came close, he would kill them. So she stayed silent. And eventually the sounds of the searchers faded away. The physical and sexual abuse, the psychological manipulation, the daily degradation she suffered at the hands of Brian, David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee. All of it would eventually come out in devastating detail. But there was still the matter of justice. Brian and Wanda were in custody and they needed to face a trial for what they'd done. And a lot of that case would hinge on one thing. Elizabeth's willingness to take the stand and tell her story. Every detail, every horror in front of a courtroom full of strangers and the man who had tormented her. The question was whether a legal system tangled in questions of mental competency, insanity defenses, and years of procedural delays could actually deliver the justice she deserved. Because Brian David Mitchell wasn't going to make it easy. He had one last card to play, and it would take the better part of a decade to resolve. At the end of each episode, I'd like to take a moment to answer any questions you may have about the case and share my thoughts, so make sure to comment below.
- [28:40]
Katie Ring (Q&A Segment)
Ed Smart defied the police and went public with the sketch. The FBI agent went around the detectives and gave the photo to the family. Were they right to do that?
- [28:48]
Katie Ring
I think the results speak for themselves, and it is exactly what I would have done as a parent. The police sat on the sketch for months and made zero progress. Ed released it, and within four days, they had Brian David Mitchell's name. It makes me so angry how much pain Elizabeth would have been spared if the police did their jobs and put their egos aside. Agent Fenerty gave the photo to the family, and within days, it was on America's Most Wanted. That's not a coincidence. Now, I understand the investigative argument to keep things quiet. You don't want to spook a suspect. But at some point, you have to weigh the risk against the reality that your daughter has been missing for eight months and you're no closer to finding her. Ed made a judgment call, and it was the right one. And Fenerty put his career on the line because he could see that the investigation was stalling. Both of them prioritized finding Elizabeth over following protocol. And in this case, that's what it took.
- [29:45]
Katie Ring (Q&A Segment)
Brian Mitchell's background is disturbing on every level. The exposure to a child, the suspected abuse of his stepdaughters, and abducting his own kids. Is there a point where someone in the system should have flagged him as a serious threat?
- [29:59]
Katie Ring
Absolutely. And that's one of the most frustrating parts of this case for me. This was not a man who appeared out of nowhere. He had a documented history of predatory behavior going back to high school. He was sent to juvenile detention for exposing himself to an 8 year old. His second wife suspected him of sexually assaulting her daughters. He abducted his own children and fled across the country. And yet none of that was connected in a way that put him on anyone's radar. When Elizabeth went missing, there was no centralized database linking those incidents together, which is actually something Elizabeth herself would go on to fight for later. But at the time, Brian David Mitchell was just a name that fell through the cracks over and over again.
- [30:41]
Katie Ring (Q&A Segment)
The close calls in this case are almost unbelievable. He was shoplifting near her house hours before the kidnapping. He was walking around Salt Lake City for months. He was arrested in California three days before America's Most Wanted aired. How does someone slip through that many times?
- [30:58]
Katie Ring
I think there are a few things that contributed to this. First, the disguises worked better than they should have. The robes and veils made Elizabeth unrecognizable even to the people who knew her. Second, Brian presented himself as a harmless religious eccentric. And people tend to dismiss that kind of person as just another crazy person rather than actually look closely. Third, and this is the big one, the investigation was so focused on Richard Reese for so long that they weren't actively looking for anyone else. The system failed to connect the dots. The shoplifting arrests in September, the church break in in February, those were all chances to catch him. But without his name or face being circulated to patrol officers, there was no way for those individual encounters to add up to anything real. That's what makes the America's Most Wanted broadcast so important. The moment the public had his face, the tips came flooding in. And people may hate on social media, but it is now one of the most effective ways to get the word out on cases like this because you don't need connections to a TV station to spread awareness.
- [32:02]
Katie Ring (Q&A Segment)
Wanda Barzi's role in all of this is hard to understand. She wasn't just a bystander. She actively participated. How do you think about her responsibility versus Brian's?
- [32:12]
Katie Ring
This is something we're going to dig into more in the next episode. But my short answer is Wanda was both a victim and a perpetrator. Brian had an extraordinary amount of psychological control over her. He manipulated her through religion, through her mental health vulnerabilities, and through years of conditioning. That's real. But I believe victims become perpetrators when they not only allow, but in many cases facilitate the abuse of others. Wanda made her own choices. She was there when Elizabeth was taken. She participated in the so called wedding ceremony. She forced Elizabeth to do manual labor. She stood by and let the abuse happen day after day. At a certain point, being under someone's influence doesn't erase your agency entirely. The legal system eventually drew that line and Wanda was held accountable, which we'll talk about more in tomorrow's episode when we get to the trials.
- [33:05]
Katie Ring (Q&A Segment)
That moment when Elizabeth finally says her name to police officers. What goes through your mind when you hear that?
- [33:11]
Katie Ring
Every time I hear this part of Elizabeth's story, I become so anxious and then feel the biggest sigh of relief. You want to just scream. Just tell them. But we have to understand that she'd been told for nine months that if she ever told anyone who she was, her family would be killed. She believed it. And in that moment, with police officers standing right in front of her telling her she was safe, she still couldn't say the words at first. That tells you everything about the level of psychological control Brian had over her. She was a child who had been threatened and terrorized into silence for the better part of a year, and the courage it took to finally whisper those three words, I am Elizabeth is honestly one of the bravest things I've ever come across. In any case I've covered that moment, saved her life, and she had to fight through unimaginable fear to make it happen. Thanks so much for joining me for this episode to enhance your listening experience experience, Join Crime House plus and get all three parts of each week's America's Most Infamous Crime Stories dropped at once every Monday and ad free. You'll also get the rest of the Crime House lineup ad free and early and exclusive bonus episodes. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of the America's Most Infamous Crime show page. Come back tomorrow for our final episode on the the Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart.
- [34:44]
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