Elizabeth Smart says the woman who helped kidnap her as a 14-year-old girl not only stood by as her husband raped her, but egged him on, according to a new interview.
Smart revealed disturbing details of her ordeal on Tuesday ahead of the release of Wanda Barzee, who is walking free after 15 years in custody — a decision Smart has called “incomprehensible.”
“She would encourage him to rape me. She would sit right next to me. Like, the side of her body would be touching me,” Smart said in an interview with Gayle King on “CBS This Morning.”
Smart, 30, was snatched from her Salt Lake City, Utah, home at knifepoint by Barzee’s husband, Brian David Mitchell, in 2002. She was rescued in 2003, after being held in captivity for nine months. Smart says she was raped repeatedly, sometimes multiple times a day. Mitchell is serving a life sentence for the crime, but Barzee, now 72, will walk free after Utah officials determined they miscalculated her sentence.
Smart says Barzee was fully aware of all the abuse and that she is still a danger to the public.
“While he was raping me. I mean, she was right there. So, I mean, she — there were no secrets. She knew what was going on,” Smart told King.
She says Barzee and Mitchell also forced her to drink alcohol until she was sick.
“I’d never touched alcohol in my life — that I ended up throwing up and then passing out in it. And both of them just let me lie there all night. And when I woke up the next morning, I mean, my face and my hair were completely crusted to the ground. And they both laughed. She laughed. She laughed just as much as he did, if not more,” Smart recalled.
Smart says she has reason to believe “evil and twisted” Barzee could end up in prison again soon after she walks free and that Barzee still carries a book written by her husband, detailing Mitchell’s plans to kidnap Smart and other young girls.
“I don’t know all the conditions of her release, but 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 said.
“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,” Smart added.
Source: Read Full Article