Utah police have “sabotaged” efforts by Elizabeth Smart’s family to track down and locate Brian David Mitchell, the handyman eventually convicted of Smart’s kidnapping, according to Smart family spokesman and author Chris Thomas.
Smart, now 35, was abducted at age 14 from her Salt Lake City home by Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on June 5, 2002, and was found alive 20 years ago Sunday, March 12, 2003 .
Smart’s younger sister, Mary Katherine, was in the same room as Smart when she was abducted.
“It was in October [2002] – about four, four and a half months after Elizabeth disappeared. And many people don’t realize: it was dark in the room that night when Elizabeth was abducted, and Mary Catherine didn’t get a good look at the person, but she heard the voice and it was familiar to her.” Thomas said on “The Fox News Rundown Podcast.” “And while he was reading the Guinness Book of Records. [in October]suddenly, he remembered: “Hey, it was this man Emmanuel, who was working on the roof one afternoon.”
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Elizabeth Smart at her home in Wasatch County, Utah, on March 8, 2023. Twenty years ago she was freed from a nine-month kidnapping. (Chad Kirkland for The Washington Post)
Mitchell, who remains in prison, referred to himself as “Emmanuel” and helped the Smart family with odd jobs around their home.
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“There was a lot of tension,” Thomas recalls. “After Mary Katherine had the epiphany, the family, of course, immediately contacted law enforcement and [police] they were very reticent to present this information.”
Smart was abducted at age 14 from her home in Salt Lake City by Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on June 5, 2002, and was found 20 years ago on Sunday, March 12, 2003. (Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Department)
Sandy City police already had a person of interest at the time and were hesitant to change that narrative, Thomas explained in the podcast and in his new book. “Unexpected: The Backstory of Finding Elizabeth Smart and Growing Up in the Culture of an American Religion.”
“Until February [the Smart family] He finally came out with the information and then the police sabotage it,” he said. “They told the media that I had made up the story and that they had researched the guy and didn’t think there was much to it. “
Brian David Mitchell leaves federal court after Elizabeth Smart testified for the first time at a competency hearing for her kidnapper on Oct. 1, 2009, in Salt Lake City, Utah. (George Frey)
Police said Thomas was “trying to get Smart back in the news,” he told “Rundown.”
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Smart’s parents, Ed and Lois Smart, struggled to hold on to hope as media interest in their daughter’s disappearance and the facts of her case waned. Ed Smart and Thomas traveled to New York in 2002 to be interviewed by the national media, but John Walsh was the only person who seemed interested at the time, Thomas said.
Smart’s parents, Ed and Lois Smart, struggled to hold on to hope as media interest in their daughter’s disappearance and the facts of her case waned. (Alex Wong)
Lois “had to let it go,” Thomas recalled in an interview with FOX 13 Salt Lake City, “and she actually, at some point, went up into the canyon and buried her badge with Elizabeth’s picture on it and said goodbye.
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Meanwhile, Elizabeth was plotting ways to escape Mitchell’s captivity. Mitchell was a so-called “street preacher” who believed it was his destiny to marry child brides.
Lois “had to let it go,” Thomas recalled in an interview with FOX 13 Salt Lake City, “and she actually, at some point, went up into the canyon and buried her badge with Elizabeth’s picture on it and said goodbye. (George Frey)
“We were in New York trying to do interviews that morning. Nobody wanted to do them. John Walsh was the only person who would get the story.… Elizabeth, on the other hand, was an absolute genius. He went to Brian David O’Mitchell and said, “Hey, I had this revelation from God that we should go back to Utah. There’s a lot of… young girls that go to these camps in the mountains, and that’s where your next wife is going to be. ‘, and he took the bait and went back to Utah, and as soon as they got off the bus … some viewers of ‘America’s Most Wanted’ saw them, called them, and Elizabeth was saved.”
When Thomas heard from a detective at the Sandy City Police Department, whom he had known since high school, that Elizabeth was “alive and well” in March 2003, Thomas immediately asked, “Where’s the body?” because he could not believe the news.
He describes the crimes Elizabeth had to endure in captivity as “heinous” and “unthinkable”.
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Now, Elizabeth is an advocate for other female victims of crime through her organization, The Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which aims to bring ‘hope’ and end ‘sexual assault victimization and exploitation through education, treatment and advocacy’ .