Grinning broadly, America’s most notorious female kidnapper, 80-year-old Wanda Barzee, flashes a cheerful smile as officials updated her Utah Sex Offender Registry entry following her arrest for breaching the terms of her licence
Grinning broadly and dressed in a pink jumper, America’s most notorious female kidnapper has appeared in a new police mugshot after being arrested for breaching the terms of her licence.
Wanda Barzee, now 80, flashed a cheerful smile as officials updated her entry on the Utah Sex Offender Registry. The image is in stark contrast to the stunned-looking woman photographed in 2003 after she and her husband, Brian David Mitchell, were jailed for abducting 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart.
Disturbingly, it is not the first time Barzee has looked delighted to be back in custody. The pensioner served just 15 years for her role in Smart’s nine-month ordeal before walking free in 2018, at which point she was ordered to register as a sex offender.
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But authorities say she broke the register’s rules in May when she visited two parks, locations that convicted sex offenders are strictly banned from under Utah state law. The violation left her facing a possible return to prison. Smart responded within hours of her kidnapper’s arrest, posting through her foundation’s Instagram page.
She said Barzee had claimed she entered the parks because she had been “commanded by the Lord”, a rationale Smart took issue with. It was the same justification Barzee and Mitchell used throughout her captivity in 2002. Smart said she had long warned that Barzee’s release was “incomprehensible” and that the latest breach “confirms exactly why”.
She thanked police for acting swiftly, saying that taking such violations seriously “sends a very powerful message that survivor safety matters.” She urged lawmakers and officials to remember the purpose of sex offender registries and release conditions, warning that they exist for vital public-safety reasons.
Smart ended her message by recalling her mother’s advice after she was finally rescued, to refuse to let her nine months in captivity define her. “Although this situation has arisen, I refuse to live my life in fear,” she wrote, vowing not to let anyone stop her from living freely.
Her ordeal remains one of the most shocking abductions in US history. Mitchell, a self-styled street preacher, crept through her bedroom window, held her at knifepoint and dragged her from her Salt Lake City home. Smart later testified that he performed a mock wedding before raping her for the first time.
To prevent escape, she was shackled with steel cables and forced to sleep in a dugout crawling with mice and spiders. She was drugged, made to drink alcohol and raped daily – sometimes up to four times a day. Throughout it all, Smart said, Barzee stood by, offering no help and at times even encouraging Mitchell to continue the assaults.
The teenager was eventually rescued when a couple recognised the pair from America’s Most Wanted and alerted police. After returning home, Smart said she was too traumatised to speak of what happened. She wanted to pretend the nine months “didn’t happen”.
Now 37, she has rebuilt her life as a leading advocate for women’s and children’s safety. The married mother-of-three has written a book, worked on a documentary and helped create a Lifetime film about her kidnapping. She has spoken openly about the shame she once felt, saying she wrongly believed the abuse was somehow her fault. She said no one explained the difference between rape and consensual intimacy – a silence she now works tirelessly to break for others.
Mitchell has been serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole since being convicted in 2010. Last month, he was transferred out of the US penitentiary in Terre Haute after being attacked in custody.
Mitchell survived at least two recent attacks at the prison, both in “protected” units meant to isolate individuals considered to be at higher risk of violence, according to people familiar with both incidents.
