Elizabeth Smart made an impassioned plea to the Board of Pardons, asking them to reconsider their decision to release Wanda Barzee but their order remained the same after the convicted criminal’s status.
“I would encourage people in power to look at her mental status if they truly feel like she is no longer a threat,” Smart, 30, said at a press conference earlier in the day.
While she admitted “it does not seem that there is any viable legal recourse to this situation,” she asked the people in “any level of power” to “look at this woman twice.”
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“I do think she is a threat,” she said about the woman who helped Brian David Mitchell kidnap and rape her for a torturous nine months.
“The Board has heard concerns and requests to reconsider releasing Wanda Barzee. This is not an early release or a discretionary release,” Greg Johnson, Director of Administrative Services, Utah Board of Pardons and Parole said in a statement.
“On September 19, Ms. Barzee will have spent 15 years in custody, which is the maximum amount of time allowed by her state conviction and sentence. Ms. Barzee cannot legally be held in the Utah State prison beyond the length of her sentence. Upon release she will be supervised by federal authorities.”
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Barzee’s attorney, Scott Williams, previously told Radar exclusively that he did not believe his client would attempt to contact Smart upon her release, but Smart said she still believed Barzee was a threat not only to her and her family but to the community.
“She did appalling things while I was in captivity,” Smart said.
“She is a woman who had six children and not only did she kidnap a young girl and sit next to her while she was being raped but encouraged her husband to continue to rape her.”
Smart said that Barzee was just as responsible for her torture as Mitchell.
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“Wanda Barzee saw me as her slave. She saw me as her handmaiden. She was manipulated by Mitchell but she in her own right abused me just as much as he did.”
Barzee was scheduled for release from prison on September 19, 2018.
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