Crime Weekly - S3 Ep145: Elizabeth Smart | Becoming Esther (Part 3)

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

In June of 2002, a 14-year-old girl was taken from her bedroom in the middle of the night, from a quiet home in one of the safest neighborhoods in one of the safest cities in America. Her name was Elizabeth Smart. This case has endured for more than two decades, not only because of what happened to Elizabeth, but because of how it happened. It forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about trust, faith, and what happens when deeply held beliefs collide with someone willing to exploit them.Elizabeth wasn't held for hours or days. She was a prisoner for nine months, subjected to repeated trauma and torture that would have broken most adults. But Elizabeth's story is not just about what happened to her. It's also about survival and strength. It's about a young girl who would later turn the unimaginable into advocacy and support for victims of kidnapping and sexual violence. Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPodADS:1. https://www.Quince.com/CrimeWeekly - Get FREE shipping and 365-day returns!2. https://www.ThePetsTable.com - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY55 for 55% off your first box and 10% off your next two!3. https://www.WildGrain.com/CrimeWeekly30 - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY30 for $30 off your first box and FREE croissants for LIFE! 4. https://www.EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off ALL IQBAR products and FREE shipping!5. https://www.TryFUM.com - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for DOUBLE CORES and a FREE gift with your Journey Pack!

Hey Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BetMGM. Access to the Price is right Fortune Pick is only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you,

please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasar. Today we're jumping into part three of the Elizabeth Smart case. Now we're getting into the actual investigation. And we're also going to find out what happened to Elizabeth when she got to the location where Brian David Mitchell was bringing her. So it's going to be an interesting episode, a hard one in some areas. But we're here for it all. So in the early hours of June 5, 2002, a 14-year-old girl was taken from her bedroom while her family slept just feet away. In part one, we explored who she was.

In part two, we examined the man who would ultimately abduct her. But now we step into the space between the hours, days, and months that followed. What happens after the door closes? After the footsteps fade. After a child disappears into the dark. This episode moves in two directions at once. So we follow Elizabeth, who was frightened, disoriented, forced into a reality no child could prepare for, as she's led into the mountains above her home and into a world controlled entirely by her captors.

And at the same time, we return to the house on that quiet street in Federal Heights, where her family wakes up to a nightmare and begins a desperate, relentless search. While Elizabeth is being isolated, manipulated, and stripped of everything familiar, her parents are facing police interviews, media, law enforcement, and public scrutiny, false leads, and the unbearable uncertainty of not knowing where their daughter was or what was happening to her. So this is the story of captivity and survival, of faith and fear, of a family trying to hold themselves together while their daughter fought to hold on to herself. And this is what happened next.

So we are going to kind of follow and pick up from where Brian Mitchell, took Elizabeth. And from what we can tell, Brian David Mitchell brought Elizabeth through the back area of her home, up Limekin Gulch, and eventually to an area deep within the foothills of Dry Creek Canyon, over three miles through rough and rocky terrain and thick rush. Now recently, and you guys have mentioned this in the comments, and I saw it because I have Google alerts on for Elizabeth Smart now, but recently Elizabeth retraced that exact path or as close to the path as she could. And she was joined by her brother and her sister-in-law. We are going on a bit of an adventure.

I'm back at the house that I grew up in. We're going to retrace my steps as much as possible to the hidden campsite where I was held captive. And I'm with my brother today. I've never been up this part of the canyon. I didn't know there was a trail here. And my beautiful sister-in-law. How did he even find this place?

Is it hard? Is it a hard hike? It's, yeah. It's a pretty, it's a pretty grueling hike. I mean, there's a reason nobody found me. Yeah? Okay, good thought. Because everybody likes to say, why don't you just run home? I know, because it wasn't easy.

Fields of poison ivy, going up a root, like not a river, a stream bed, like climbing a mountainside. It's not an easy hike. Did you have running shoes on or what were you wearing? Yeah, that night I had running shoes on. I remember when he came and got me, I reached for my slippers and he was like, not those, those. And he pointed to my, like, running shoes. They were moms. I inherited them.

Yeah, we were part of that family, weren't we? Yeah, we were part of that. Yeah. Nothing wrong with hand-me-downs. Nothing wrong with a good pair of hand-me-downs. So normally you would be going from behind your house. Yeah, so my bedroom, you can't see it, but it's up in, it's up behind those trees. We would be going almost straight back from my house and straight up into the mountains through my backyard.

But now, I mean, we're talking years later. There's houses back there. They'd probably like, who are these crazy people trying to go? through our yard. Exactly. So we're not going to do that. But you are going to take us, there is a way to get there on a trailhead. Part of the way. The more, the accessible way. Yeah. Okay, well, we got our hiking boots. You got hiking boots. We're ready. We're set. Okay, so how far is the hike would you say from your house? Um, I would guess three miles, but the way that we're going to go to actually get to it is probably about three and a half.

Miles. All right, first off, I'm back. Elizabeth calling you out for that rolling stop. Do that stop sign at the end there. Just joking, obviously. He's joking. I will say this is really enlightening that she's willing to do this and take us on this to visually get to see what this was like. And I also think it's just incredible that, again, when you're considering what we're talking about, how accessible she is and willing to talk about it and kind of almost put a little bit of a levity to it.

Ah, yes. Which is incredible. Because there are many people who've gone through something like this, and it's no fault of theirs where they're just never the same. And that light has been taken from them where clearly you can see how Elizabeth has taken in a situation. And I'm sure she deals with trauma and rehashes things out all the time. But on the surface, she's trying to put it in a positive light so that it's more consumable for the people watching because she knows at the core of it, she's trying to educate people. I'm sure she has never been the same. Of course.

Without a doubt. But I can tell, and I think because I handle things like this too with humor, you have to. Some of the darkest things can only be handled with an ounce of humor. I wouldn't even say positivity here. It's just like, you know, just like, this is what it was. And, you know, she says something like, oh, people said, why didn't you run home? Well, first of all, it's still three miles. And she's still 14 years old.

if you even take away the hardness or the difficulty of the hike and the kind of terrain it went through, she's still 14 years old and she doesn't know where she is. So how the hell would she even know where to go if she did run away? And it's not to say she didn't try to run away. There were times that she tried to run away, but we're going to find out why she couldn't. She couldn't. And I will say this is kind of obvious, but you can see the preparedness on the behalf of the offender, right? because he knew they were going to be going through the mountains and that slippers would not be

appropriate footwear and he would he's not going to be able to carry her. So right from the jump, he had a vision of what he was going to do, how he was going to do it, the path he was going to take in, the path he was going to take out, and what type of footwear she would need to accompany him. Exactly. So, and this is going to be a path that Elizabeth would take many times after this. Because if you're familiar with the story, you know that, yeah, for a while they kept her there at the campsite, but they eventually started taking her down into the city.

and they took her out of the state even. They were traveling around with her. So she would have to hike back down and back up this mountain many times. But that night, as they climbed into the darkness, Elizabeth said it felt like it took forever. And Elizabeth said this shortly after she and Brian Mitchell ventured into the mountains, he took a gray shirt out of the bag he was carrying, and he made her put it on so that there would be less of a risk of someone noticing her in her bright red silk pajamas. This is because, like I said, they went up a lime kiln gulch. So there's a portion of this hike where it is kind of public or well-traveled. You know, people who hiked in the foothills, they would go, you know, around this area. So there was a chance

that somebody out for an early morning hike would have seen them. And it would have been weird to see a man and a little girl dressed in red pajamas if they had seen her. Of course. So that's why he wanted her to put on the gray shirt. Now, as you heard Elizabeth mentioned in that previous clip, the Federal Heights neighborhood looks much different now than it did in 2002. But I did go into Google Earth to give you an idea of where the hike took them. So I'll have Shannon put that up on screen right now. Okay, so the pin I've placed to indicate the smart home, it now shows other homes placed between it and the wilderness. But in 2002, that would not have been the case.

Mitchell would have taken Elizabeth to Lyme, Kiln, Gulch, where they then followed a path up into the foot, hills before venturing off the more beaten path and entering far more difficult and less travel terrain headed towards the south fork of Dry Creek Canyon. My guess, it's right here on the right. Yeah. So this is where you come off the trail. Yeah. Over this direction.

Yeah. Which hundreds of people go on this trail a day on this Dry Creek Canyon trail. I mean, you can kind of see it looks like, oh, look, there is someone coming down. And there's a hiker right there. But yeah, like, not people. People don't really hike up this way, even though now I say that. I know, right. Well, at least we can ask him how the trail is up ahead.

Yeah, but not good. Hello. How is it up there? Brushy. Brushy. Derserded. Desserted. Really nice though.

Good, good. South Fork of Dry Creek Canyon. That's right, South Fork of Dry Creek Canyon. Likewise, thank you. But I guess now we know it's definitely the right one. It looks like hardly anybody's even been on it. I mean, during my captivity, I never saw anyone on this trail. I never saw anyone come up this way.

So crazy to see someone hiking down. Right. You ask him anything while he was taking you up? Yeah, I was asking him, like, why he was doing this? Like, why was he kidnapping me? Like, my parents never did anything to anyone. Like, they tried to help him. Wait, did you recognize him?

Yeah, actually, I did, which if you know me, is insane. Yeah, I mean, he said he hiked down to her house one time just to make sure. he could get there. And I think that was probably like the week before he came in actually kidnapped me. See like these like kind of like little valleys. This is not even like a deer trail, but it's like to get to the lower camp like and I again I'm I've no idea if this is the one, but it's like straight up something like that. Was the lower camp that was the lower camp. Yeah. They had gallons of water at this lower camp. They had some tarps. They had like a small little tent. How much distance do you think there was between lower and upper? It's a pretty good distance.

And so would you say is this the quarter of the way left or halfway mark? Probably half, yeah. Okay. I always like expected like I didn't actually realize how far away we were, how difficult like the hike to get to where we were was because the night I was taken, I was like so hyped full of adrenaline that like distance just did not like measure in my brain. Yeah. When he was taking you, did you feel a lot longer to get there or a lot shorter? It felt a lot shorter. I mean like I remember like I was taken in the dark and like we crossed like the top of

these mountains as the sun was coming up. Wow. Like I knew it was like a couple hours. But again, like time just it just didn't compute. You know, as we're as we're going through that video, I guess a Monday morning quarterback in it, but you had talked about that, that lime kiln gulch. That's the first location they went to. Yeah, so when you took her from the house, like he headed basically to that.

That's the lower camp. No, the lower camp, I'll tell you in a second. But Lyme King Gulch was basically like an already kind of established trail, but that would let them lead into the foothills where then he could venture off the well-being path. I'm definitely Monday morning quarterbacking it here, but I wonder why if it was done, because when we're looking at this map and it's up on the screen again right now, But I would think they would have done some type of grid search with a helicopter. And you would think based on what she was describing that they had tarps and gallons of water.

I would have thought that somebody would have spotted them right away. So they did do searches with helicopters. Just missed them, huh? Brian David Mitchell is not stupid. Remember, we talked about everyone who knew him. He definitely prepared for this. He was smart. So he covered these things.

He covered them with tarps. He covered them with leaves and dirt. Yeah, he created like a camouflage. Yeah, from the sky, you wouldn't. You wouldn't see. Yeah, definitely put some preparation into this. That's for damn sure. Yeah, and you heard Elizabeth say, I did recognize him. You know, I knew who he was. So she basically knew who he was and that he'd been working at her parents' house from very early on in her captivity.

And you also heard Elizabeth talk about that lower camp. And she's referring to a previous camp site that Mitchell and Wanda Barsey had been living at, located about a mile from Elizabeth's final destination that night. So remember last week, I explained that Mitchell and Morrow. Barzzi had sold all of their possessions, and they'd gotten themselves a five-wheel trailer, and this trailer served as their home for a short while until the summer of 1995. And this is when Wanda Barzzi denounced her family, and then she and Brian went out on the road for two years. Okay. So the plan during this two years was to visit sites that held historical LDS significance,

and the goal was allegedly to seek spiritual rest and healing. They went to Spring Hill in Missouri, where, Joseph Smith had taught that Adam the first man had gathered his descendants before his death. Smith had also claimed that Spring Hill would be a gathering site before the second coming, which, as we know, Mitchell claimed he thought was happening. Then further west into Missouri, Barsey and Mitchell stopped at Tower Hill in Liberty Jail, where Joseph Smith was in prison between 1838 and 1839 during the Missouri Mormon War. They then moved on to Navu, Illinois, along the Mississippi River, which had become the headquarters of the LDS Church in the early 1840s after Mormons were expelled from Missouri.

This is where the Nevou Temple was built and where plural marriage was first practiced secretly among leadership. So you can kind of see the sights that Mitchell wants to go to at this point. Now next on the road trip was Carthage Jail in Illinois, where Joseph Smith and his brother Hiram were killed by a mob in 1844. following that, they traveled to Curtland, Ohio, the site of the first LDS temple, and a place associated with early visions, revelations in the formal organization of church leadership. And then on to Hiram, Ohio, where Joseph Smith lived for a time where he claimed to have received several of his key revelations. Also, Palmyra in New York, which is in my neck of the woods. It's considered the birthplace of the LDS movement. And it's located in a place we call the Burnover District, basically a bunch of new religions.

and they kind of sprung up around this time. Seventh-day Advertism, the Mormon church, Joseph Smith, you know, got his tablets here. It's considered to be the birthplace of the Mormon religion. Now, for this pilgrimage, Wanda and Brian Mitchell did not take their trailer. They hitchhiked and depended on the kindness of strangers. Wanda would later claim that they never worried about getting a ride because God would provide for them. And she said that more than half of the people who passed them as they were. hitchhiking would tell them that they had never picked up a hitchhiker before, but, quote,

the spirit told them to return and give us a ride, end quote. And I mean, there might actually be something to this. I don't know, because one woman who helped Mitchell and Barsey, her name was Phyllis Cock of Quincy, Illinois. She picked up the pair in Hannibal, Missouri, as they were heading to Neville, and she spent several hours with them. And to be fair, Phyllis actually did say, quote, they seemed very nice. Normally I would not pick up hitchhikers, but Wanda was so tired, end quote. So Phyllis reported that Brian told her they were cleansing their bodies and they could only eat a specific fruit diet and drink water, even though he would not allow Wanda to drink

ice water. And Phyllis found it odd that Brian ate the peals of the fruit because, you know, you're not supposed to eat those. After speaking for a few hours, Phyllis was a bit put off by how domineering Brian was towards Wanda. And she didn't like the way that he judged Phyllis's participation in the Catholic Church. So she was like, all right, we spent enough time together. and she drove them onto their next destination.

And when they got there, Phyllis insisted on paying for a hotel for the two of them for that night because Wanda was very tired and in need of a hot shower, even though Phyllis said Brian looked pretty clean. Like he was not in as bad shape as Wanda was. Now, before leaving, Phyllis pulled Wanda aside, gave her $25 and told her that she would hide a picture of ice water outside the room. And Wanda whispered, thank you. Mitchell and Barsey continued on. They traveled all over from Boston to Florida to California.

They even spent some time in Hawaii. They started dressing in white robes and calling each other biblical names. For money, they would panhandle. So they call it panhandling. They're begging for money on the roads. And they would go through dumpsters and garbage cans to get food. Wanda said that when they were really down on their luck, they would pray. And then someone would always come around who would feed them or bring them on to their next destination.

Brian even built a hand cart, like the ones that were used by early Mormon pie. pioneers to move around their very few belongings. So Wanda said that when she and Brian returned to Salt Lake City in 1997, they returned to Utah with an unshakable faith to live in a tent. They would sometimes stay with the family of Dr. Samuel West. We talked about him in the last episode at his Orem compound, where Brian actually became highly respected and revered. So at that time, 19-year-old Alyssa Phillips was also living on the compound. She was engaged to be married to Benjamin West, one of Samuel West's, She said that Brian was a dominant personality, brilliant, and numerous occupants of the home saw him as a prophet.

They were all really impressed with Wanda and Brian in their handcart, telling everyone to renounce their material possessions. And the West saw Brian as a man who practiced what he preached. The West family was actually like, because Brian and Wanda showed up after going away for two years. And they were like, you guys should give away your material possessions, you know. And the West family was like, we really respect you that you're doing this. It's so impressive. Your spiritual power and discipline is just, you know, dazzling. But we can't.

Yeah, we ain't giving it up. We can't do it. Can't do that. The whole purpose of this compound is to make money. We can't do that. Now, about Brian, Alyssa Phillips said, quote, he demanded respect. He demanded to know that we knew he was in charge, end quote. And soon, Brian was a dime.

prominent religious influence on the West compound. Both Brian and Dr. West presented themselves as prophets who were complementary to each other, and when Brian said he was receiving a revelation, he would pass it on to Dr. West and the other men of the home. One psychiatrist who interviewed Alyssa wrote, quote, so absolute was the control that the men exerted over the women in the West home that Alyssa described herself reaching the point of being unable to make a simple decision. When she struggled, the family referred Alyssa to Brian to discuss her problems with him. She spoke of being completely broken down to the end that she became completely dependent on ILA to rebuild herself. The thinking was, now that you have nothing, you have us as long as you do this, end quote.

So ILA is the lymphology institute that Dr. West set up in Orham. I say this to make a point here about Elizabeth's strength because Wanda Barz is going to say the same thing. as Alyssa West said. Now, Alyssa was a 19-year-old girl. Wanda Barz. He was a grown-ass woman. But they both said, like, yeah, this man, Brian Mitchell, made us so dependent where it felt like we couldn't even make a decision on our own.

And there's a specific way that he goes about doing this and it's manipulation and brainwashing and just a complete exertion of control. But Elizabeth Smart, who was a 14-year-old girl, dealt with this for nine months. and she always kind of like held on to her own mental strength and her own faith and her belief that she was going to get out of there one day. And so she was never going to fall for it. And she didn't. So as manipulative and strong and, you know, persuasive as Brian was with everybody he met, he couldn't break a 14-year-old girl. And I think that's very important and impressive. Yeah. I'm more and more impressed every episode we talk about Elizabeth. I was impressed when I first met her.

it's a whole new level now. And I told her that just when I was texting her to let her know we were covering this series. And after the first episode, I sent her a message and just said like, just like your ability to be the way you are now after what you went through is just really inspiring. I think for all the victims out there who, who have had so much taken from them and how they can still move on in life, even understanding what they've been through, but use that, that horrific situation to help others. It's definitely inspirational. It really is. I too, as I'm going through this and I see all these other women who, and even men, who were like, yeah, he just impressed us so much and we just couldn't turn away from him.

Elizabeth came from the same religion. She grew up with the same beliefs that he's going to use to try to, you know, completely destroy her and reframe everything, but she didn't let it happen. And it's just very impressive. So Alyssa, she also said that all the men in the West Home preferred girls who were barely legal, but Brian would eventually become too much even for the West. family. In 2001, Brian and Wanda were at the compound when a new story about a young kidnapped girl came on the television. And Carl West expressed distaste for anyone that would do something like

that to a child. Later, Brian had to pull Carl aside and he was like, I have to counsel you because you shouldn't be judging other people like that. And he presented Carl with different scenarios. Like, what if the girl had been a little older and wanted to go with her kidnapper? What if this was God's will? You know, what if, what if, why? You know, what if? Why? You know, you're judging too harshly, and I don't appreciate it. So when they were not at the Aurum compound, Wanda and Brian took advantage of Irene Mitchell, Brian's mother, or Wanda's mother, Dana Corbett, who would later say, quote, he was very fussy about what to eat, but he expected me to get it. Brian and Wanda came in and out. He was doing his panhandling. They bought a teepee. We tried to help

them out. We gave them kettles and dishes. We even got them a wool pad to lay on. He would take, but he would never pay for anything. He would make people feel sorry for him, but he would was manipulative, end quote. As for Irene, everyone started to lose patience with Brian's freeloading, and one of his brothers said, quote, they were staying rent free with an elderly woman who was on a fixed income and who needed help around the house and they did nowhere near their share, end quote. Now at this time, both Brian and Wanda were mad because their families wouldn't call them by their new biblical names. And Brian's brother, Tim said that Brian kept trying to get them to call him David, stating, quote, he's just getting weirder and weirder, end quote.

At this time, Brian and Wanda became fixtures in downtown Salt Lake City, wearing white robes, begging for money on the streets, and pretending they didn't see friends and family if they passed them by. So it got to a point where Wanda's children would stand in front of her on the street and scream her face, and she just would not react at all. At the funeral of a family member, both Brian and Wanda showed up in their robes, and Brian was carrying a walking staff. And as they were leaving, he shook the staff at the gathered mourners, and he yelled, repent ye, sinners of Israel. Now, after the September 11th attacks, Brian and Wanda were not bringing in as much money panhandling because people thought he looked too much like Osama bin Laden. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, they actually called him.

They had, I wish I could find it. I wrote it down, but I have so many notes. The people around Salt Lake City were calling him something, and it was kind of like a play on Osama bin Laden. And I wish I could find it. Hopefully, before the series finished, they had a nickname for him. Oh, my God. So people were, like, avoiding them. not giving them money anymore because of, you know, everything that happened. So Wanda and Mitchell

began dressing in normal clothes and then Brian shaved and cut his hair. Now, this was the autumn that the smart family came across Brian David Mitchell. And instead of seeing this weirdo with a long beard wearing robes, he looked like a normal guy. He was clean cut. He was wearing normal clothes. He just looked like a guy down on his luck, right? They just missed the beard and the robes. And I wonder if Brian Mitchell had been looking the way he looked when he was telling everyone he was a prophet and he grew his beard long and he was wearing robes and acting crazy, would Lois smart have still approached him and like given him an opportunity? I kind of feel like no. I mean, I'm with you. I think everyone judges a book by its cover, you know, especially when they're

thinking about bringing them into their home. Right. Yeah. And so it might have changed things. But overall, regardless of what you think about Brian David Mitchell, there is some level of intelligence there, right? He's not a moron. He's obviously a monster, but not a moron. And he made himself look the way he knew he would need to look in order to infiltrate people like this, to lower their guard. And he didn't really show his true self until after the fact. So yeah, could have, should or would have, but he did this for a reason. And I can't fault lowest for seeing the best in people. Yeah, but he was like you said, he knew. He's like, okay. People aren't receptive to this part of me now. I'll change him. Yeah.

Yep. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Okay, Derek, can we agree that February is that weird in-between season? I know it's my birthday month, Valentine's Day, lots of stuff happening. It's your birthday month. It's my birthday month.

It's also your birthday month. Yes, thank you. But it's like a short month, and it's just cold and gray and terrible. I mean, we're not quite deep into winter, even though it feels like it. It's not quite spring. And that means your wardrobe has to actually work for multiple things. multiple occasions, multiple temperatures. Yeah, this is when you find out if your clothes were just hype or if they actually hold up.

Exactly. And that's why we love Quince. A well-built wardrobe is about pieces that work together and obviously that last. They are premium materials, thoughtful design, and everyday staples that feel easy to wear and easy to rely on, even as the weather shifts. Quince really nails the essentials, organic cotton sweaters, polos for basically any occasion, lighter jackets that keep you warm when it's cold in the morning, but not freezing by the afternoon. And everything is built to hold up to daily wear and still look good season after season. So this isn't, uh, let's buy it this year and then understand by next winter it's going to be have fallen apart after a few washes.

Yeah. Well, it makes it even better is that Quince works directly with top factories and cuts out the middleman. So that means you're not paying for those inflated brand markups. It's just quality clothing. And I've said it before. One of my secret weapons definitely is Quince. talked about traders, multiple jackets that I wore on that show, people thought it was from

some like L.A. stylist. The reality is, it was from Quince. Plus, Quince only partners with factories that make rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production, and that obviously matters. Matters a lot to us. Matters to the environment, to the world. It matters. Yep. So refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash crime weekly for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada. as well, again, that's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash crime weekly. Crime-weekly's all one word. You'll get free shipping and 365-day returns.

One more time, quince.com slash crime weekly. Okay, so in November of 2001, Wanda and Brian were already camping in the foothills of the mountain. At the first camp, they established, but it was very primitive, right? It was just like a round clearing, the thick brush with the makeshift TP constructed from stripped branch. is it wasn't anything like the final camp. And the reason that Brian even made the final camp was because he knew he was going to take Elizabeth. And so he had basically constructed that camp specifically to hold her captive. Now, around this time, the November of 2001, it was the last time Dora Corbett saw her daughter Wanda, who stopped by the house for a few hours, carrying a doll that she was pretending was a real baby. So after sharing a salad, Wanda and her mother got into a religious argument and Wanda stormed out. A few months prior, to this, Brian had stopped at his father, Cheryl's house and asked him for money, and he also

stormed out when Cheryl said no. And then in December of 2001, Brian and Wanda were asked to leave the West compound in Orham and not return because they'd been using drugs in the basement, according to Carl West. So this is important because Wanda and Brian are like, we're pure and cleansed and we don't use, you know, Mormons can't even drink coffee. They definitely are not supposed to be doing drugs or consuming alcohol. But as we will come to find, Wanda and Brian were doing both of those things. So even the West family was like, all right, you guys are just done. You're talking about, you know, kidnapping little girls is okay.

You're doing drugs in our house. You got to go. Now, we can see that slowly people are kind of isolating themselves from Brian and Wanda. They're like, you guys are crazy. You're too much. By early 2002, Brian had started writing down all of his revelations from God that he had received between February and March in what he called the book of Emmanuel David Asiah, which was his new name. So in this book, Brian wrote about his role of prophet and the

shortcomings of the LDS Church. He also talked about, I'm not going to say this correctly, but I've been trying to haps, hapsava, heapsaba, and this was Wanda's new name. It's my new name as well. I want you to call me that. Hep'saba. Yeah. I really, it's hard for my mouth. I tried listening to pronunciations. Hepzaba. So he wrote about. I spelled my name wrong already, so just making it more difficult. Derek. It's easy enough to say. But he wrote that it was Wanda's destiny as the mother of Zion, and it was their destiny to take sister wives. Brian and Wanda then began delivering copies of his manifesto to different family members in the spring of 2002, demanding loudly that these people receive Brian's word and repent, or they would face certain damnation and destruction. On April 18,

2002, Sheriff's deputies were called to Irene Mitchell's home. Apparently, Brian and Wanda had shown up that day, shoving his book at her, and they became very aggressive with her. In the police report, Irene stated, quote, their angry faces were very close to mine, and they were yelling angry words at me. You will be destroyed. Your family will be destroyed. Your home will be destroyed. They grabbed a hold of my shoulders and were being very controlling, end quote. So Irene ran away from her own house. She got in her car. She drove to a pay phone. She called one of her daughters, and the daughter called the police. When Deputy Troy Naylor pulled up to Irene's house, Brian and Wanda came out wearing purple robes, and Naylor wrote, quote,

it was almost impossible to talk to them about what happened. Brian just wanted to preach to me. Brian did say that he was moving out, but Mrs. Mitchell said he has said he is moving out for the last six years, end quote. Damn, Irene. So Irene filed for a no contact restraining order. She had the couple removed from her property, and that was the last time she saw her son and his wife. The police report stated, quote, he has announced to the family in the world that he is starting his own church and wrote a 27-page letter to everyone about his religious beliefs.

His wife, Wanda, is just as bad as him, end quote. Now, unsurprisingly, Wanda and Brian also took Brian's book to the LDS Church. They submitted it to the committee on a post-state activity, and in response, the LDS Church began excommunication proceedings against them both. No surprise to anyone except for Brian, I guess. He thought that they were going to be like, you're so right. and welcome him with open arms and be like, the second coming's coming, and we need you, Brian, you're the prophet.

But within days of the hearing that made his excommunication official, so his excommunication became official, and then just a few days later, Brian David Mitchell would steal Elizabeth Smart from her home. So, finally, after climbing and hiking for hours, Elizabeth and Brian David Mitchell made it to camp. And Elizabeth said that as they approached a grove of mountain oaks, Mitchell stopped and called out Hep'sva to a woman, and then a woman's voice. answered from the trees, Emmanuel? Elizabeth saw that there was what she called an old woman wearing a linen robe waiting for them by the trees. And at first Elizabeth felt hopeful that this woman might help her, but soon Elizabeth realized there was no maternal protection in Wanda Barsey. In her book, Elizabeth wrote, quote, her hard stance and cold eyes told me she was anything but a friend. She had a wild look about her, emotional and tense, like a strand of wire that was being pulled too tight.

She had straggly brown and gray hair, a broad face and brooding eyes. She looked older than she was, and it was obvious that she had lived a hard life. Her eyes were dull, but grew excited now, an ember of fire beneath her drooping lids. She had rough hands and a rough manner that was all business in Kurt, end quote. Elizabeth said, obviously she sees Wanda, and it's a woman. And as a little girl, you're going to be like, oh, maybe I'm going to be okay, right? This is another woman. And, you know, at first I think I'm being kidnapped for, like, nefarious reasons.

But this woman will not let anything nefarious happen to me. Yeah. She's thinking, oh, she's going to protect me. You know, she's obviously not going to do anything to me sexually. She's going to prevent it from happening. He has a woman. Maybe that'll protect me as well. I'm sure those are the first thoughts as a child where you get there and you're thinking,

okay, I'm on my own. And then you see another woman. You think, okay, maybe this is horrible, but maybe it's not as bad as I initially thought. Because she's walking up that hill, she's walking up that mountain with just this guy, not knowing that there's going to be anybody else at the campsite. And it makes it worse, I think. I think it makes it worse that you figure out there's a woman there. Yes, and then you're let down.

And there's hope. And then it makes it worse, I think, from us as the listeners, knowing what happened to Elizabeth and knowing another woman was there. I'll be honest with all of you. I know the general overview, but fortunately at this point, I don't know all the details. I'm not looking forward to learning the details. I'd rather be ignorant in that sense. I know this story is not going to end well. And so I'm not looking forward to it.

So this will be the first time that I hear the details. Well, Elizabeth said the first thing Wanda did was walk up and put her arms around Elizabeth, but there was no warmth or kindness in this embrace. Wanda then led Elizabeth to a tent. And Elizabeth was able to get a look at her surroundings, the place that she would be held as a prisoner. There was a tent that could fit maybe six people with a large tarp placed on the dirt in front of it, and another tarp hung from the trees, which would create. a roof of sorts.

Behind it, there was a sturdy structure that Elizabeth is going to call a dugout, but it was actually part dugout, part lean to. And it's important because this was part of the structure that would allow Brian Mitchell and Wanda and Elizabeth to be hidden from these helicopters. That would make sense. Yeah. He specifically created it like that. So it's kind of built into the trees, right?

And it was approximately 24 feet long with eight posts made from trees that held the roof, which was made of three inch diameter tree limbs, a tarp, thick black plastic and dirt on top of the roof, right? Dirt on top of the roof. Yeah. Smart. So some of the eight posts were notched in a jigsaw pattern to interlock with the roof supports. And then nails were driven into several of the posts for extra support and the bases of the post were wrapped in plastic and duct tape to keep them from rotting. And you can see, once again, many people have talked about Brian Mitchell being at the library all day long, reading about books on survivalists and, you know, living in the wilderness and hunting and things like that.

This is what he was learning. This is what he was leading up to. Now, this would not be the place that Elizabeth would sleep. Actually, it was more of a shelter and a storage area and kind of a place for them to go and hide sometimes if there were helicopters or searches happening. because from the sky that dugout, that lean to would look just like dirt because it was dirt on top of it. Yeah, I mean, when you're doing a search like this from that height, you're looking for things that are out of the ordinary, not to stand out, maybe colorful, manmade, if you will. But when you're using the surrounding vegetation and the elements that you would find in that area as a spotter, someone from a plane or a helicopter, it's not going to stand out to you. It's going to look like a tree.

It's going to look like some shrubbery. unless you're really close and low, you're not going to spot it. And also, we have to remember this is a large area, and they don't know where Elizabeth is or if she's there at all. So it's not like they have a small one-by-one square mile area that they're searching for her. It's a vast amount of square footage that they have to cover, not knowing that she's in that specific location. They can be doing it for nothing.

So they don't even know if she's out there. We're going to hear about it later, but they kind of tracked her maybe, like her. sent into that, but they don't even know if she's still there or if she ever was there. Right. They probably assumed she wasn't there anymore, if anything. And, you know, so that's going to be very difficult to see. And I'm glad you cleared that up because that would be my first question, especially if they used like a blue or a gray tarp, you would think that that would have stood out to somebody spotting over the top of it. But yeah, he took some, he took some measures

to ensure that wouldn't happen. Yep. So actually, like right here, like right here, this would have been like from this tree like all the way back here this is where like the dugout was and I mean like I was looking you can see like the FBI or whoever came back here destroy it like they just like you can see some of the cut logs right down here and they were I mean they were just like laid up against this and then I was looking and I saw some black tarp right there and I think that was so it was logs that black tarp that's kind of in those leaves there and then dirt was thrown up on top of it And that's what all this was. And he had like a whole plan of like digging this area out.

And eventually like staying here year round. Thank goodness that didn't happen. Oh my gosh. I would have died. And then right here, this is where the tent would have been set up. Like this like kind of was the in line with this tree right here was kind of like the back of the tent. to like, like, the tent wouldn't have ended and then like right about here. There would have been like some tarps on the ground and then there kind of would have been a low hanging tarp

across here that, you know, protected from sun or the helicopter was flying overhead, you know, they wouldn't see people here. Wow. We would have entered in from like right about there. Yeah. Like came in right about there and then coming down right like this. And it would have been like right. right here. But yeah, I just would have walked straight in. The tarp area would be right there. The tent was right behind it and then the dugout was right behind that.

Wanda would have been like right, like right where my bag is pretty much, or right and like just left of my bag there on the ground. But yeah, this was it. It's brutal. Yep, that just reemphasizes what we were just saying. That's when there's no leaves. Right? So imagine different times of the year. That's going to be completely covered. You're not going to see anything. And just to try not to be redundant, but the fact that Elizabeth is willing to go back there and show us where she was and talk about how there would be a helicopter overhead and she wouldn't be able to scream or notify them because it could mean her own life. The fact that she's willing to go back there and do that for us just says so much about her because and there'd be nothing wrong with this, by the way. There's a lot of people that wouldn't go back there

for all the money on the planet. They just wouldn't be able to do it. And that would be completely justified. But the fact that she's willing to take us there, show us what she was dealing with so that we can learn from it. And maybe it apply it to other cases that we have similar circumstances. It's incredibly helpful because she's one of the stories where it had a good ending. If you want to call it that,

we don't always have that. And, you know, when you talk about other cases like this, it's not like a completely far-fetched idea that someone out there might take Brian David Mitchell's ideology or his practices regarding how he got away with it for so long and implement them in their own tactics and strategy. So this is really useful information from an investigatory perspective. Yeah. And actually, I mean, you can see that she's there decades later and there's still like pieces of black tarp. After Mitchell and Barzzi's arrest, the Deserate News went there and actually. Everything before the FBI destroyed it was still intact. Like, everything was as it was.

And they were able to, like, describe it and given it. But I can't even, it's crazy that even that many years later, when she is there, she can push leaves back and say, oh, here's some of that black tarp. That's chilling to me. Yeah. Yeah. That would have sent me spiraling, I feel like right then. No, she's very calm, collected, explaining everything.

She gave a very good visual. Okay. So at this point, Elizabeth was pulled into the tent immediately by Wanda Barsey, who ordered her to sit down in an upside down bucket in front of a basin of water so that she could wash her feet. Then Wanda told Elizabeth to take off her pajamas. And obviously Elizabeth immediately said no. She refused to do it. Wanda told Elizabeth that she needed to bathe her. And Elizabeth replied that she had just showered the night before.

Wanda called out to Brian David Mitchell, who was right outside the tent. And she told him, hey, Elizabeth says that she showered last night. And she asked him if that was okay. Mitchell's voice replied back, yeah, that's okay. But bathing was not the only reason Wanda and Brian wanted Elizabeth to take her clothes off, right? Because Wanda ordered her to get undressed again. And then Elizabeth refused again. And Wanda told her, quote, take them off, or I'll have him come in here and rip them off you.

End quote. Elizabeth started crying, but Wanda just repeated the threat. She gave Elizabeth a robe to wear. And Elizabeth managed to put the robe on and then wriggle out of her pajamas underneath. the robe. Wanda then commanded her to remove her underwear. When Elizabeth said no again, Wanda repeated the same threat. Do it, or I'm going to have him come in and rip them off. When Brian David Mitchell entered the tent, he was dressed in a linen robe with a sash tied around his waist, and he began to speak. And when Elizabeth realized the words he was saying were those that tied him

to her in an eternal marriage, she was obviously horrified and terrified. She told him, I'm just a child. I haven't even gotten my first period yet. And Mitchell hesitated. In her book, Elizabeth wrote, quote, he stopped, his face tight as if he were suddenly unsure of what to do. He yelled outside to the woman, telling her what I had said. Is it still okay?

He asked. The woman didn't hesitate. It's okay, she answered. End quote. So this was the first time that Elizabeth was raped by Brian David Mitchell. But over the next nine months, it would happen again and again, every single day and often, more than once a day. After this first time was over,

Elizabeth laid alone in the tent and thought about her family. She thought about what they were doing at that moment and wondered if they had even realized that she was gone yet. She thought about how her parents and siblings must be feeling, how scared and confused they would be.

In her book, Elizabeth said, quote, then a terrible idea seeped into my soul. If they knew what the man had done to me, would they still want me? Would they still love me? Or would they feel like we don't want her anymore?

I know that sounds crazy. but that's exactly how I felt. I didn't feel like a whole person anymore. I felt like I was not even half, like I was just a portion of a human being. I just felt filthy and disgusting. I felt like who could ever want me back? Who could ever want to talk to me?

Who could ever want to be my friend? End quote. Now, Elizabeth has since acknowledged that she initially felt this way for a few reasons, partially because of how religious her family was and because of how she had been raised with an emphasis on sexual purity, but also because she was so young

and she didn't have the tools yet to process what it just happened to her. And after working with many other rape and abuse survivors over the years, Elizabeth would learn that it was actually not uncommon to feel the same way that she had. She said she knew that it was not her fault. She said she knew that she hadn't asked for this. She said she hadn't wanted to be touched by Mitchell or be tied in marriage to Mitchell, but none of that mattered because she was still broken, even if it hadn't been her choice to be broken.

And she gave an analogy in her book of a vase sitting on a table. She said, the vase is sitting on the table and it's minding its own business. It's perfect and it's whole. But then if someone bumps into the table and the vase falls off and it becomes broken, there's nothing left to do but sweep up the remnants of the vase and throw them away. It wasn't the vase's choice to become broken. It wasn't the vase's fault that it was broken, but it still was broken and therefore it needed to be thrown out. Nobody wanted a broken vase.

It's terrible that she felt that way. You know, and this goes back to her experiences, being able to share them with other victims and being able to relate to them in a way that most people can't. And when I'm sure when they hear from someone like her who's gone through what they've gone through, it resonates a lot more just like in anything. So having this feeling and understanding that it's part of the process

and it's more common than you think, I think it helps everyone potentially heal from it knowing that they're not alone. At the same time, I can't help but want to do horrendous things to Brian David Mitchell as a father myself. But you can probably assume what those things are and I don't think I need to disclose them here. Yeah, I mean, I think when I heard what she initially felt, I was like, yeah, of course you would feel that way. And not just because of your upbringing, but because you're 14 years old. And even people who are adults and this happens to them, they report feeling the same way.

Like, I'm damaged goods, you know, like I didn't. didn't want this to happen to me. You know, there's a lot of people who find themselves the victims of rape when they're in relationships and they feel like I shouldn't be with my partner anymore because what happened to me? Like, he doesn't deserve that to have a girlfriend or a wife who has been, you know, broken like this. So it's very, very common. And I think once again, Elizabeth writing about her experiences, talking about her experiences, she's gone and talked on stages and on podcasts and gone to conferences and conventions where there are survivors of abuse and rape present. I think it's so healing, not just for her and not just for them, but collectively.

Yeah, I'm for sure. It's cathartic for everybody. Yeah, absolutely. To have someone again who can you can relate to personally. You know, hearing from people like me or you who haven't personally experienced something this heinous, you know, it's going to carry some weight, but not the same amount that someone like Elizabeth Smart talking about it would. Just just, that's the facts.

So having her have the courage to come out and speak about it and also to see where she is in life now. Married with a family, beautiful children, successful. And confident. The exact opposite of how she felt in those moments, right? Like she was trash and should be disposed of. Now she's known by millions and using what she had been through to help others. So you really can not only overcome but excel. despite of what you initially felt.

And I mean, listen, as a kid, how old was she again when this happened? 14. 14 years old. Unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, now she's a strong, confident woman. You can see in those clips. She's going back to this place where these things happened to her.

And she's not shaken at all. I mean, she might be, but she's not showing it. Definitely not showing it. If she's feeling some type of way, and I'm sure she is, you wouldn't know it. And this is the way that she kind of consistently. and eternally pays them back. Like, you are nothing. You were a disgusting person, disgusting people then.

You were losers then. And now you're still losers in every possible way. And I am not going to show on camera or in public or in any way, any sort of harm that this caused me. I will not give you that satisfaction. Yeah. It's the same way she is in person, too. I mean, she tells this story so vividly, but at the same time, there's not, you don't see even a moment of hesitation. where she's like unable to do it.

She just, she's met very matter of fact about it. And she would give examples based on other cases we were talking about and relate them to her own story. And if I didn't know better, I would think she was talking about someone else. Yeah. Because she's just, she's a real professional at this point when it comes to discussing her own story and

relating it to other people and other cases that are still unsolved because she, she, she has to have from that emotionally in order to continue to do that. And once again, that does suggest a real mental strength that I hope most or if not all survivors and victims can eventually experience. Agreed. So we're going to take a quick break because that was hard to go through and we'll be right back. Let's be honest, we all know our dogs deserve better than Kibble.

But when you start looking at options, it gets overwhelming really fast. You want to do the right thing, but everybody's promising this and promising that, and you just don't know what the right thing is. Yeah, and suddenly you're reading the ingredient list like you're studying for a test. It's not fun. Let me help you out. The pet's table is personalized dog food from the team behind HelloFresh. They offer both human-grade fresh meals and gently air-dried options, or you can mix both to see what your pup prefers. There are nine recipes all formulated with a board-certified vet nutritionist.

The air-dried plant is especially convenient. it's shelf stable, need zero prep, and unlike kibble that's highly processed at high temps, it's minimally processed to preserve actual nutrients, proteins, vitamins, antioxidants, all the stuff your dog needs for gut and immune health, a shiny coat, and an active lifestyle. And I'm not exaggerating. The fresh food, honestly, it looks really good. It looks like something that I would eat, and it smells good too. I don't know if you're, you know, if you guys have dogs, you know, I've switched my one dog, Rosie, to the pet's table. And first of all, she's really happy. She loves it. I noticed how excited she was when it was meal time. And it doesn't have that weird dog food smell.

It smells like human food. Like it smells really good. It makes me, it gives me a little stomach grumble. Yeah, it's Vinnie approved as well. My dog loves it. It's all he'll eat now. And each plan is tailored to your dog's age, weight, activity level, and more. They even have allergen friendly and seafood options. So there's something for every pup out there. Doesn't matter. They will fit your needs. And it's way easier than what I was doing before. Like I said, no prep, no guessing portions, no fridge chaos. Plus, there is a 100% money back guarantee on the two-week trial, so there is zero risk. So help your dog live their best life with high-quality food from the Pets Table. Take advantage of the limited time offer, which is to get 55% off your first box, plus 10% off your next to at the Petsable.com and use code, crime weekly, 55. This is actually a really, really good deal.

So take advantage of it. If you want to try it out, like I said, two-week trial, risk-free. So once again, that's the Petstable.com and then use code Crime Weekly 55. Check it out. Okay, back at the smart home, Elizabeth's father Ed had called 911 at 4.01 a.m. And after this, he and Lois began making other calls. Ed called their home teacher. So this was a man who was very close to the entire family. In the LDS Church, a home teacher is a member of the ward assigned to check on a family and is intended to be a source of support whenever the family needs it. And I would say in a time like this, they needed it. Lois called her mother.

Ed called his brother Tom, who was a photographer for the Deserate News in Salt Lake City. Ed said he wanted his brother Tom to be there not only for support and help, but because Ed knew that Tom had excellent connections with the media and he could get Elizabeth's photo circulated within minutes. When Tom got to the house, he gathered several photographs of his niece. He got right to work. Ed's sister Angela would also soon get in touch with her two close friends, Ruth Todd, and Kim Johnson, who were local Salt Lake City news anchors.

By the time Salt Lake City woke up and turned on their televisions to watch the morning news, the disappearance of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was the lead story on every news station. Friends and family began arriving to the smart home to offer support, help, and bring food by 4.15 a.m. So by the time police showed up, there was already a handful of people there and more would arrive throughout the morning. As soon as law enforcement showed up, they got an idea of what had happened, and then they immediately separated the members of the smart. family for basic initial questioning. Ed Smart remembered feeling like the police really didn't have control over the situation. They didn't really know what they should do or what they would be doing in something like this, so they were waiting for someone to tell them what to do. He said the crime

scene was not sealed until Sergeant Don Bell showed up, which was at around 6.54 a.m. almost three hours after Ed made the 911 call. Now around 6.30 a.m., Ed Lois and their oldest sons, Charles and Andrew had been taken to the police station, once again, all being kept separate and not being allowed to speak to each other. Nine-year-old Mary Catherine would be taken to the Children's Justice Center with Lois's mother and sister, where she would be questioned by the police about what she remembered as she lay in bed pretending to be asleep while her older sister was taken from their home. Now, Mary Catherine initially told the police that the man's voice had sounded familiar, but she could not remember where she had heard it. She remembered him being soft-spoken,

and she remembered him saying something about ransom or a hostage. Mary Catherine said that at one point, because it was dark, Elizabeth had stubbed her toe and said, Ouch, and the man told her, be quiet or I'm going to kill you. And when the man told Elizabeth to put some shoes on, the light in the closet came on briefly. According to the police, Mary Catherine told them that the man was about 5'8, wearing a light-colored jacket, and that he had a white or tan golfing-style hat pulled over his eyes, and he'd been armed with a gun. Now, as we know, Brian David Mitchell was not wearing any of that.

He was wearing all black. He was definitely not wearing a hat like that. And he hadn't had a gun. He'd been armed with a large knife. Yet, this became the running story that Elizabeth Smart had been taken from her bedroom at gunpoint. And the suspect's description, especially the light colored golf style hat, would become a huge investigative detail that would lead law enforcement to focus more on some suspects than others. Yeah, and we were talking about Nancy Guthrie earlier. this week, this is a little different, right? This isn't some social media person or whatever,

but this is some of the hurdles you face as the investigator work in this case. You have someone who's clearly trying to help. And even then, they can get things wrong. The trauma they experience can influence what they remember, how they remember it, something they may have thought about, may in their minds become reality. And you have to take that information at face value. It's all you have. And yet you could be chasing your tail. And this happens way more than you think. And that's why in a respectful way, I'm always skeptical of eyewitness and ear witness testimony because in most instances, people are trying to do the right thing. But in the moment, they may not know what they're trying to capture or retain is going to be

critical down the road. So they're doing the best they can, but more times than not, unless it's very obvious, people can get things wrong. And if you, if you base your whole investigation on one particular statement, it could lead you down a wrong path. But unfortunately, there's no choice. You have to do it. So even then, even with that cautious optimism, you still have to go in full head of steam because if they're telling the truth, that's going to expedite how fast you find the person responsible and potentially the victim. Yeah. And a lot of people will say, well, you know, it was dark. So she could have gotten it wrong. But then you said the light came on. Yeah, but you have to understand that when your eyes are closed and you're pretending to be asleep, you can still see the light come on.

Top asleep, too, by the way. Yeah, and if the light's coming on, you're definitely pretending to be asleep and making sure your eyes are closed during the whole time that lights on. So it's not that Mary Catherine couldn't tell the light went on because her eyes were closed. She could still see the light went on through her eyelids because she was awake. But it wasn't like the light came on and she was like, let me open my eyes so I can get a clear view of this guy. You know, she's nine years old. She's terrified. I say it all the time. I've said it probably 30 times on this channel.

23 years old police officer and in one of my most traumatic situations as a police officer, I was certain that the lights were on and come to find out it was my partner's flashlight. But it was so bright and I was so focused on the weapon that I got it wrong. In an actual statement, they said, where the lights on or off. Oh, yep, lights were on. I said it so just flippantly because I was like, oh, yeah, lights were definitely on. That's why I say a trained police officer in that moment, prepared for that situation, still got it wrong, even though I was trying to do the right thing. It can happen to anybody.

She probably heard like the light switch flicks, which is how she knew the light went on and it wasn't a flashlight. Yeah. But she's just going by context clues now. She doesn't really know. And I almost wonder, like she's nine years old. She gave a very inaccurate description. And instead of just saying it was dark, I couldn't see. I wonder if there was some leading of this witness.

Like maybe the police were like, did he have a hat on? She's like, yeah, he had a hat on. And they're like, well, we're going to show you pictures of hats and tell us which hat it was. What style hat was it? You know, and she's just telling them things because she thinks they want answers. Instead of them taking her first statement of it was dark and I really couldn't see and kind of understanding that that was probably the most accurate and truest statement, they wanted more information. Of course, they want to find Elizabeth. They wanted more information.

And so maybe they kind of did lead her a little bit into giving this very inaccurate description. Right. Trying to make her remember something. Yeah. What's the number one statement? What's the first statement I always said? This is a trick question or not a trick question, but a pop quiz for you, Stephanie. And everybody out there as well, answer in the comments before you see my answer.

What's the number one question that I start off with every interview? Do you remember anything? What do you usually say like what do you remember? Basically don't tell me something if you don't remember it. My exact statement was always tell me what you know, not what you think. If you're even on the, if you're just 50-50. That's not a question, dude. That's a statement.

That's the first thing I always say. That's the first thing I always say. What's the first thing I always say? Tell me what you know, not what you think. And during that statement, if they're like, I'm pretty confident that it was a red shirt. I'm like, are you 100% sure? No, you're not. Okay, I'm going to put that at the bottom then. Just tell me, just start this statement, the first statement with what you know.

That's all I want. Just things you're 100% certain about. That still doesn't mean they're right, but that's the best foundational information we have. Then you can start getting into speculation as far as what you think could have happened. But initially, what I want in that first statement, I'd always say it. Tell me what you know, not what you think. If you heard the light switch come on, say I heard the light switch come on. Don't tell me if you thought, you know, after the light came on, he went over to the side of the room because you couldn't see because your eyes were closed.

Just exactly what you heard or what you saw. That's all I need. And even then, again, like I said, not always 100% accurate. But that's the best case scenario is to start with the stuff that they're very confident about. Yeah. Well, I mean, you have to understand. Like I said, Elizabeth Smart, the leading story on every news station, first thing in the morning. There's going to be pressure to do something, to do something.

Yeah. There's also now, and I don't know if it was used back when this occurred based on this information, but whenever you have a witness that's a child or a victim that's a child, we have something called day one in Rhode Island. It might be national, but I know it's called day one in Rhode Island. And essentially this room, it's really cool. Have you ever heard of this? Yeah, it's, you know, basically it's a comforting room. There's child's things for them to play with coloring books that they want to draw, if they want to do something with their hands while they're talking. so they're not just sitting there getting grilled. Yeah. Right. So there's going to be stuffed animals, toys, very, very friendly room that just doesn't even appear like an interview room.

You have someone in there. One person, this person is trained in speaking directly with children, dealing with children, how to ask questions. They're wearing an earwig. They have like a headphone in. And essentially, there's cameras all over the room that the child cannot see. They'll be in the animals or they'll be in the corner of the room. room very discreet, right?

And as a detective, I can sit in that room and I have a microphone. They could, and there's been some investigations where it's like a conference room and there's like seven of us. There's state police. There's FBI. It could be everybody, right? And there's one microphone and that microphone can be passed around. And we are asking questions to the interviewer in the room and they're reframing those

questions or segueing into those questions in a more child friendly manner. It's really, it's a really cool. process to watch because I'm asking it like a cop, a detective, and all of a sudden they'll find a way to talk about something in the room or something that the child is talking about and they'll just kind of weave it right in there. It's really impressive and they're, those guys are angels the way they do it because it's like to ask those questions and some of them are not fun questions. If you know what I mean, they find a way to do it where it's as least traumatic as possible for these children. And by the way, this interview only usually happens once. It's a one and done

thing because they try not to re-victimize and re-traumatize the child. So this is a one-time deal, and they try not to make it too long, give them food, whatever they need. But this is a program that happens right here in Rhode Island. I'm sure it happens everywhere where you have to be on the list. But once you get on there, you get the meeting, you set it up. And I've found that in those cases, we get more information from the child than whenever another officer does the interviews. It's always better to go through this program. They do have things like this now, but obviously in this case, times of the essence. Mary Catherine was interviewed by the police.

Yep. She was interviewed, I believe, four times. Yeah, that's tough. And it's sad because Ed and Lois said she was interviewed so much that she stopped talking about Elizabeth in any other way. Yep. Even at home than what people wanted to know about that night. She became almost incapable of talking about her sister in any other format because, she kind of felt the pressure.

And I don't know if it was put on her. I'm not going to say that, but I can't, I will say. I'm sure she just felt it. Yeah, I will say there's probably a little pressure put on her. Like, you're the one, you were there. You're the one that saw this. You know, what did you see? Remember?

Yes. Yes. And so she kind of felt like she was letting everyone down. And when anybody would talk about Elizabeth, she would start saying, oh, you know, I saw that, you know, just trying to remember. And she just became incapable of talking about Elizabeth. That's her sister. Yeah.

And her memories of her throughout their life. this was the only way that she could talk about Elizabeth. And so the family started working with her and working with a therapist and stuff to help her with that. So that was good on the smarts part to notice what was going on with Mary Catherine. Yeah, this is why I think, I mean, maybe not then they were using it. And plus, like you said, time was of the essence. But now that's why they use these type of programs, these type of processes to have as little impact as possible on the victims or the witnesses. And she's a victim as well.

Of course. You know, in many ways. So it's like she's going through it. maybe not as much as Elizabeth was, but still going through it in her own way. And you want to try to have as little impact on those children as possible. Well, when they were questioning the older members of the smart family, Ed Smart said the line of questioning was very concentrated on who Elizabeth was. Did she have a boyfriend?

Was she known to be promiscuous or do drugs? Was she into the occult? What was her relationship like with her parents and siblings? Could she have run away? Had she been talking to anyone on the internet? And Elizabeth's older brothers were grilled on whether or not. they had killed their sister or if any of their friends had done anything to Elizabeth. The police questioned Ed about his line of work and asked if he owed money to anyone.

The family were all fingerprinted, including extended members of the family like Ed and Lois's brothers. The police looked through the family computers to see if Elizabeth had been communicating with anyone online. And Ed provided detectives with a list of construction workers who'd been at the home as well as a list of people who had toured the home since it had gone up for sale. A white sweater of Elizabeth's was given to the scent dogs to see if they could locate her scent and find a trail, and the dogs did hit on a scent that seemed to lead out the back of the house and into the foothills. The dogs tracked the trail up into the mountains before losing it, but this information would become the basis for initial searches. Now, in this case, law enforcement also used a statewide emergency alert system called the Rachel Alert for the first time. This was a variation of what we know is the Amber Alert, named for nine-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was abducted in Texas in 1996.

But by 2002, other states had their own versions. So Utah was the ninth state to implement a child abduction warning system. But at that time, there was not the fully standardized nationwide system in place that we have today. However, sadly, there were quite a few child abduction scares in Utah in the early 2000s, including Elizabeth. And so this would actually help focus national attention on the need for a unified system. So when I say there was a lot of abduction scares in the early 2000s, I don't mean just in Utah, I mean everywhere. So then states started realizing like, hey, we need this stuff and we probably need to make it more federally based.

So by September of 2002, about 26 states had these alerts in place. And President George Bush signed the Protect Act into law on April 30, 2003, which included provisions to create a national Amber Alert Network. By 2005, all 50 states had operational alert plans, meaning an alert could be issued in one state and shared regionally and across state lines. So Elizabeth's case actually helped push that. Like, that was one of the cases cited when this law was trying to be put into place. Utah's alert system was named after three-year-old Rachel Runyon, who was kidnapped from a park behind her home in 1982. And sadly, her body would be found 24 days later in a Morgan County stream.

I did look into this case. I felt like by now it happened in 1982. I felt like by now someone must have been apprehended. It must be solved. I was very sad to find out that Rachel's murder is still unsolved. She was three. That's very, very sad to me. Many cases out there like that that we don't hear about it.

Unfortunately, do it every single week. I, if I wanted to cover all of them, I would just have to cover a new case three times a day for the next 10 years. And I might make a dent in it. That's how bad it is. I mean, I think it's good when I come across these cases. I'll write them down because then maybe we can cover it on Crime Weekly or we can cover it on Crime Weekly news or something, you know?

Yes. So in Elizabeth's case, the alert went out about three and a half hours after her disappearance was reported and this information was broadcast on television and radio during the morning rush hour. But once again, the information that's being broadcast is very inaccurate, very early, very unavolved. We just know, you know, there's a child missing from this area. So Ed and Lois, Elizabeth's parents, they also used the media to the fullest very early on, basically from day one they were in front of the cameras pleading for their daughter's

return. All right. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Okay, Derek, winter confession. I mean, just confession in general, which I don't even think is really a confession, because you know how I am with food. It's winter. It's cold. I don't really want to do too much with the cooking, but I want homemade comfort food. And yeah, like I said, I'm exhausted. I'm done. I don't have the effort to put into this elaborate thing when I get home. Yeah. And we all want that like fresh from bakery energy without having to become bakers ourselves, right? We don't want to put it in the effort.

Yeah. Listen, cooking is an art. You can kind of mess with that. Baking is a science. Yes. 100% agree. I'm not good with the science. Okay. That's why this episode of Crem Weekly is brought to by 1.1. Wild grain, my favorite thing. I talk about it all the time. It's the first bake from frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, artisanal pastries, and fresh pastas, and everything bakes in 25 minutes or less. Yeah, and it's not that mystery ingredient store bread that you'd find in a lot of places. Wild grain uses simple ingredients you can pronounce in a slow fermentation process. There's no preservatives, no shortcuts, which makes it easier on your stomach and richer in nutrients and antioxidants. Their boxes are also fully customizable. So they kind of have set boxes. You can do the variety box, which is basically you picking exactly what you want in there.

They've got a gluten-free box, vegan, or even the new protein box. And I love that you can tailor it to what you actually want. And then obviously you can sort of modify as you go. So if it's like I have enough croissants, which I do now, so I'm going to add more raviolis to my next shipment. Yeah, I love the croissants, but I'll also say top favorite of mine, the sourdough, hands down, warm out of the oven, crusty outside, soft inside. And because it's frozen, I just bake it to, and it's ready when I need it. It's perfect for easy dinners, cozy weekends,

or if it's freezing out, like it's been lately up here, and you just want some comfort without putting in the work, sourdough is my go-to. There's nothing like having an artisan bakery in your freezer to chase away the winter chill. Now is the best time to stay in

and enjoy comforting homemade meals with Wildgrain. We highly recommend giving Wildgrain a try right now. Wildgreen is offering our listeners $30 off your first box plus free croissons for life. When you go to wildgrain.com slash crime weekly to start your subscription today, you did not imagine what I just said. This is not a dream. That is $30 off your first box and free croissants for life when you visit wildgrain.com slash crime weekly 30 or use

promo code crime weekly 30 at checkout. All right, we're back and real quick, before the break, you were talking about how Elizabeth's family was looked into as well, as you have to. You have to look internally first before you start to look externally, even if you have a witness saying there was someone else who came into the home. It's part of the process you have to do. it. And we've covered Nancy Guthrie the last two weeks on Crime Weekly News. So this is a first. I'm breaking the fourth wall here. We're talking about Nancy Guthrie. But a statement just came out and I wanted to read it to you guys quick. This is from Sheriff Chris Nanos. He said, quote, to be clear, the Guthrie family, including all siblings and spouses, has been cleared as possible suspects in

this case. The family has been nothing but cooperative and gracious and are victims in this case. To suggest otherwise is not only wrong, it is cruel. The Guthrie family, our victims, plain and simple, please, I'm begging you the media to honor your profession and report with some sense of compassion and professionalism. Who's reporting otherwise? So here's the issue, right? First off, it's not going to stop it completely. However, I'm going to put the blame back on him.

Now, if this information just became available today where they finally have cleared all relatives, sure, no problem. However, this is one of those things. where if they had cleared them a week ago, a week and a half ago, and they felt like they didn't have to communicate that with the public, that's something I have a problem with.

When we talk about the investigatory process, what they're doing behind scenes to catch these people, that shouldn't be shared. But if you vetted someone thoroughly and you feel confident enough to say that they're not a possible suspect, because we know that everyone's speculating online that somehow the family's involved, right?

If they're not putting this information out there, you can't shame the media for speculating because you haven't squashed that speculation by putting out a statement like this. So I love the statement initially. I hate the shaming of the public because your lack of communication is what led to that. So I'm glad he finally came out and said it. My question to him would be, when did you know this? Yeah, I agree. Like the second that family was cleared because this has been brilliant. Bingo. Bingo. So if they were cleared yesterday, then it makes sense. but if you knew this information even three days ago and you didn't share it

and now you're coming out publicly shaming the people in the media for asking questions and wondering why you haven't came out and said something like this and assuming maybe that means that they are being investigated, shame on you. Shame on you for not doing your job. Anyways, we can get back to the episode, but I thought it was relevant considering

you were just talking about Elizabeth's family being looked into and I'm sure at the time there were people within that community and in the media wondering if this was somehow an inside job. Yes, of course there were. But like legitimate media or like social media. Yeah. I know. Well, it's obviously different back then to now it's a whole different ballgame, right? Because everyone has access to a microphone and a camera and all you got to do is hit go live on your channel and you can get access to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. Yeah. And hundreds of thousands of opinions. Yeah, exactly. So there's an update on Nancy Guthrie. We don't need to do it. And it's relevant and it's timely. And I thought it was also.

kind of unfortunately fitting to what we were talking about in that moment. Well, I also, like, remember at this time, 2002, the National Acquirer was a thing. And they made the lives of the smart family just absolute hell. So I have no doubt. So as the investigation was starting, Elizabeth was waking up to her new reality. She opened her eyes to something being wrapped around her ankle. It was a steel cable, and she would come to find that Brian David Mitchell had crafted a makeshift pulley and cable system attached to a metal shackle around her leg.

and this would give her access to the tent, but a very short leash from there. This big tree that you can see falling down right here, it wasn't fallen when I was here. It was standing. And like my chain, like what I was chained between was that tree right there. And then this big tree that's fallen down. So it was like almost like a, I don't want to call it a pulley. So they had one little line that went from right here to this big tree falling that fell down. Yeah.

And then they had like a lock that they put around around it. And then I was, I had a, like my chain was like looped onto the lock so I could slide it. When you were tied to those trees, you could only go this? Could you even get into the dugout? No. No, he kept like, that's where he kept like the bolt cutters. Like they were not within reach. That's where he kept like shovels or anything that could have possibly been used as like a weapon.

or a tool to get away. And then I could like... Access the tent. Like I could like come around and like get in. But like I could not... Go past. Like I couldn't go really... Was there for a time?

Much further than like probably right here. Man, I'm so glad we have this video. What a visualization it gives you as a viewer to see it directly from someone who is there and for her to kind of lay it out. for you. You could see how dire the circumstances were. He really did plan this out where he didn't give her any opportunity to utilize the environment to help her. He had everything kind of laid out perfectly. And because of their location and how far away they were, she was aware that if she tried

to run and she didn't have a huge head start, he was going to get to her before she got anywhere where she would be identified or located. So she did try to run once and he caught up with her. Yeah. There you go. She was able to get free. And I didn't even know that. I didn't even know that. And he knew that. Yeah. So he really did take the measures to make sure she was in a in a no-win situation. So she had no choice but to kind of comply. Compli and just, you know, I mean, it's unbelievable that she, 14-year-old girl to be in that situation,

but to know, like, if I want a chance to survive here, I have to be compliant. Well, I mean, for the most part, that early that first day, Elizabeth said that Mitchell and Wanda ignored her and acted as if she wasn't there. And so she had a lot of time early on to sit and think, left alone with her thoughts and the growing horror and realization of what had happened to her. Elizabeth said she felt like all the hope in the world left in a rush. She was absolutely despondent. She said if someone had handed her a gun, she would have used it to end her life. So she tried to think about things that brought her comfort, her family.

And Elizabeth remembered a few years prior when she'd come home from school upset because a fellow classmate was having a party. And Elizabeth had been told in front of everyone that she was not invited. she was sad because her friends had sat there while this happened and they hadn't stuck up for her. But her mother told her, quote, Elizabeth, you're going to meet lots of people in this life. Some of them will like you. Some of them won't. But of all the people you'll have to deal with, there are only a few people that matter. God and your dad and me. God will always love you.

You're his daughter. He will never turn his back on you. The same thing is true for me. It doesn't matter where you go or what you do or whatever else might happen. I will always love you. You will always be my daughter. Nothing can change that. quote. And so Elizabeth then thought about all the times her family had always been there for her,

all the times they'd shown her, their unconditional love and support, and she suddenly realized that she would be accepted back and that she would always be loved by them. Before this realization she'd been wanting to die, but now she felt a shudder moved down her spine because she knew that this meant she still had something to live for. In her book, Elizabeth said, quote, the realization that my family would still love me proved to be the turning point. In fact, it proved to be the most important moment throughout my entire nine-month ordeal. It was at that moment that I decided that no matter what happened, I was going to find a way to survive. The conviction was crystal clear. I would do whatever it took. No matter what it took, no matter what I had to do,

I was going to survive. And quote, Elizabeth also said she started to think about how old Mitchell and Wanda were. And she knew that even if it took 20 or 30 years, that they would die and she would outlive them because she was younger. So even if she didn't escape, even if they didn't willingly let her go, even if she was not rescued, they would die and she would still be alive and then she would be free and she could go back to her life. And that's crazy to me. This girl was like, I don't care if it takes 30 years. Like I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it. Yeah. I'm so fired up. Yeah. I'm so fired up. Like I want to run through a wall right now. Like again, the fact that we're talking about a 14 year old is unreal. I think about Tenley, who's 13 and I've had some really good conversations with her and I think

she's mature for her age, but for Elizabeth being able to share some insight into her mentality in that moment, considering what she was going through, impressive. I'm impressed every sentence that you relay to us more and more. Yeah, she's like you said, very, very inspiring. And I think 14 years old, Stephanie. Yeah, I know. Insane. And I mean, you can talk about her family and their religion and all of that. Does it really matter when we're talking about what we're talking about? It doesn't matter because the family through the religion or through just being them instilled in Elizabeth as many times as they could, as often as they could, you are loved unconditionally by God and by us. So no matter what happens, there is somebody out there who always loves you, you always

have worth, you are worthy. It doesn't matter what happens to you. We will always love you. And that was instilled in her. And that's important. I mean, that's directly from Elizabeth's mouth. Like she told us that it was that foundation from her family that gave her the will to live. She was, it was really sweet. She said, I remember all the times my dad read me one more bedtime story when he didn't have to. And all the times I fell and hurt myself and they picked me up and they showed me love. It wasn't just telling me that they loved me. They showed me through acts consistently throughout my life that they loved me, that I was loved.

You never know, man, the impact you have on your children. Yes. If there's anything positive you take from these stories, all the parents out there, you know, know, single-handedly, Elizabeth herself told us that that was the thing that was the turning point. Yes. Her reminding herself of how much her family loved her. And that was what gave her the, the, the, the courage and the strength to carry on even if it took 30 years.

Yep. Exactly. That's incredible. Oh. So. I know we're being redundant here, but I'm, I'm, you know, blame me for it. That's fine. I'm just, I'm hearing this stuff for the first time. I got to read her book. I have not read her book. Yeah.

You need to. I got to read it. Well, on her first day, Elizabeth. Elizabeth ventured out of the tent to see how far she was able to move, which ended up being maybe 20 feet in any direction. Outside the tent, Elizabeth sat on another upside-down bucket and began to cry. She says that she did this all morning. And only once did Wanda Barsey acknowledge her. And she was like, hey, it's your wedding day.

It is time for you to cry. But you better get it out of your system now because soon you're going to have to stop. You can't cry forever. Now, eventually Brian David Mitchell would tell Elizabeth that her name was now, Shirshabub. I'm also probably saying that wrong. A great name. She was his second wife. She was Wanda's handmaiden. And Wanda was her mother wife, which this is crazy. This belief really doesn't have anything to do with the modern LDS church. But as we know,

the concept of a handmaiden does appear in the Bible in the book of Genesis. Hagar was the Egyptian handmade of Abraham's wife, Sarah. And Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to be his wife so they could have children through her. This actually pops up more than once in the book of Genesis. That's Old Testament for you, but the Handmaids would be considered a true wife, but of secondary rank, and she was also considered to be the personal property of the first wife. Now, plural marriage and early Mormonism began in the 1830s and 1840s under, guess who? Joseph Smith, who claimed he wanted to bring back the old ways, and he cited the Old Testament and Old Testament figures like Abraham. It wasn't really framed as a wife and handmaiden situation in Mormonism, but it was used as a president for plural marriage's legitimacy.

As far as the mother-wife thing, which is one of the weirdest terms I've ever heard, this idea, it seems to come from some splinter fundamentalist Mormon groups that broke away from the mainstream after the official LDS church ended polygamy in 1890. The most well-and-wis-wide-wide-for- many years by Warren Jeffs. We all know about him. Basically, it was a hierarchy of wives where the first wife was viewed as the senior wife and the wives who followed would be expected to defer to both the husband and the senior wife. Now, understand, Mitchell and Wanda had attempted this before, and it had not gone well for Wanda then. So in late 2000, Mitchell had told Wanda that he'd received a revelation that plural marriage was to be restored, and she must heed and obey the law of celestial marriage or suffer the eternal consequences.

And Brian Mitchell cited the law of Sarah, which meant that, that a first wife's consent was ideally, I guess, required for plural marriage. But if the first wife withheld consent, that would mean she wasn't righteous. So she would have no further claim over her husband's marital authority. Basically, Brian was telling Wanda that he didn't care whether she was okay with it or not. It was happening. And Mitchell became romantically involved at that time with a woman named Kelly. And Wanda said, quote, the woman laid claim to him and to exclude me, end quote.

So basically, Mitchell was like, peace, Wanda. I'm going to go hang out with Kelly, and Wanda was furious. She told Mitchell to end things with Kelly, but instead Mitchell left Wanda. And then he went to go be with Kelly until he found out that Kelly had been seeing other men, at which point he returned to Wanda. And then we also know Mitchell and Wanda had attempted to recruit Julie Atkinson, the woman who worked at the shoe store in the mall. Julie said Mitchell was always hanging around the store, wearing sandals, and after a few months, he brought Wanda in. and they told Julie that they'd realized it was time to live in polygamy, but they hadn't felt ready until they met her,

and then Wanda hugged Julie. Now, it seems in my opinion that stealing a child and forcing that child to act as Mitchell's second wife was easier for both Mitchell and Wanda. A 14-year-old girl wouldn't pose a threat to Brian Mitchell and his superiority, right? She couldn't say no, like Julie, or be with other men like Kelly. And Elizabeth wouldn't pose a threat to Wanda. she would be a simple vessel for Brian Mitchell. But Wanda wouldn't risk her husband like falling in love with this 14-year-old

or leaving her like what he did with Kelly. If they could keep this 14-year-old girl chained up in this camp, then Mitchell could have his way, but Wanda would have to worry about him running off. See, it's really twisted. It was self-serving. It's really just twisted. So Wanda obviously doesn't want to have her husband be with other women.

But if he's going to insist, then this is the only way she'd be okay with it. when she can be in complete control of everything. Yep. And Elizabeth said, okay, I'm Wanda's handmaiden, and she soon came to learn that all of these words, Brian and Wanda were saying simply meant that she was a sex slave to Brian and simply just a regular slave to Wanda. It was really, yeah, these people are twisted. So that first day, Elizabeth realized she had to present the appearance of compliance

and obedience to stay alive. So when Wanda started preparing lunch, Elizabeth walked over and asked if she could help. and Wanda and Brian looked at her like, what the hell? Like, oh, she's being really nice. And then when lunch was over, Elizabeth offered to clean up. But Wanda told her, that's not necessary. It's your wedding day. You know, you go relax.

It's your wedding day. And this caused panic to rise up in Elizabeth again. And she turned to Brian Mitchell and she begged him, don't hurt me again. Don't do what you already did to me again, please. And he told her, what are you talking about? We're married. We're a man and wife. That's what we do together now.

Like, this is what happened. This is your life. And Elizabeth sobbed and she bagged. And then Mitchell grinned at her and said, quote, tomorrow we are going to be as Adam and Eve in the garden. We'll be his little children. Tomorrow we're all going to go naked. End quote.

So first thing the next morning, Thursday, June 6th, Mitchell woke up and said, it's time to get naked. And after the expected begging and pleading and crying, Elizabeth realized she had no choice. And she was then forced to sit and watch as Mitchell started what she called an anatomy lesson using Wanda as the object. basically doing sexual things to and with Wanda. And if Elizabeth closed her eyes,

Mitchell would force her to open them. And then after an hour of this, he raped Elizabeth again. So yeah, really, really bad. Now, by Thursday morning, the community had come out in droves to help. Ed had started making calls the previous day, requesting assistance because he didn't feel the police

were moving quickly enough or putting their focus in the right places. According to David Hamblin, the lead of the Arlington Hills LDS Ward, quote, he said they thought Elizabeth was a runaway. He called three or four of us to get things started, end quote. So more than a thousand volunteers went through the neighborhood and into the foothills,

calling Elizabeth's name and looking for anything that might be connected to her. Searchers were told to place orange tape around anything that looks suspicious in the hills as they walked. Local teenagers and roller skates taped flyers onto street posts. 18 volunteer pilots in small aircrafts and helicopters would be in the air by the weekend, and a reward of $250,000 was offered for Elizabeth's safe return. And Elizabeth talks about how no one ever found her, but while she was at this camp, they could hear people calling her name in the woods and in the hills.

She could hear the searchers. She even thought she heard the voice of her uncles at some point calling her name. And when this was happening, obviously Brian David Mitchell and Wanda took her and they hid and they covered her mouth and they wouldn't let her call out. and so they were that close. I just, but at least, you know, she knew that they were looking for her still, I guess.

I'm sure that gave her some hope as well to know that people were still thinking about her and actively searching for her, you know, to motivate her to continue to push on and fight each and every day, even when I'm sure she had some really bad days mentally, knowing that it could just be any second before someone found them. I'm sure that part of that was the reason she was able to keep fighting. Yeah, I mean, yeah, she says that. Like, you know, I knew people were looking for me. But also it's frustrating because you're that close, right?

To safety, to family, to being pulled from this horrible nightmare. And you know that where you're located, they're never going to find you. Stephanie, I even think about the fact because this doesn't often happen. I think about the fact, I don't know what the mileage is looking at this map again. I'm assuming I don't have a scale on this. It's three and a half miles about. Okay. Can you imagine being a 30 minute, 40 minute walk from everything you love, right?

I mean, think about that for a second, how profound that really is. We're not talking that she was putting a car somewhere and drove days away, trapped in a bunker. She was on a mountain that she could probably have seen from her bedroom. Yeah. Not for a week for months. You know, I know you're going to get into the story where it went from there, but to me, that just would have such a mental, I would have such a mental take on me

to have to know that my family's right there. They're right there. And yet they're so far away. Yeah, that'd be very rough. Right? I know. That's what I'm saying. It's like frustrating.

We're talking about this whole story and it's like, she could jog down that hill and probably be there in 20 minutes. It was like, yeah, it was about an hour walk, yeah. An hour walk. I'm saying if she was jogging down that mountain,

20, 25 minutes, she'd be home. Yeah. And she's on this mountain. It almost does, doesn't seem real. Like, I'm not trying to make light of the situation, but again, this is my juvenile mind, but I almost think about like the Grinch, like being up on the mountain looking down at Huville. Like, you know, because like she's up on this mountain and her family's right below her this whole time going through this, but also still living their lives. Like, while you're stuck in the mountain with these psychos, it's like it's hard. If it didn't, if I didn't know it was a true story, I would think, oh, this is a movie plot. I imagine how she felt, right? Yeah. Of course. Yeah. And, I mean, once again, 14.

14. 14. 14. So this is Thursday. People are looking, lots of volunteers out. Now, by Thursday night, Ed Smart had a strong feeling that the police were focusing on him. In the book, Bringing Elizabeth home, Ed said, quote, in further questioning at the police station, they kept challenging my honesty and integrity.

This was definitely one of the lowest points in my life. I hadn't slept for days. I was unable to close my eyes without seeing my daughter's image. The police were pushing me to the point of breaking, which was their goal. If they could break me, surely I'd confess, but confess to what? I had done nothing wrong. I was emotionally and physically exhausted and was finally at the breaking point. I had been crying uncontrollably for three days since the morning Elizabeth was taken.

That night, two FBI agents had to help me up the stairs to my bedroom since I was unable to make the climb on my own. A little later, around 11, Lois called my dad and told him she thought I needed help. He came over right away and suggested I get medical attention. The impact of what was happening was settling in, and my mind was overwhelmed by the situation our family was facing. I was checked into the hospital unable to stop myself from crying, end quote. So Ed Smart had suffered a nervous breakdown. He had to be checked into the hospital and sedated. He was released the following day.

And there's actually more that I have to talk about when it comes to Ed Smart and why he was feeling this way. Let's take our last break, and then we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor. IQ protein bars, IQ mix, hydration mixes, and IQ Joe mushroom coffees are the delicious low sugar, brain and body fuel you need to win your day. We're going to do a mid-February check-in, right? Is it still new year, new me, or is everyone back to, you know, why did I agree to doing that in the first place? I mean, honestly, a little bit of both. But I realize the difference between sticking with goals and feeling awesome.

is just having better options on hand. Having easier, better options that you actually like and actually make you feel good. Yeah, IQ bar, it actually, like you said, it just fits. It's not dramatic. It's practical. You keep it with you. And suddenly when you start feeling hungry and you're going to grab for anything, you have IQ bar at the ready. Literally, I have it right here.

I just pulled it up. This is in my office. Ashley and I, we're always eating them. I got the sampler pack and I got the gingerbread bars. We eat them daily. The sampler pack is always. Look at it. thing. We are ready to go. We are ready to go. I've been sick for, I don't know what feels like

in eternity, but IQ mix sticks have come in clutch because there's so many vitamins and antioxidants and stuff like that in there. And they've got plenty of plant protein in the bars. Tons of fiber, no added sugar. They actually keep me steady instead of crashing an hour later. And they really, really, really taste good. So I really want people to understand. This isn't just something you do because it's good for you. You also do it because you enjoy it. The texture is good. The taste is really good. And everything IQ Bar makes is clean label certified and entirely free of gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial ingredients. My favorite part is they're packed with clean ingredients that support both physical and mental performances. So I'm really big on magnesium and lions mane lately. It's

very, very good for your brain. It's not just filling up. It's about staying sharp. And if you're trying to work out more this year, IQ mix, great after a session. Zero sugar hydration mix with electrolytes that helps rehydrate and support clarity and move. And if you're new to IQ, IQ bar, Derek already showed you it, but the ultimate sampler pack is the easiest place to start. You're going to get nine IQ bars, eight IQ mixtics, and four IQ Joe sticks. So you can try everything and see what actually works for you. Yep. And right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners and viewers 20% off all IQ bar products,

including the Ultimate Sampler Pack plus free shipping. To get your 20% off, just text weekly to 64,000. Again, text weekly to 64,000. That's weekly to 64,000. message and data rates may apply, see terms for details. Let's talk about cravings because they're not just about nicotine. They're about the habit, the hand-to-mouth motion, the oral fixation, kind of just like your normal routine, that little pause your brain expects during stress or boredom.

Yeah, it's pattern more than anything, right? Once your brain gets used to that loop, breaking it can feel harder than you expect. It can be a really difficult thing to overcome. A lot of our behavior, good and bad, is pattern. So that's exactly where fume comes in because it really makes sense. It's a flavored air device designed to help people quit smoking or vaping by interrupting that pattern, that hand to mouth pattern. Yep, there's no nicotine, no batteries, no vapor. It's just a weighted, twisty, fidget-friendly tool that gives your hands and mouth something better to reach for, and it helps with those cravings.

I have it in my hand right now. You can see it's, again, real wood, real metal. It's got the clickiness, the magnet. I have, if you're really paying attention, my part-time detectives out there, you'll see this. in my hand throughout the episodes. Exactly. It's like upgrading that habit instead of trying to erase it. So you don't want to just try to quit.

You want to upgrade the habit loop and reach for a few men's stead. And they also have different flavors. It's important to say that they're lighter than vaping. So more refreshing, more like flavored water compared to soda. Right. And they have the crisp mint. A lot of people like that one, you've mentioned it before. My personal favorite flavor is the orange vanilla.

Plus, they now have the raspberry as well. It's like this tangy little sweet. It's pretty good. I really like the raspberry. Actually, it's got a little, like you said, like a tangy kind of bite to it that I enjoy. Very true to fruit flavor, actually, which is surprising. And if you're doing a resolution reset, day one always feels easy. It's day five when the cravings hits.

That's where having something in your hand like fume makes a real difference. So fume has already helped over 700,000 people take steps towards better habits. And now it's your turn. When you grab a journey pack, you're also going to get a free gift just for using our code. So head to tryfume.com. That's t-R-Y-F-U-M dot com and use code Crime Weekly to claim your free gift today. All right. So obviously, and especially you, Derek, I'm sure you understand. And I think we can all understand the pressure that Ed Smart would have been under with his daughter missing, the police grilling him to find out if he was involved in some way or if it was his fault in some

way. I mean, they're grilling all the male relatives of the family. They're grilling his older sons. they're trying to make it some like weird sex thing, you know, at least that's how Ed kind of makes it seem like they were trying to make him feel like, you know, obviously it's usually the family and, you know, what did you do to her?

And on top of not knowing where his daughter was or what was happening to her, if she was even alive, now he's got to deal with this. That's going to be a lot of pressure. It is. And I don't want to make this gender specific, but I can only speak from my own experience. Maybe this is warranted.

Maybe it's not. As the man of the house, I feel a responsibility to protect my family. And I don't know if Ed felt this way, but to think that someone came into my home while I was there sleeping and took my child, I wouldn't be able to help but feel like I was somehow at fault. And then I was asleep at the wheel. It's not the truth, right? There's no way he could have known. But when you talked about in episode one about the alarm system not being armed and things like, that you start to second guess all of that and the decisions you made that led to where you are.

And so I'm sure that's in addition to everything that you're saying right now, that was going through his mind as the protector of the home. And again, for anybody out there's like, I know mom's got the same responsibility, but from where I'm sitting, that is my responsibility. Ultimately, it ends, it starts and ends with me. And if someone made the dumbass decision to enter my house, they're going to meet me. And if I'm not there, I would feel somehow responsible for that. So I'm sure on top of everything else, he's also thinking about that. And he's also knowing, like, no, I have no idea what happened to her. I did not do this. I wish you guys, I feel like you're not put, like, you're not believing me and you're not out there and, you know,

you're not out there looking, right? Like my daughter told you someone came in the room. What was going on? Why am I even being questioned? Well, think about how demoralizing it would be, right? So you're the mom or you're the dad, okay? It is part of the investigation. If it happened to me tomorrow, I'm knocking on wood. I would understand that there's going to be a point where there's going to be some uncomfortable questions. However, if we're like two, three weeks into it and they bring me in like, hey, Derek, sit down. Listen, man, just tell us what happened. We know you did it. I'm not only going to be frustrated, but I'm going to be completely demoralized because now I know they have no effing idea what happened.

And they're no closer to bringing my daughter home. If they're looking at me and I know I'm innocent, we are effed. simply put, you know, like that's not good. If you guys are the ones responsible for finding my kid and you're grilling me three weeks later, a month later, we're screwed. And that to me would be the worst part of it. Meaning you don't have any leads.

You have nothing. You're completely, you're barking up the wrong tree. And I'll answer your questions and I'm going to be pissed off. But once we get past that and I answer all your questions with flying colors, we still have a bigger issue to deal with. You have no clue what happened to my kid. Yeah. If you're looking at me, you're no, you have,

no idea what's going on. And I can't prove it to you, but I know that I'm not involved. And I wish you could go in my head and see that I'm not involved. But the fact that you're doing this, I appreciate the investigation, but this should have been a one and done where you cleared me and you started going on the right. I'm hoping you were coming to me today to tell me you figured out what happened. Not you sitting in here grilling me as if you're trying to get me to confess. So yeah, from from multiple angles, I would be extremely frustrated. And I can understand based on what you're saying about Edward, the mental state that he was in. I'm sure a lot of people would find themselves in similar situations under this type of pressure.

Exactly. But what no one knew at the time was that Ed Smart was under all of that pressure and also under a different kind of pressure due to a secret he had been keeping his entire life. Oh, no. Where is this going? So in July of 2019, Lois Smart filed for divorce. And soon after Ed came out as gay to close friends and family and somehow this information became very public. And then he, you know, started giving interviews. And I remembered that one interview where Ed Smart had sat down with Gail King that same year, 2019.

And he had said something interesting. When Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped, you were certainly front and center of that story. Yes. While that was going on, were you worried about your secret being revealed? Was that an extra burden for you? You know, here we are at the front page of the inquire. So did the police at one point view you as a suspect? The thing is, is when a child goes missing, the first ones that they have to look at is the family.

What was one of the police theories about Elizabeth's abduction involving you? They potentially thought that somebody was blackmailing me. I'd never heard that before because you were gay. Because I was gay. That somehow I was having this gay affair, which was absolutely not. In my mind, I thought, I've lost Elizabeth. And now I'm losing Lois and I'm losing my family.

Everything that really means anything to me. How can it be that I have this thing inside of me that I can't get rid of? Obviously, we talk about guilt and we talk about things like that. And so when I heard this in the interview, and then when I read Ed's words in his book, they held a new meaning to me because I can feel the amount of fear in him that was coming from all angles at this point. And I also wanted to make sure. I wanted to see like how accurate was it that the police had considered Ed's sexuality as a potential motive? Because at this point, what we're to believe now is Ed's been keeping the secret all his life. He's married.

He's got six kids. He's got like a decades-long relationship with Lois. and suddenly the police are asking him about being gay. And he's going to fear this is all going to come out. So not only have I lost my daughter, but my family is now going to find out something I've been keeping a secret, and I'm going to lose everything. And so I went to the police files,

and I want to see, did the police really consider as sexuality as a potential motive? And there are places in the police files where people are being questioned as to whether or not they'd been approached by Ed in a way that would suggest homosexual tendencies or if they'd been involved in a homosexual relationship with Ed. So I don't know if Ed came right out in interviews and was like, yes, I'm gay to the police. I don't think that's what happens. It seems from the files that maybe law enforcement had found something on Ed's computer that had led them in this direction to believe that he was gay.

And an early report states that when he was questioned about his computer, Ed became very defensive and wired, which led the police to believe, oh, he's hiding something. So they look deeper in the computer. And then maybe they found some stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And then they start questioning people like about, you know, were they in a relationship with that? Because, yes, it's clear that they did think, you know, this is a man who is a Mormon. He's highly respected.

He's keeping his sexuality a secret. So maybe somebody he was involved with had taken Elizabeth to blackmail him, and which I think is a valid theory. considering the climate, but no, Ed had never had a relationship with a man. It was just something he was keeping secret. He'd never been unfaithful to his wife. So he knew, no, there's nobody like that out there. But the police didn't believe him because he was keeping what they considered to be a secret. Yeah, I get it.

And I mean, when you said it, I'm like, oh, no, where's this going? To me, his sexuality really doesn't matter. It's no different than, you know, someone cheating on their wife. It's, he's gay. It is what it is. But I do see your point and also the theory that someone who, knows the secret could be trying to blackmail him. However, I would push back on that and say, why do you need to take his child? You could just simply say, hey, I know you're gay, and I'm going to

expose you unless you give me X amount of dollars. However, like you just said at the end there, what's more important is you're trying to find out what happened to this child. And you have a few people that you can go to for information. And it's made very clear from the jump, we need you to be completely honest with us, even if it doesn't make you look the best. And so knowing, that he's capable of keeping the secret, it does hurt his credibility, not because he's gay, but because he's keeping this information from you,

which may be prevalent to the investigation. So when you find that information as a detective on your own, it does make you question everything. Not only the fact that he's lying about his sexuality, but could he be lying about other things? And the question is why is he? Is it just because he's embarrassed?

If he's lying about his sexuality, he's not going to be honest with us that he's having affairs, yeah. Right. Is there more to the story other than his sexuality that he's not telling us. That could help us solve this case.

So I can understand how the magnifying glass would have been put on him, and understandably so, not because he's gay, but because he's hiding information from you. Yes. Yeah, I mean, but obviously, like, he wasn't in that. He was saying, I know, I have never had affairs.

I've never been sexual with a man. So there's nobody out there that would exist, but the police has to be sure. So his mindset is, hey, I'm gay, but I'm not, there is no other person. Yeah, I'm gay, but I haven't cheated. I haven't been disfail. Right.

Right. There's nobody out there who has a vendetta against. me because I'm not actively seeing anyone. It's just who I am and what I like. It's really sad because I think about how he felt and like we talk about the guilt and then he starts to think like maybe not in a reality kind of way, but in a moral way. Like, am I being punished? Right.

Am I being punished because of this thing inside me that he has been told by his religion that is bad, right? So by the weekend, there had been no real movement in the case Elizabeth's family was worried and stressed because the police had given them some statistics. The first 24 hours are the most crucial in China. child abduction cases, and if a child is taken by a stranger, it's usually a pedophile. If a person abducts a child with the intention to kill them, that child will usually be dead within the first three hours. Despite all of this, though, Elizabeth's family leaned on their faith and belief, and they

always believed that Elizabeth was alive. They never gave up on that, just like she never gave up on them. And police chief, Rick Edens said during a news conference that he was frustrated, frustrated that what felt like promising leads had not panned out. He also mentioned frustration with the crime scene, stating that at least 20 of the smart's neighbors were at the house before the police. There were several false starts in those early days. A milkman who saw a suspicious car in the neighborhood two days before Elizabeth went missing. A man seen at an event that the family was at who no one recognized. A man acting suspiciously at the top of immigration canyon wearing a white golf style hat.

But none of these leads led to anything and they wasted precious energy and investigatory hours. On June 9th, the police had Ed Smart take a polygraph and other family members. would also be asked to take one as well, including Ed's brothers. By Monday, 55 volunteers with ATVs were out on the hills searching for Elizabeth, but by the following day, the search through the city and Mountain Foot Hills that were led by volunteers had tapered off. The people searching on foot had fallen from 1,200 to 785, only 30 ATVs went out, and the volunteers taking part in air searches had to go down because of the expense. That afternoon, Ed and Lois Smart spoke to the media and asked the volunteers to keep coming.

with Ed saying, quote, we just know that this is going to end in a happy ending, and we pray that the Lord will bless all of you for what you have done, end quote. During another press conference, Chief Dent said the investigation was advancing, but they did not yet have a clear suspect. He said they had interviewed hundreds of people, received over 6,000 leads, 600 of which had been deemed worthy of a follow-up. Half of those 600 were cleared by Thursday. And Chief Dent said, quote, we believe that it is possible that we have already talked to or will soon talk to the suspect that is responsible for this crime. We are going to get you, and if you've got Elizabeth, you better release her now." End quote. But Brian, David Mitchell, and Wanda Barzzi had no intention of releasing Elizabeth Smart. They're not watching the TV. They don't know what the hell anyone's saying.

They don't care. In fact, Elizabeth was only the beginning of what they had planned. Brian was telling Elizabeth that she was a very lucky girl because God had chosen her and through Brian, he had saved her. Brian said that the end of the world was coming and God had called him into the wilderness to be cleaned and purged. As part of God's plan, Brian had been instructed to take seven wives before the end of the world happened. He said that all of his wives would eventually love him and bear his children. They would be happy and the day would come when he, his wives and his children would leave the mountains and go out into the world and testify that he was Emmanuel, the greatest, the most holy, the one who would save everyone from the Antichrist, who by then would have already

taken over the world. He told Elizabeth that he'd planned all of this. He'd planned how to get into her home, how to convince Wanda it was time for a second wife, how to create the camp way up in the mountains where they could hide. And he had done all this to save Elizabeth from the wickedness of the world and her church. Elizabeth said in her book, quote, everyone around me, the entire world was carnal and sensual and devilish, which was kind of ironic news coming from a naked man standing in the middle of the forest with his new wife cabled to the trees, end quote. Oh, everything, that was Elizabeth, everything about her old life. Mitchell wanted to decimate, but she can convinced him to have some tiny shred of power. She said she would accept the new name he had given her

if she could choose her own middle name. He said he would allow it, but it couldn't be anything like her old name. It couldn't be Elizabeth and it couldn't be Anne or any variation of those names. And Elizabeth then realized that Mitchell had done research into her because Anne was her actual middle name. So Elizabeth went and she looked through the Bible because they had a Bible there, of course, and Elizabeth said that she chose her middle name to be Esther. And she said she wanted them to call her Esther because it was a name from the Bible and it was a girl name, whereas Shirshabub was a boy's name. So they started calling her Esther. She said they did this for a few months and then they went back to calling her the old name and she never knows why they went back to calling her the

old name, but that's what they did. Now, back in the real world, the police were narrowing in on a suspect and that was 48-year-old Richard Albert Recy. And we've heard Recy's name before. Do you remember, Derek? Yeah, first episode. The first episode, Recy would be arrested on June 4th,000. 2014, 2002, nine days after Elizabeth Smart was abducted. We know that Richard Recy was the guy who had worked at the home of the smart family before David Mitchell. And he had been, you know, they thought he had stolen some things, but he said he never did

and this, this and that. At this point, nobody knows that he's got a criminal history until Ed Smart gives the police a name, a list of names of all these people who have worked at his house. And then they look him up and suddenly, well, boom. There's a criminal history there that wasn't there before. That's weird. So they arrested him. He'd been out on parole since September of 2000, but then he was arrested on June 14th, 2002.

And they said it was a parole violation, right? The police said that he'd been caught drinking alcohol and you're not allowed to do that when you're on parole. So they arrested him, obviously. That's a stretch there. Yeah, you know, you can read between the lines. I don't need to tell you guys what's going on there. Yeah. They knew.

They thought they knew that he was involved. They wanted to get him in custody. So Risi, along with other contractors who had worked at the smart's home, they were questioned the day after Elizabeth vanished. And at that time, the detectives found Risi to be a potential suspect, not only because he had been inside the smart home and knew the layout and had the opportunity to see and target Elizabeth, but because of the conflict, he'd had with Ad and Lois Smart, the whole Jeep thing and then the missing jewelry stuff.

So from the Jeep to the items missing from the house, to his pre-referralie. violent criminal record, the Salt Lake City police felt Recy needed to be looked into further. And while they will probably never admit that they had him arrested on a parole violation specifically so they could put the pressure on him, it's very obvious that that's exactly what happened. And listen, at the end of the day, it is part of your probation or your parole, right? And I mean, you're not supposed to drink. So did they do anything wrong?

No, but the reality is would they be looking in that direction to violate someone on a parole for drinking if they didn't think they were connected to a bigger crime? no, they wouldn't. And some of you may not like this, but I don't necessarily disagree with it. The guy violated his parole. You think he might know where Elizabeth is. You're going to enforce the law to a T. Even in most circumstances, you would use discretion and not necessarily do so.

So I understand the approach. The reason behind it, it's warranted. You need to get him off the street. Time is of the essence. He violated his parole. So be it. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, they're not going to admit to it.

Like they were targeting him, but they clearly were. They were, and I understand why they were, and you understand why they were, and that's fine. But, you know, they go a little far with it. So, Risi would also be indicted on robbery charges from November 2nd of 2001. He and two other men had taken a gun and stolen almost $2,000 from the Far West Bank in Sandy, Utah. You know, this isn't a guy that's following the law. Let's be honest. The week before that, Risi was charged in a state court with a theft of $3,500 in items from the smart family home.

so he admitted to that, and then also $300 in cash from another home in the neighborhood. And then in the summer of 2002, the U.S. Attorney's Office convened a federal grand jury to examine whether there was sufficient evidence to bring federal kidnapping charges against Risi. And several people testified who gave evidence against him. There was a woman in Cheyenne, Wyoming, who claimed she'd seen Risi digging a fence line two days after Elizabeth's abduction. And the woman had pictures of Risi wearing a tan-style golf cap, very similar to the hat that law enforcement. had confiscated from Recy's father-in-law who lived next door to Recy and his wife Angela's trailer. The police reports state that black hairs were found inside the hat and they did not match the hairs taken from Recy's father-in-law who had all gray hair.

A neighbor of Recy's, Andy Thurber, testified that the morning Elizabeth was kidnapped. Recy talked to him and told him, like, I know they're going to come and question me about it. And then there was the question of the unexplained miles on Recy's Jeep. Recy's mechanic testified that the Jeep had been dropped off. to him for servicing on the morning of June 8th, and at that time the vehicle was covered in dirt and bugs, and the odometer showed Risi had driven 500 to 1,000 miles between the time period of May 31st and June 8th. The mechanic also claimed that when Risi brought the Jeep in, he had stuffed some car seat covers into one of two full plastic bags that had been removed from the vehicle,

along with a post hole digger. And everyone kept talking about the light colored golf style hat. Recy had told police he didn't own a hat like that, but then they found one with his father-in-law and the hair inside of it didn't belong to his father-in-law, and everyone kept saying that they'd seen him wear one multiple times. There were also reports that inmates claimed Recy had made incriminating statements while in custody, which suggested he had knowledge of where Elizabeth was. Risi's home and vehicle had been searched multiple times. That's kind of how they get him to confess to the jewelry being missing from the smart

home because they found some of it there. And then prosecutors also presented all the circumstantial evidence that pointed to being a career criminal who'd already admitted to stealing things from the smarts home. He would have known how to get in the house. He would have been able to fixate on Elizabeth from being in close contact with her while he worked there. On top of all of that, he didn't have an alibi that anyone could verify. From the very start, Richard Recy swore up and down that he had nothing to do with Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping, and he provided the police with an alibi for the night it happened.

But unfortunately, for him, the alibi was, I was sleeping in my trailer alone that night. I never left, which obviously couldn't be independently verified by anyone. And as we know, Risi was married to a woman named Angela, a woman he had, you know, talked to the smart family about at length. But when police questioned her to verify his alibi, she said their relationship was strained. They weren't spending every night together. And she believed that the night Elizabeth was kidnapped, she was sleeping somewhere else. So the news of Richard Resey's potential involvement was everywhere.

and one night after a story that featured his name and picture went out in the evening news, Mary Catherine told her father that Richard Recy had not been the man in her room that night that Elizabeth was taken. And behind the scenes, the police were telling the family that they were 99.9% sure they had the right guy in custody, even though the only witness to the abduction was consistent and adamant when telling them that they were focusing on the wrong person. Mary Catherine said, that's not him. It was not the guy. Now, Detective Corden Parks later said, quote, Mary Catherine was asleep. She would have been groggy. Reports say she kept her eyes shut during the abduction. Maybe she didn't realize it was Recy, end quote.

And this is where I have a problem where previous to this I might not have. I think initially the police were doing the best they could. Like I said, I've read through the extensive files. I can promise you they were following all sorts of stupid leads in those early days. It was exhausting to read through. I can't imagine how exhausting it was to actually have to investigate all of this stuff and make reports about it. Every single thing that came in had to be looked into, tracked down.

People had to be questioned, et cetera. there was one tip that came in where some guy had possession of a video of himself having sex with what was described as a minor girl. The police had to go and get this guy. They had to get his videotapes. They had to watch the videotapes. They had to watch all of them because they didn't know which one it was. And then all of that to report that there's no minors involved in any of these sexual encounters. It was just a guy recording himself having sex with multiple grown women.

So these police officers have to watch all these tapes of this guy having sex. They don't want to do that. another woman called and was like my son's acting weird. He's been acting weird after Elizabeth's abduction. They had to go and look into this teenage boy. They chased down multiple people who others claimed had light-colored golf-style caps. So when Richard Recy entered the picture, even I can say that he looked like a viable suspect with all that we've talked about, the past history. Oh, yeah.

I mean, just telling me what you said so far, I'd go, hey, ma'am, there's definitely smoke here. Yeah. All of the miles put on the Jeep, the, you know, digging. holes in the Wyoming, Utah border after Elizabeth went missing, the lack of a verifiable all of that. And we now know he's not the guy. So imagine these other cases where we still don't know what happened, but there's quote unquote strong suspects.

Could be another Resey. Exactly. So now I'm saying all of that, I get it. But for the police, Detective Parks, to say the reason they ignored Mary Catherine telling them that Risi wasn't the one was because she kept her eyes shut during the abduction, when she's the one that gave the description of that stupid golf style cap that they really hung their hat on, no pun intended. It's specifically because Mary Catherine said she saw the man wearing it. And they're like, we got to track down all of these golf caps.

But now when she's like, no, that's not the guy. Detective Parks is like, well, you know, I thought her eyes were closed. You know, like weren't her eyes closed during this? Come on, man. Like she said it's not him. So take that into account a little bit, right? Yeah, you would think they would, right? But again, they're coming from a good place.

They're trying to find Elizabeth. Yeah. Mistakes are going to be made. I get it. I get it. But yes, you would think they would have said, okay, maybe they're onto something here. Maybe she's right. Maybe it's not this person.

In the end, the federal grand jury did not indict Richard Recy for kidnapping. And before the investigation concluded, Recy suffered a brain aneurysm while in prison. And he died towards the end of August 2002. Doctors had tried to save him by performing an operation to remove a blood clot on his brain. and alleviate pressure on the brain stem, but the damage had already been done. He was in a coma, and his wife had to make the decision

to remove him from life support. Now, after his death, police reaffirmed that Risi had remained at the top of their list of potential suspects, and police captain Scott Atkinson said this would make it difficult to ever find Elizabeth or determine what happened to her, saying, quote, what he knows goes with him, end quote.

It was very clear to me that they thought he was the guy, 100%. So after Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzie were arrested for Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping, Risi's widow, Angela filed several lawsuits against the DOC, the Department of Corrections, the Salt Lake City Police Department, and different police officers involved. In her wrongful death suit against the DOC, Angela alleged that a prison employee disregarded her husband's history of hypertension and that other workers altered his medical records to cover up their mistakes. And instead of going to trial, the DOC settled. They paid Angela $150,000, but they can.

continued to deny any wrongdoing. The lawsuit against the Salt Lake City Police Department and police chief Rick Dents, as well as six other investigators, was dismissed on July 6, 2005. Angela had claimed wrongful death, cruel and unusual punishment, false arrest, and slander. She claimed that Risi had been named as a suspect and placed under arrest to avoid public pressure and allegations of incompetence, even though there was no evidence linking Risi to the crime. She basically blames everything that happened. Like if he wasn't in prison when he had this medical issue, he would still be alive.

And I see what she's saying. That's probably true. Yeah. Same. Yeah. I'm sure the stress didn't help. She said that too, yeah. You know, the stress that was inflicted because of this, you know, all surrounding him.

Imagine he knew all along he wasn't the guy. Yeah. And his lawyer said, you know, he was subjected to like Guantanamo Bay sort of tactics. Oh, yeah. And listen, I've told you guys this before. when it comes to crimes against children in prison, there is a different set of rules, not only amongst other prisoners, but also with the correctional officers. So I can only imagine what was occurring while he was in prison with everybody in there

thinking that he had taken and more than likely killed Elizabeth. It would not have been a pleasant situation for him and behind those walls. It's hard because it's like I see why they did it. I see why they brought him into custody. I don't know necessarily if it was just about the public pressure. And they were like, we got to get someone, you know. The evidence did not look good toward him. It's tough for me.

And I don't want to sound like I'm defending police because that's what you would expect from a former cop. But anybody who's been watching us for a while knows that's not my style. If anything, I'm going to be more critical of them. There is a lot that goes on here. And again, it goes back to Nancy Guthrie where you're behind the scenes. You're speculating. There's a lot of theories being thrown around. it's on you, the police department,

to make sure that information doesn't get out. And you're going to look into a lot of people, and there may be certain people that you run into through leads that you start to go down the path of, could they do it? And they check the first box, they check the second box. They may even check the third and fourth box,

but by the time you get to the fifth, sixth, and seventh box, it no longer works. If I had a dollar, for every time that happened in an investigation that I worked, I would be a rich man because there's so many occasions where you're like, I got him, I got them. And then you get to that last piece or the last couple pieces that you need to fall into place in order to prove it's the right person and it doesn't work.

There are many times when there are suspects or persons of interest who do seem to fit the mold, but in reality they're not responsible for it. And it's a demoralizing job. You're going to get a lot of misses before you get a hit. And then you've got to go back to square one. And sometimes mentally, that's hard for police officers to do. So instead, they resort to, I don't know how this doesn't fit, but it's got to be because they did something to make it not fit.

It's not that they're not the person. I got the right person, but they found a way to cover up these other elements that I can't pin on them. And so then things start to leak publicly. They start making statements like, you know, even after his death, like we think the truth died with him. You know what they're doing. You know what they're doing. And yet they didn't have anything concrete to say it was him. So it's a problem.

It's a problem. On one hand, I understand what they're trying to do, but there is a way to do it. And I understand Angela's pain and frustration and anger. Completely understand where she's coming from. I think we both agree. If he had not been in prison, he probably wouldn't have died. She said the pressure of the constant interrogation and him constantly saying it's not me, it's not me. And then, you know, basically saying yes, it is.

Right. and him being afraid that this was going to be pinned on him because that's how it was looking. Right. That really set him over the edge. And we've talked about this before on many occasions. Yeah, he was a criminal by definition. But based on the crimes you described, jumping to kidnapping, very different. There's a lot of people out there who commit crimes involving money and things of that nature for reasons that are not appropriate, but you understand why they're doing it.

They're just doing it for the wrong reasons. and they're not taking the right approach. But being accused of something like a robbery or something along those lines opposed to kidnapping and potentially killing a young 14-year-old girl, it's a big jump. And even for the worst criminals out there,

like I've always said, crimes against children, it's just a completely different world. I couldn't understand why. And there was pressure and it was very public and everyone's like, how does this 14-year-old go missing

and you have nothing? Yeah, same thing could have. happened in this Nancy Guthrie case. Same thing. You know, everyone's talking about it. There's this pressure right now to figure out what happened. Law enforcement's feeling it and they have to push back against that and make sure that they're dotting their eyes and crossing their T's so that if they do find something, they get it right. Yeah, absolutely. So that's where we're going to end today. But, you know, next episode, we'll kind of go and fast forward through the next nine months. I'm not going to make you sit through every assault that Elizabeth had to endure.

Yeah, please, please no. We'll go through that and we'll kind of highlight the important moments. And then we will come to the point where Mary Catherine, months later, realizes, hey, I do know who did this. I do know. As much as this case sucks to cover, I am looking forward to getting over that hump and seeing how we get Elizabeth back. So nothing they're really at here. Just my big takeaway is that most of the time, Elizabeth was just a few miles away from her family the whole time.

And just on the other hand, they were at their home just a few miles away from Elizabeth this whole time. And that to me is what's really interesting about this specific case because that's not normally how it works out. They brought to a first location and then a secondary location pretty rapidly to ensure that there's no potential for them to get back home. Yeah, he knew that she was never going to, well, he has her tied up. Yeah, he has her tied up. and yeah, but that's the psychology of that, like knowing you're that close, but yet so far away. He knew he was also very, very, very well concealed. If there's one thing that Brian David Mitchell had, it was confidence.

Dushbag. I don't know. So we'll be. I know. We'll be back next week. And you said you're going to talk to Elizabeth and see if she's willing to come on. Yeah, I'm going to talk to her. I don't want to put any pressure on her.

I know she's very vocal about it, but she's talked about this a lot. And maybe she doesn't want to come on here and talk. So I'll reach out to her. And if she's willing to come on and talk for a couple minutes, great. if not we're going to still go through the episode we'll finish it up and yeah on to the next one but I appreciate you going into such depth about it I'm sure Elizabeth would appreciate it as well we'll see you guys next week until then obviously everyone stay safe out there and we will see you soon bye