A key player in one of the most sensational child snatching stories of the past two decades made a criminal encore this week when the woman convicted with her husband of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart and keeping her as a sex slave was arrested for violating terms of her parole.
Wanda Barzee, who abducted then-14-year-old Smart with her husband Brian David Mitchell in 2002, is accused of illegally visiting Liberty Park and Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City, Utah — parks frequented by children.
The 79-year-old woman’s sex offender status prohibits her from visiting parks, according to court records obtained by Utah’s KUTV. Police say it could represent a violation of her parole.
Barzee told Salt Lake City police that God encouraged her to visit green spaces and “sit on benches and feed the ducks,” the station also reported. The two parks are located less than 10 miles from her Salt Lake home.
In 2002, Barzee and Mitchell, a street preacher, went through an open window and took Smart from her Salt Lake City bedroom at knifepoint.
After unrelenting national publicity on the abduction, the teen was found nine months later after concerned citizen saw the trio walking in a Utah suburb and called police.
The prosecution of the pair revealed Smart was raped almost daily as they lived in run down houses and campsites in Utah and San Diego. The Court sentenced Mitchell to life and Barzee to 15 years.
Barzee was released from prison in 2018 and was on supervised release for another five years. She was required to receive mental health treatment as well and was prohibited from making any contact with Smart’s family.
At the time, Smart, now a married mother in her 30s, protested the release and called for Barzee to be placed in a mental health facility. Standing on the steps of Utah state capitol in 2018, Smart told reporters:
“She is a woman who had six children yet could co-conspire to kidnap a 14-year-old girl, and not only sit next to her while being raped but encourage her husband to continue to rape me. So, do I believe she’s dangerous? Yes.”
Smart added that the freed felon “saw me as her slave. She called me her handmaiden. She never hesitated to let her displeasure with me be known.”
Scott Williams, Barzee’s attorney, said he thinks his client simply was unaware of the restriction. There’s nothing in his “long history of knowing Wanda that would suggest that she would knowingly violate any law, subsequent to her previous crimes,” he said.
When an inmate is released on parole, he or she is technically still in the custody of corrections officials and has limited rights, including allowing authorities to conduct warrantless search and seizure.
Barzee was booked into jail in Salt Lake City on Thursday and was released shortly afterward, pending further investigation and the filing of any formal charges against her.
A parole violation can potentially land a convicted felon back in prison.
Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
