Wanda Barzee, a registered sex offender who was convicted in the 2002 kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, is reportedly living in a Utah home just blocks from an elementary school. She was released from prison early this year.
Barzee, 73, is living less than 1 mile from Parkview Elementary School, located near downtown Salt Lake City, according to the Utah Department of Corrections’ sex offender registry. Pre-kindergarten to fifth-grade students attend the school, according to CrimeOnline.
Wanda Barzee, a registered sex offender who was convicted in the 2002 kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, is reportedly living in a Utah home just blocks from an elementary school. She was released from prison early this year. (Utah Department of Corrections’ sex offender registry website)Barzee is living in an apartment complex on W. 900 Street in Salt Lake City, according to the Corrections website. The complex is located fewer than 1,000 feet from the school.
As a registered sex offender, Barzee cannot be on any school property. She is also banned from playgrounds and day cares, CrimeOnline noted.
Barzee was released on Sept. 19 after serving a 15-year prison term for her role in the kidnapping of Smart, who was 14 when she was abducted from her bedroom and held captive for nine months. Barzee and her husband, Brian David Mitchell, kept Smart as a prisoner between 2002 and 2003, and she was repeatedly raped, assaulted, drugged, and threatened.
Smart was rescued after witnesses saw Barzee and Mitchell on “America’s Most Wanted.” Mitchell is serving two life sentences in federal prison.
Kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart during a news conference in Sandy, Utah, on Aril 24, 2015. Wanda Barzee, a woman convicted of helping a former street preacher kidnap Smart in 2002 was freed from prison more than five years earlier than expected, a surprise decision that Smart called “incomprehensible” on Sept. 11, 2018. (Rick Bowmer/AP Photo)Danger to Community?
When Barzee was released from prison, Smart said she believed the woman is a danger to the community.
“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 told CBS News in September.
In an Instagram post before the woman’s release, Smart also said, “Only a couple months ago I was informed one of my captors, Wanda Barzee, would not be released until 2024. Now she will be released in less than a week.”
“I find this news greatly disturbing and incomprehensible. In my efforts to learn more it seems there are no viable legal options open to me at this time. So it is now that I ask those that have the power, and her family to start proceedings to have her be civilly committed,” her post said.
In a press conference upon her release, Barzee’s attorney, Scott Williams, told NBC News that she didn’t pose any threat by being out of prison. “There is no credible evidence that she is a danger to the community,” Williams said.
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He did not elaborate at the time where Barzee would be staying or whether she has a support network. Barzee had to register as a sex offender after her release and has to participate in a mental health program, according to the Deseret News.
“She needs to go somewhere where she can be helped,” Tina Mace, her niece, said in September. “I don’t think she should be on the street at all. I don’t think she can make it.” Mace said Barzee needed mental health treatment, saying that she possibly refused treatment while in prison.
Mace recalled how Barzee testified against Mitchell. “I’m just glad she nailed Brian,” Mace said. “Because he knew what he was doing.”
But Smart, in a press conference, said that during Mitchell’s attacks, Barzee would “encourage her husband to continue to rape me,” NBC reported.
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