Los Angeles - A woman who helped her husband kidnap and keep captive a 14-year-old girl in 2002 was sentenced to 15 years in jail Tuesday. The kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart from her home in Salt Lake City, made national headlines after she was discovered nine months later in the control of Brian David Mitchell, 55, a self-styled prophet, and his wife Wanda Barzee.
Smart testified that she was snatched at knife-point and held tethered to a tree in a remote camp where Mitchell took her as a "wife" and raped her once a day for nine months. She was freed after being featured on a US crime show, after which she was spotted by a motorist walking along a Utah street with her captors.
Barzee, 64, had initially been declared medically unfit to stand trial, but was declared competent after 25 months of treatment. She pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor and was sentenced to 15 years in jail. She also agreed to testify against her former husband, whose lawyers also claim he is mentally unfit to stand trial.
Prior to her sentencing in a Denver courtroom, Barzee apologized to Smart, now 22. "I am so sorry, Elizabeth, for all the pain and suffering I have caused you and your family," she said. "It is my hope that you will be able to find it in your heart to forgive me."
