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Religion News Blog This web log highlights news items, articles and web sites of interest to Christian apologists, countercult professionals, researchers and others.
Subj: Ten CommandmentsDate: 7/10/2003 7:48:42 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Mstks5
I just heard that the city of Pleasant Grove is under attack from a lawyer named "Brian Barnard" who is telling them they must move a Ten Commandment monument. With the help of this lawyer the state of Utah has had five cities forced to remove these same monuments. ( In the last year) I know you both know more about politics than I do, but if there is anything I could do I would love too.Pleasant Grove's Mayor-Jim Danklef
Plaintiff Attorney- Brian Barnard- The society of seperationists.
Michael Stokes
Ephesians 6:10A threat of a lawsuit puts the future of a Pleasant Grove monument to the Ten Commandments in question. Can it stay, or will it have to go? A well-known Salt Lake attorney has succeeded in getting similar monuments removed from public property in other Utah cities.
The monument has been in place since 1971, a donation from the local Eagles club. While most people recognize the Ten Commandments as the basis for all law, a group argues posting the commandments in public is a violation of church and state.
Nestled behind the old Pleasant Grove City hall is this rock monument, one of nine given to Utah cities in the 1970's by the Fraternal order of Eagles. But what is written on the rock has a group represented by a Salt Lake attorney, calling the monument unconstitutional.
Brian Barnard, Plaintiff's Attorney: "The Ten Commandments are clearly religious in nature the basis of the Judeo-Christian religions and because of that, government shouldn't be endorsing it."
Barnard has targeted other Ten Commandment monuments erected on public property in Utah, a couple of the cases ended up in court. Other cities moved the monuments on their own to avoid legal action.
The threatened eviction of their monument comes as a huge disappointment to the Eagles Club.
Terry Carlson, Fraternal Order of Eagles: "We're not putting it out for any one religion or to promote religion at all, we're putting it out just for the welfare of everybody."
Along with the Ten Commandments, a monument marks the city's first fire station; another honors victims of September 11th. But the mayor of Pleasant Grove does not see the Ten Commandments as a religious marker, rather a monument which reflects the values held by Americans.
Jim Danklef, Mayor of Pleasant Grove: "It's a way of life, a better way of life for us all and none of us want our children to go out and kill or steal or bear false witness against our neighbor."
Barnard says if Pleasant Grove doesn't move the monument, the Society of Separationists will file a federal lawsuit.
Brian Barnard: "My clients aren't against displaying the Ten Commandments, but they are against displaying the Ten Commandments on government property."
Mayor Danklef: "I think it's sad we have to give in to these special interest groups that are offended by something that someone gave us in good faith."
In the last year five Utah cities have moved their Ten Commandments monuments. The City Council is expected to discuss the monument dilemma next week.
Sam Penrod
Reporter, Eyewitness News
KSL-TV 5
801-575-5592 Salt Lake City
801-224-5806 Utah County
sam.penrod@ksl.com
The Salt Lake Tribune, Mar. 30, 2003
http://www.sltrib.com/
By Brandon Griggs, The Salt Lake Tribune
A decade ago, Brian David Mitchell was a clean-cut husband and father, a Salt Lake Temple worker and a diecutter at O.C. Tanner. Today he is a bedraggled prisoner at the Salt Lake County Jail, charged with kidnapping Elizabeth Smart.
What happened to him? Doug Larsen believes he has a clue.
In the early 1990s, Larsen was perhaps Mitchell's best friend. The two devout Mormons shared an office at O.C. Tanner, where they discovered a mutual interest in religious philosophy and scripture. Isolated somewhat from their co-workers, they talked for hours about their beliefs.
Mitchell left the jewelry company in late 1993. When Larsen next saw his friend, in April 1994, Mitchell and wife, Wanda Barzee, were hawking books by C. Samuel West, the Orem doctor known for preaching holistic health. Smiling like a hyena, Mitchell gave Larsen one of West's books and asked for a $350 donation.
"He was different. He was a little too exuberant. It was a little too much," says Larsen, who knew Mitchell had mental-health expenses. "I knew they had thrown away their medication. In light of subsequent events, he must have been medicated when he and I worked together. I don't know how else to explain the change."
A few months later, Mitchell quit working for West. Within a year he had sold his possessions, donned a robe, changed his name and left Utah to wander the country with Barzee, sleeping in the woods and preaching his peculiar gospel on the streets. Authorities say his misguided religious fervor and deteriorating mental state led Mitchell to snatch 14-year-old Elizabeth as the second of eight potential wives, sexually assault her and hide her under a veil for nine months.
The bearded Immanuel, as Mitchell has called himself in recent years, is familiar to many who saw him walking the streets of downtown Salt Lake City. But who is Brian David Mitchell? In the days after Elizabeth was found March 12, everyone from her father Ed Smart to District Attorney David Yocum to CNN's Larry King had a short answer: Sexual predator. Homeless wacko. Jesus freak. Polygamist fanatic. Soft-spoken Svengali. A "monster."
The long answer, as always, is more complex. Like all people, Mitchell is the product of many conflicting human, environmental and intellectual forces. Born Oct. 18, 1953, he grew up in a low-slung brick rambler on a winding street of 1950s-style homes just south of lower Parleys Canyon. Brian was the third of six children born to his mother, a schoolteacher, and father Shirl, a social worker.
Neighbors remember the Mitchells as Mormon, frugal and a little weird. All six children were born at home. The parents served only whole-wheat bread, steamed vegetables and other health foods, a stricture from which the children sometimes rebelled. Cousin Bill Christiansen recalls the Mitchell kids coming over to his house and gobbling down plates of beef. "They just seemed starved for meat."
Relatives describe Mitchell's mother as doting and conscientious. But by his own admission, Shirl Mitchell was not a model father. He once punished Brian by slapping him with a garden hose and tried to educate the 8-year-old boy about sex by showing him explicit pictures from a medical book. Another time he dropped off Brian, then about 12, in Salt Lake City's Rose Park neighborhood and made him find his way home. Shirl Mitchell characterizes his son as a "maladjusted" misfit who coveted his parents' love.
"There was a chronic, deep-seated craving for attention, for an identity," says the elder Mitchell, who has penned a rambling, 900-page manifesto of his own unusual philosophical and religious beliefs. "Even negative attention was better than none, as far as he was concerned."
"He was just left to fend completely for himself," says a sibling, who asked not to be identified. "And that's when the problems started."
At 19, Mitchell married his first wife, who now goes by Karen Minor, after getting her pregnant. They had a son, Travis, and a daughter, Angela, but the marriage lasted less than two years. Karen recently told TV's "Inside Edition" that Mitchell hit her and forced himself on her two days after the birth of their second child. In divorce records, Mitchell said Karen's alcohol abuse, infidelities and emotional problems made her an unfit mother. When Karen remarried soon afterward and was to be awarded custody of the children, Mitchell instead took them to New Hampshire for two years to "protect" them from her.
By 1980 Mitchell returned to Utah, kicked drugs and rededicated himself to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He found work as a janitor at the Beehive House near Temple Square and met his second wife, Debbie Mitchell, at a lecture on the Old Testament by LDS author W. Cleon Skousen. Debbie had three young daughters from a previous marriage when they wed in 1981.
"I remember feeling I was the luckiest woman alive to marry a man who loved my girls," Debbie Mitchell says. The couple quickly had two more children of their own. Perhaps seven children in one small house was more than they could handle, because in 1983 Brian Mitchell placed Travis and Angela, then 10 and 8, in a foster home. Angela says her father was following orders from Debbie, who threatened to divorce him if he did not find another home for his kids.
"It's not a decision I would make, but I can understand why he did it," says Angela, 28, who declined to give her last name for privacy reasons. "He was trying to save his marriage."
Debbie Mitchell denies giving her husband any such ultimatum. But their marriage was already in deep trouble. The gentle man she married, she says, had become strange, controlling and cruel. Once he brought home a stack of books about Satan "because he wanted to know what he was fighting against." Mitchell told her what to eat, forbade her from wearing bright colors and put dead mice in her stove to scare her. And sometimes, she said, he beat her.
"I used to go to church with black eyes," says the Salt Lake City woman, now 52. "I remember just literally cringing because he was so mean to me. And people in the ward thought he was such a wonderful man."
Mitchell, who filed for divorce from Debbie in 1984, told a different story. In divorce papers, he said he yelled at Debbie and broke things in anger but never hit her. Debbie was cruel to Travis and Angela, flew into violent rages and vowed repeatedly "to discredit him in the eyes of the children," he wrote.
Police were summoned and the case was referred to the state Division of Child and Family Services. A caseworker interviewed the boy twice and found no direct evidence that he had been sexually abused by his father. However, she determined the boy was more sexually interested than average and recommended that Mitchell's weekend visits with his son be supervised. Debbie Mitchell has had custody of the kids ever since.
Around the same time, one of Debbie's daughters came forward to say Mitchell had molested her for almost four years, starting when she was 8. Rebecca Woodridge, who since Mitchell's arrest has gone public with her story, said her stepfather repeatedly snuck into her bedroom, fondled her and made her touch him. Ashamed and scared, Woodridge told no one.
"I can still see him coming down the stairs towards me," says Woodridge, now 29, who has told her story on NBC and "Larry King Live." "He would tell me not to say anything because nobody would believe me. And he was right."
Debbie Mitchell says she reported the abuse in 1985 to LDS Church officials who doubted the girl's accusations and discouraged her from pressing charges. The case was never prosecuted.
"They could have stopped this," Debbie Mitchell says. "But we're talking 18 years ago when nobody in the church thought this kind of thing happened."
Dale Bills, a spokesman for the LDS Church, could not comment specifically on Mitchell's case. But he says the church abhors child abuse and has established several programs to help its local leaders prevent sexual abuse and protect and treat victims. Today, bishops and other church leaders have access to a 24-hour help line staffed by professional counselors.
Brian Mitchell's attorney, David C. Biggs, did not return calls seeking comment on the sexual abuse allegations. But Mitchell's relatives doubt the abuse occurred.
"He told me that wasn't true, and I believe him," says daughter Angela, who recalls Mitchell as a caring father who bought her a necklace with her birthstone. "He was never abusive to my brother or me, physically or sexually. And someone who's abusive usually has a history of that."
Woodridge, however, stands by her story. She cannot help but wonder how things might be different now had her stepfather been prosecuted 18 years ago.
"Every time I see [Elizabeth Smart], I think, 'That was me,' " she says. "There's a part of me that feels sorry for him. He needed help. And if people had believed me, he might have gotten help and none of this would have happened."
To outsiders, Mitchell appeared the model husband, father and churchgoer. He took Travis fishing and attended Angela's swim meets. But some saw cracks in the veneer.
"He wore the white shirt and the tie and always looked the part. But there was something uncomfortable about him," says Lee Willis, who knew the couple through their LDS Church ward. "He was a little too zealous for me. He was always doing a schmooze job on you, like a salesman."
Within a few months of their wedding, Barzee confided to family and friends that her new husband was not quite what he seemed. Mitchell yelled at her and threw things, she said. And at home, his behavior became increasingly spiteful and bizarre. Her children say he killed their pet rabbit and served it to them for dinner. But Barzee, weak-willed and smitten, stuck by him.
In the early years of their marriage, the couple attended church regularly. Mitchell told Larsen, his O.C. Tanner buddy, that he abhorred those who claimed to be religious but did not act on their beliefs. For three years Mitchell even worked at the Salt Lake Temple, where he portrayed Satan in staged temple rituals. So effective was he in the part that Mitchell made church officials uneasy.
"They told me I was the best Lucifer they had ever seen," Mitchell told his co-worker Larsen, "and could I please tone it down a bit?"
As Mitchell's religious views grew more radical, he and Barzee attended church less and less. Mitchell spoke strange prophecies, balked at paying his tithing and refused to pay income taxes. He railed against materialism and hypocrisy, renounced mainstream Mormonism and viewed himself as a messenger from God. In 1995 he and Barzee sold their car and belongings -- including a $2,000 piano -- and began traveling the country, panhandling to support themselves.
By the late 1990s, Mitchell had grown a long beard and become a Jesus-like fixture on downtown Salt Lake City streets, extending his hand to passers-by with a plaintive, "Please help." When old friends recognized him and stopped to chat, he often acted as if he did not know them. Larsen discovered this one August day in 1998, when he encountered Mitchell on Main Street. Overjoyed, Larsen made repeated attempts to talk to his old friend. Mitchell rebuffed him.
"His eyes were tired and devoid of humor," said Larsen, who finally pressed a $5 bill into Mitchell's hand and left. "He was no longer the Brian I knew."
By this time Mitchell and Barzee were near-strangers to their families, who viewed their vagabond lifestyle with a mix of concern, sympathy and disgust. Mitchell's relatives believe his wandering-prophet persona, with Barzee as his adoring disciple, fed his desire to shape a world with him at its center.
"Brian's problem is that he can't function under other people," says Barzee's sister, Janice DeYoung. "He has to take control."
In November 2001, Lois Smart hired Mitchell for five hours to help with some roofing work at the Smart home. Seven months later, the LDS Church excommunicated Mitchell and Barzee for their extreme views. That same week, Elizabeth Smart disappeared.
"Mental illness is like any other illness," said Cottrell, who also is a longtime friend of Barzee's. "If it's untreated, it gets worse."
If that is the case, then Mitchell has gone untreated for almost 10 years. To many outsiders, his life trajectory might look like a downward spiral. But ditching the trappings of society -- and the burden of family expectations -- to serve Jesus as a self-styled prophet was liberating for him, relatives say.
"Anyone who pursues the path less traveled is always going to look crazy," says Mitchell's son, Travis Mandeville, who saw his father and Barzee in Montana several years ago. "He might have been a little radical. But I didn't see anything wrong with their lifestyle. They seemed really happy."
Fanaticism often brings a certain euphoria, a strength of purpose born from the certitudes of one's beliefs.
"My dad viewed his whole life as a mission," says Angela. "He would preach for hours if you let him. It was a little strange when he changed his name. But I kind of admired him for his devotion."
Cousin Bill Christiansen believes Mitchell shares something with every respectable adult who is ever tempted to chuck his conventional life for a more unorthodox journey.
"A lot of times we may go up to the precipice and look over," Christiansen says. "Most of us pull back and say, 'That's a little too radical for me.' Brian went up and he looked over the edge and he jumped off."
It's one thing to be eccentric; it's another to be criminal. Even Mitchell's family and supporters condemn his involvement with Elizabeth Smart. As bizarre as Mitchell's behavior may have been in recent years, none of them saw this coming. And they are as curious as anyone to find out why.
"Nobody has really asked the 'Why?' question with the intent of finding out," says Larsen, who doesn't think the Brian Mitchell he knew could hurt anyone. "I've had a hard time believing he is guilty of anything more than being delusional. To me, it's a miracle that Brian is now in a place where he can finally get some help."
Those who have visited Mitchell in jail since his arrest say he seems calm and accepting of his fate. He has asked for little beyond a Bible, a Book of Mormon and some medicine for constipation. Mitchell believes his arrest and imprisonment are part of a divine plan and that he, like Jesus, is destined to suffer for his beliefs.
"He looked good to me. He didn't have much strain on his face," says Shirl Mitchell, who saw his son at the jail Friday. "He says he's willing to die in prison if necessary."
Tribune reporter Joe Baird contributed to this story.
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002916.html 4/3/03 4:39 PM
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Item 2738 Posted: 03/16/2003 Weblogged by Religion News Blog
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002738.html
The Salt Lake Tribune, Mar. 15, 2003
http://www.sltrib.com/
The first section of the "Book of Immanuel David Isaiah" is dated "6 April 2002," Christ's birthday in the minds of many Mormons. On the first of 27 pages, this one dated Feb. 9, 2002, Brian David Mitchell speaks first in the voice of God, saying that he has chosen his servant, Immanuel David Isaiah, to be his voice. Later in the book, Immanuel will be the voice of Jesus. "God proclaims that a darkness has enveloped the world and that 'Satan reigns and his dominions are great . . . and the humble followers of Jesus Christ suffer and mourn under the heavy hand of oppression and murder and secret combinations, which they do by their secret crafts and arts, their secret governments and societies, with their false traditions and churches, subject the whole earth to the iron yoke of bondage, misery and death; and the true and faithful and humble followers of Christ cry out in the anguish of their souls for relief and deliverance."
"Repent, God says, and deliverance will come; and 'for this cause I have raised up my servant Immanuel David Isaiah, even my righteous right hand, to be a light and covenant to my people . . .'
Jesus says that he established, through Joseph Smith Jr., 'the only trued and living church upon the face of the whole earth with all the keys and powers and ordinances of the Holy Priesthood for the salvation of mankind, being the same church that I established through Peter, James and John in the meridian of time, and it was lost through apostasy and a falling away. And this priesthood and this power have continued with my last day church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, through a succession of prophets until the present day.' "
"Wherefore, I, the Lord God, will not be mocked, for verily, I say unto you that I have seen the wickedness and abominations of my people in these last days, even all the house of Israel, for they have rejected the new and everlasting covenant, even the Book of Mormon, and they have not heeded the words of mine anointed prophets who cry unto them. Repent ye, repent ye of all your idolatries, and your abominations, and your secret combinations, wherein ye murder to get gain, and my people will not hear."
"Therefore, I, the Lord God, take away even the light which they have. And I hide up the true prophets who are still among them. And I give them false prophets who speak vain and foolish and lying words unto them. And the fullness of priesthood keys, authority and power, I bestow upon another who is in their midst and they know him not, unto whom rightly belongs the priesthood and the keys of the kingdom for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days."
"One who is mighty and strong I have ordained in the stead of him who was ordained of God. For he, who was ordained of God and sustained by the people, has acted deceitfully, and is lifted up in the pride of his heart, and he has rejected the fullness of my gospel, even with new and everlasting covenant, and he seeks the praise of the world and exalts himself, and he leads the children of the promise with a flaxen cord down to their destruction."
"Nevertheless, I am a God of perfect mercy, justice and order, therefore, a portion of priesthood keys and power to perform outward ordinances I leave with them for a short time . . ."
In section two, the book speaks of the Seven Diamonds Plus One -- Testaments of Jesus Christ -- Study and Fellowship Society, founded Sept. 24, 1997.
The seven diamonds are: the Bible, King James version; the Book of Mormon; "the inspired words of the prophets" of the LDS Church; The Golden Seven Plus One by C. Samuel West; Embraced by the Light by Betty J. Eadie; The Literary Message of Isaiah by Avraham Gileadi; and The Final Quest by Rick Joyner. "The Seven Diamonds Plus One -- Testaments of Jesus Christ -- Study and Fellowship Society is where my true disciples will be gathered in against the day of burning, for it is The Church of the Firstborne, even the society of heaven, and the sanctified, and the redeemed of God. It is the true and living Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its purified and exalted state."
"The Seven Diamonds Plus One -- Testaments of Jesus Christ -- Study and Fellowship Society is where my true disciples will be gathered in against the day of burning, for it is The Church of the Firstborne, even the society of heaven, and the sanctified, and the redeamed of God. It is the true and living Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its purified and exalted state.
"Woe unto ye, scribes and pharisees, ye doctors and lawyers and priests, who wear the habiliments of the priesthood, even as ravening wolves in sheeps clothing, hypocrites! Ye are a generation of vipers, and how can ye escape the damnation of hell, for ye give fine speeches but your works are the works of darkness. Did I not testify unto you, by the mouth of my latter-day prophet Ezra, that the whole church was under condemnation because they did not receive the new and everlasting covenant, even the Book of Mormon? And what is the covenant of the Book of Mormon? Is it not to care for the widow and the fatherless, and to succor the needs of the poor, the sick, and the afflicted? Is it not to stand as a witness for me, even Jesus Christ, in all things, and in whatsoever circumstances you are in? I ask you, have you done these things? I say unto you, ye have not!"
In section four, dated Feb. 17, 2002:
"Woe unto ye, scribes and pharisees, ye doctors and lawyers and priests, who wear the habiliments of the priesthood, even as ravening wolves in sheeps clothing, hypocrites! Ye are a generation of vipers, and how can ye escape the damnation of hell, for ye give fine speeches but your works are the works of darkness. Did I not testify unto you, by the mouth of my latter-day prophet Ezra, that the whole church was under condemnation because they did not receive the new and everlasting covenant, even the Book of Mormon? And what is the covenant of the Book of Mormon? Is it not to care for the widow and the fatherless, and to succor the needs of the poor, the sick, and the afflicted? Is it not to stand as a witness for me, even Jesus Christ, in all things, and in whatsoever circumstances you are in? I ask you, have you done these things? I say unto you, ye have not!"
"I gave unto you The Word of Wisdom, that he, through obedience, might receive health in your navel and marrow in your bones, and run and not be weary and walk and not faint, and find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures, and I, the Lord, gave unto you a a promise that the destroying angel would pass you by as the children of Israel and not slay you."
"Therefore, Hephzibah Eladah Isaiah, thou art called and chosen to be a helpmeet unto my servant Immanuel David Isaiah, and to be his wise counselor and best friend, and to be submissive and obedient unto thy husband in all righteousness, and to be a comfort and a strength and a companion to thy husband in every time of trial and affliction unto the end."
"Wherefore, Hephzibah, my most cherished angel, thou wilt take into they heart and home seven sisters, and thou wilt recognize them through the spirit as they dearest and choicest friends from all eternity, and they shall bring thee great joy, even a multiplicity and an eternal weight of blessings and glory and eternal happiness. And lo, though shalt be healed and made whole every whit, and thine own womb shall be opened, and thou shalt bring forth a son to sit upon the throne of his father David. And thou shalt take into they heart and home seven times seven sisters, to love and to care for; forty-nine precious jewels in they crown, and thou art the jubilee of them all, first and last, for all are given unto them, for thou art a Queen, Oh Hephzibah!
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002738.html 3/19/03 2:10 PM
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002784.html
The Salt Lake Tribune, Mar. 19, 2003
http://www.sltrib.com/
BY STEPHEN HUNT, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee may believe God ordered them to kidnap Elizabeth Smart, but legal experts say divine revelation will be little help to them in the courtroom.
"Being egged on by another is not a defense," said Assistant Utah Attorney General Michael Wims. "It is not a defense that God urged them to do it."
Mitchell, 49, and Barzee, 57, were charged Tuesday in 3rd District Court with aggravated kidnapping and five other felonies in connection with the June 5 abduction of then-14-year-old Elizabeth and the attempted abduction of her cousin in July.
Barzee told a friend that on Thanksgiving 2000, Mitchell received a prophecy from God to take Smart and six other girls as plural wives.
But Utah's insanity law -- the strictest in the nation -- focuses on a defendant's intent to commit a crime, leaving little room for theological explanations or excuses.
"You've got a defense only if, as a result of mental defect or disease, you cannot form the intent necessary to commit the crime," Wims said.
A mentally ill defendant can be held accountable in a kidnapping case if he intentionally detained a victim and understood the victim was human, defense attorney Mark Moffat said.
"Utah law makes a defense of insanity extremely difficult under any circumstance," Moffat said.
Questioning Competency: One of the first questions to resolve in the Smart kidnapping case is whether the defendants are mentally competent. A judge likely will probe whether they are able to understand the charges against them and the potential punishments; and whether they are able to consult with their attorneys and participate in the proceedings.
Judges have psychologists interview the defendant and submit reports. If the experts disagree, a hearing may be held.
Salt Lake District Attorney David Yocom said Tuesday that his office would push for quick resolution of the competency question. "We want [psychologists] appointed immediately," Yocom said.
If either Mitchell or Barzee is found incompetent, he or she would receive treatment.
Utah law allows a criminal defendant charged with a first-degree felony, such as aggravated kidnapping, to be treated for up to 2 1/2 years at the Utah State Hospital. After that, a defendant must be released, although a judge may order civil commitment to a secure institution if the defendant remains a danger to himself, herself or others.
Arguing Insanity: A competent, yet ill, defendant can argue at trial that he is not guilty due to insanity -- but the threshold is high.
Moffat helped challenge Utah's insanity statute on behalf of Tomas Herrera in one of the few cases where a defendant was allowed to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
In 1991 in West Jordan, Herrera -- a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic -- shot and killed his common-law wife, Claudia Martinez, believing she was a non-human double.
Prosecutors agreed Herrera was not guilty by reason of insanity based on a psychiatrist's report that he suffered "substitution delusions."
The doctor, however, found Herrera knew the victim's mother and brother were human beings and had intentionally tried to kill them.
Herrera pleaded guilty and mentally ill to the attempted murder counts, was sentenced to 1 to 15 years, then challenged the constitutionality of Utah's insanity statute.
In 1999, in a split 3-2 decision, the Utah Supreme Court upheld Herrera's convictions for attempted murder.
The inability to understand right from wrong remains the standard in many states and in the federal court system.
It is also a standard that might fit the defendants in the Smart case. "If God's telling you to do it, is it wrong?" asked Moffat.
Mitigating Factors: A defendant also can raise the issue of mental illness to lessen the severity of a conviction.
For example, a mentally ill defendant in Utah cannot claim insanity if he killed someone "believing it was Adolph Hitler and you were going to save the Jewish race, or an enemy soldier believing you were going to be killed," Moffat said, but he could still offer that explanation to a jury hearing the case.
"It may mitigate the facts, but it is not an absolute defense to your conduct," Moffat said.
Defendants also may raise disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder or battered women's syndrome to explain their actions.
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002784.html 3/19/03 12:51 PM
SALT LAKE CITY, March 13 For a man now described as being at the center of one of the most intense missing-person cases in years, Brian D. Mitchell did not exactly try to blend into the scenery.
With a veiled Elizabeth Smart and his wife in tow, Mr. Mitchell showed up at a downtown block party here, a grocery store, a restaurant, even living for about a week just one block from the Salt Lake City police headquarters, numerous witnesses say.
Throughout much of last summer, while the police and volunteers were looking day and night for Elizabeth after her kidnapping, it turned out she was moving among them in the open, dressed in the most flamboyant of outfits, and at times even camped just three-and-a-half miles from the Smart home. Mr. Mitchell was stopped by the police several times, and later arrested in San Diego on a burglary charge all while still holding Elizabeth captive, the authorities said.
Dan Gorder, a freelance photographer, took a picture of the odd-looking group, dressed in white robes that looked like hospital gowns, at a big outdoor party in downtown Salt Lake City last September, just three months after 14-year old Elizabeth was kidnapped from her home near Salt Lake City. The police said late today that they believed Elizabeth was indeed one of the people in the picture.
"They stood out in the crowd that's for sure," Mr. Gorder said. "When I took their picture, they didn't seem to be really happy with it, but they didn't do anything."
He said that Elizabeth, who stayed close to the adults and never spoke, had not appeared to be threatened. "She could have just walked away or said something," Mr. Gorder said. "She definitely had the opportunity to walk away."
A few weeks before the party, in late August, the three were spotted at a suburban restaurant where Mr. Mitchell, with his long beard and flowing robe, and his wife, Wanda I. Barzee, 57, were so well known that the restaurant workers had a nickname for them.
"We called them Jesus and Mary," said Erin Ptaschinski, 17, a waitress at Souper Salad, in Midvale, about 10 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Ms. Ptaschinski said a girl she now believed was Elizabeth Smart came in only once with the couple, last August, and stayed about two hours, regularly getting up to get her own food at a salad bar. On the door of the restaurant was a poster of Elizabeth at the time, perhaps, the most sought person in America.
"She could have run at that point or told us who she was," Ms. Ptaschinski said. "She just got her food and walked back to the table. She was never physically restrained."
The Salt Lake City police chief, Rick Dinse, said Elizabeth "was psychologically affected by this," but would not elaborate on whether she had begun to identify with her captors. Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart, said he believed she was "undoubtedly brainwashed."
A supervisor at the restaurant, Lindsey Dawson, also went up to the table to talk to the three people in white robes.
"It was creepy, because all you could see was her eyes," said Ms. Dawson, referring to Elizabeth. Usually, the group was allowed to eat free, workers said.
The two restaurant workers said they never realized who the vagrants were until a few weeks ago, when Tom Smart, an uncle of Elizabeth, came into the restaurant with a poster of Mr. Mitchell and his wife.
"I told him about the encounter last summer, and Tom said, `Is there anyway that could have been Elizabeth?' " Ms. Dawson said. "I said: `Yes. Very likely.' "
Mr. Mitchell, 49, was a self-proclaimed prophet who called himself Emmanuel, and was well known on the streets of Salt Lake City as a panhandler and preacher among the homeless. He was formerly active in the Mormon church, and has been married three times, according to records. He has lived in a half-dozen residences in the Salt Lake area in the last 14 years. Mr. Dinse said he was "a self-proclaimed polygamist."
Mr. Dinse also said, "his criminal background is very minor."
Mr. Mitchell first came to the Smart home in 2001, after he was hired to do some day labor at the house. He worked only one day, for about four hours, doing some roof repair work and raking leaves. He seemed gentle and soft-spoken, said Ed Smart, and talked about of his religious beliefs.
Just after the kidnapping, on June 5, Mr. Mitchell and Elizabeth camped in the mountains near the Smart house. At times, Elizabeth even heard searchers calling her name, Mr. Smart said.
Late last summer, the police say, Mr. Mitchell was moving all around Salt Lake City. At the block party in early September, other people approached the three and asked about the small, veiled girl.
"I went up to Mitchell and asked, `How come she can't even look at people?' " said Ron Lewis, 37, a banquet crew leader who was at the party. "I said, `What's up with a religion that won't even let women speak?' " said Mr. Lewis, who told his story to the police today.
"Her eyes were all I saw of Elizabeth," Mr. Lewis said. He said at times, Mr. Mitchell and his wife held Elizabeth's hand.
"He must have really done a job on her, because all she would have had to do was to say her name," Mr. Lewis said. Later in the party, Mr. Mitchell made a scene, shouting from atop a chair, and was asked to leave, he said.
"He was shouting at the top of his voice, `I am the word of God,' " Mr. Lewis said.
The three were also seen, repeatedly, at the Wild Oats Natural Market Place, near downtown. Mr. Mitchell was a regular customer, before and after the kidnapping, clerks there said.
"The three of them must have come in about three times," said Wally Cromar, 24, who works at the store. "We'd never seen him with a second girl before." They three were dressed in the usual white flowing robes, the faces of the women veiled.
"We get a pretty diverse group of people in here hippies and vegans so you try not to think about people being strange," Mr. Cromar said.
It was at the Wild Oats that Mr. Mitchell became friends with another clerk, Daniel Trotta, who invited the three to come stay with him in his small studio apartment. They stayed for about a week last October, neighbors and relatives of Mr. Trotta's said.
His apartment is just over a block from the Salt Lake City police department headquarters. During the week at his apartment, Elizabeth spoke occasionally about school, but never told Mr. Trotta her real name, he said.
Bret Benge, a 35-year hair stylist who works next door to Mr. Trotta's apartment, recalled seeing "Emmanuel" and two women there last year.
"You know, Daniel and I didn't agree on that," he said. "I didn't really like the guy, Emmanuel, but we didn't talk about it that much. I saw the three of them over here and at a party with Daniel last fall and at Wild Oats."
Mr. Benge said he did not think it was odd that he had failed to recognize Elizabeth Smart. "I never bothered to look at them real well," he said. "They were always wrapped up."
But he questioned how Elizabeth could have been oblivious to the search going on for her. "She walked right in to Wild Oats and there were posters on all the doors," he said. "It's weird. It's a strange situation."
Mr. Mitchell spent much of last year in San Diego, police said today, and was arrested at least once, and was videotaped by a number of merchants.
San Diego County Sheriff's officials said today that Mr. Mitchell was arrested last month in the burglary of a church across the street from a homeless shelter. When arrested, he gave the name Michael Jenson, said Lt. Doug Clements of the sheriff's office.
He was held for six days, then released after pleading guilty to misdemeanor vandalism.
Others spotted the three people throughout San Diego County.
"All the skateboarders saw them," said Mike Gardner. "The women always had veils on."
Mr. Mitchell and the two robed women were seen at Wrigley's supermarket, outside San Diego.
"He was the one in charge," said Widad Dermody, a clerk. "I'd ask how you doing? And only he would answer."
The police said they believed Mr. Mitchell had moved through three states: California, Nevada and Utah. They say he arrived back in Utah on Wednesday, the day of his arrest, at a time when his face had been widely shown on a television show, "America's Most Wanted."
The last official address for Mr. Mitchell in Salt Lake City, an address which he used to register to vote in late 2001, is for a run-down house in a quiet neighborhood near a school and a Mormon church. A neighbor two doors down, Jason Kirchner, said he had never seen Mr. Mitchell at the house, but had seen him downtown.
"I saw him at a food festival, Taste of Utah, last year," said Mr. Kirchner. "He had those flowing robes on. I gave him some curry. And then when I saw that face on the news I turned to my wife and said, `That's the guy we gave the curry dish to.' "
According to a July 24 sheriff's report, the screen on Jessica Wright's bedroom window was cut and a chair was found beneath it. The would-be intruder fled when the family heard noises in the night and called authorities.
A chair was similarly found under the kitchen window at the Smarts' home after Elizabeth disappeared from her bedroom early on June 5. And the screen was reported cut from the outside.
``It's more than a coincidence,'' said Sheriff Aaron Kennard. ``You have this cousin who looks like Elizabeth and is good friends with Elizabeth.''
Wright has been described as Elizabeth's favorite cousin. Kennard said his investigators had evidence linking the two incidents that would be given to prosecutors for attempted kidnapping charges that could be filed early next week.
The sheriff also said investigators may have to ask the teenager whether she was assaulted.
To properly investigate, ``we have to ask (Elizabeth) the same questions we put to women. Hard-nosed questions need to be asked. Put her through it, and then get on with life,'' Kennard said. ``Elizabeth is a victim. How did she become that?''
Late Friday, about 200 people gathered at a downtown park to celebrate Elizabeth's return. The teenager did not attend, but sent an autographed poster thanking the public for their support.
``I'm the luckiest girl in the world! Thank you for your love and prayers. It's a wish come true!! I'm home! I love you all,'' Elizabeth wrote.
Ed and Lois Smart appeared at the celebration, thanking the crowd and basking in the joy of having their daughter home.
``She could hardly wait for a bubble bath,'' the mother said. ``And I told her she could have as many as she wanted.''
Peggy Rowland, 52, who spent six days searching for Elizabeth last summer, carried a bouquet of balloons and wore a button of Elizabeth's photo that read simply ``found.''
``I feel just wonderful. Things like this just don't happen,'' Rowland said.
Police found the girl on Wednesday walking in a Salt Lake City suburb with Brian Mitchell, a shaggy-haired vagabond and self-styled prophet. With them was his wife, Wanda Barzee. Authorities said the three had been living under bridges and in tents in Utah and California, apparently panhandling to eat.
Family members and police have not disclosed details of Elizabeth's ordeal but have indicated the couple had gained a hold over her psychologically. Her father, Ed Smart, said he fears she was brainwashed.
Investigators are poring over a document titled ``The Book of Immanuel David Isaiah,'' seized Thursday in Montana from one of Mitchell's relatives. It was believed to have been written by Mitchell, whose aliases included the name Emmanuel.
In it, Mitchell calls polygamy a lost ``blessing.'' And he refers to himself as a ``just and merciful'' God who can restore lost blessings to those who do not sin.
One passage, in which he appears to address his wife by a biblical name, says: ``Thou wilt take into thy heart and home seven sisters, and thou wilt recognize them through the spirit as thy dearest and choicest friends from all eternity.''
Police have said Mitchell was excommunicated from the Mormon Church, the religion of the Smart family, and considered himself a polygamist. The practice has long been outlawed in Utah.
Asked whether Elizabeth may have been taken to be a wife, the girl's aunt, Angela Dumke, said, ``You never know. He's nuts.''
``This guy's probably involved in polygamy,'' said Dumke, Ed Smart's sister.
Dumke said another theory is that Barzee considered Elizabeth to be her child. Relatives of the 57-year-old woman said she fled a violent marriage years ago, leaving behind six children.
Police said Elizabeth was snatched from her bed at knifepoint and spent her first two months with Mitchell and Barzee in a tent within two miles of the Smarts' house. They later left for the San Diego area.
Mitchell was arrested twice during the time police say Elizabeth was with the couple - once in Salt Lake City on suspicion of shoplifting Sept. 27 and another time last month for trying to break into a San Diego County church, apparently in search of a place to sleep.
Mitchell pleaded innocent to charges in the shoplifting case Friday.
Prosecutors said aggravated kidnapping and other charges from the Smart case would probably be filed against the two Monday.
Elizabeth's mother, Lois Smart, said the teenager was feeling ``fantastic'' and sleeping well for the first time since her ordeal began. The Smarts have yet to decide when Elizabeth will return to school, she said.
For now, ``we need to be with Elizabeth,'' the girl's mother said.
03/14/03 22:41 EST
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
SALT LAKE CITY, March 13 Relatives of Elizabeth Smart said today that the authorities had shared information with them indicating that the man held in her nine-month disappearance was a polygamist. The information has led some family members to conclude that Elizabeth may have been kidnapped to be a wife.
"There is no question this guy had an obsession on her, that he wanted her," Elizabeth's aunt, Angela Dumke, said of the man, Brian D. Mitchell, who was arrested on Wednesday with his wife, Wanda Ilene Barzee. "That has been our feeling."
Ms. Dumke said that when Mr. Mitchell abducted Elizabeth from her bedroom last June, he seemed fearless, moving slowly through the house. She said he was still in the upstairs hallway when Elizabeth's sister, Mary Katherine, went to alert her parents.
"He just walked like he was God," Ms. Dumke said. "This is someone who thought he was above it all."
Tom Smart, Elizabeth's uncle, said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had shared documents with the family that pointed to Mr. Mitchell's polygamy. Ms. Dumke said she had also seen the materials, which she described as chilling and which included statements written by Mr. Mitchell.
"This guy is into polygamy and all of that," she said.
The disclosures about Mr. Mitchell's possible polygamy came as the family learned details about Elizabeth's captivity, including several near misses in tracking down her and her abductors. Among them was the revelation that the girl had heard one of her uncles shouting her name as volunteers combed the hills behind her home hours after the abduction.
The police also reported that Mr. Mitchell, who was using a different name, had been arrested last month in San Diego for breaking into a church but had been released. People who had seen Elizabeth in San Diego said she seemed to be under Mr. Mitchell's strict control.
Only 12 hours or so after the three returned to the Salt Lake area they were picked up by the police while walking on the side of the road.
The girl's father, Edward Smart, met Mr. Mitchell in 2001 when he helped out at the Smart home as a handyman. Mr. Smart said today that he was astonished at Mr. Mitchell's mastery of deception.
"When I was up there on the roof with him, I never could have guessed," Mr. Smart said. "He was so soft-spoken; he was so quiet. I never would have guessed that such an animal would have existed behind such a person."
In a television interview today, Edward Smart said Elizabeth had seen "bad things" during her captivity with Mr. Mitchell. Asked later to explain what "bad things" Elizabeth might have seen, Tom Smart said, "This man is evil. It's what you'd imagine."
Tom Smart also suggested another possible motive, that Elizabeth had been kidnapped because Mr. Mitchell's wife, Ms. Barzee, had wanted a daughter. "There is also evidence to say that she may have been considered a daughter to Wanda, we don't know what it is," he said. "It is one of those two, and maybe something we don't even know of."
In a news conference this afternoon, Police Chief Rick Dinse of Salt Lake City described Mr. Mitchell as a "self-proclaimed polygamist" but would not say whether Elizabeth had been abducted to be a wife.
"That is part of what we are investigating right now," the chief said.
Chief Dinse also would not say whether Elizabeth had been sexually assaulted. "That is something else we are not going to talk about, what physically happened to her," he said.
The focus on Mr. Mitchell and his possible motives in abducting Elizabeth came on a day that Elizabeth's grandmother, Dorotha Smart, declared as a "day of Thanksgiving in March." She and other family members said they were reluctant to dampen the celebration of Elizabeth's safe return on Wednesday by delving publicly into the sordid details of her abduction.
"We don't even want to go there," one of Elizabeth's uncles, Chris Smart, said, when asked if she had tried hard enough to escape. "We are just rejoicing."
Some relatives believe Elizabeth Smart was abducted to be the suspect's second wife.
The New York Times, via The Orange County Register, Mar. 14, 2003
http://www2.ocregister.com/
By DEAN E. MURPHY, The New York Times
SALT LAKE CITY Relatives of Elizabeth Smart said Thursday that authorities had shared information with them indicating that the suspect in the girl's 9-month disappearance was a polygamist.
The information has led some family members to conclude that Elizabeth might have been kidnapped to be a wife.
"There is no question this guy had an obsession on her, that he wanted her," Elizabeth's aunt, Angela Dumke, said of the suspect, Brian David Mitchell.
Tom Smart, the girl's uncle, said the FBI had shared documents with the family that pointed to Mitchell's polygamy. Dumke said she also had seen the materials, which she described as chilling and which included statements written by Mitchell.
"This guy is into polygamy and all of that," she said.
The girl's father, Edward Smart, told a television interviewer Thursday that Elizabeth had seen "bad things" during her captivity with Mitchell. He did not elaborate. Later asked what she might have seen, Tom Smart said: "This man is evil. It's what you'd imagine."
Tom Smart also suggested another possible motive: that Elizabeth was kidnapped because Mitchell's wife, Wanda Barzee, wanted a daughter.
"It is one of those two, and maybe something we don't even know of," he said.
At a news conference Thursday, Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse described Mitchell as a "self-proclaimed polygamist" but would not say whether Elizabeth was abducted by Mitchell to be a wife.
Dinse also would also not say whether Elizabeth had been sexually assaulted.
"That is something else we are not going to talk about, what physically happened to her," he said.
At the news conference, Ed Smart shared heartwarming details of the family's first night together.
He said Elizabeth and her sister, Mary Katherine, had fallen asleep in their bedroom holding hands. Elizabeth watched her favorite movie, "The Trouble with Angels."
"Elizabeth is happy; she's well," Edward Smart said. "And we are so happy to have her back in our arms. I hate even leaving her. I am just always sitting there hugging her the whole time. Is this real?"
Smart's expression grew pained when asked about her ordeal. He said that he had no doubt that Elizabeth had been brainwashed and that she had lived through hell. He began to weep as he gestured toward the parched foothills just beyond his home.
"She said that she had spent months right up here in the mountains, through August," Smart said, his hand reaching as if they were close enough to touch. "I can't believe it."
Smart also made an oblique reference to the Salt Lake City police's handling of the investigation. Many questions have centered on the department's slowness to focus on Mitchell as the main suspect despite the conviction of Elizabeth's younger sister, Mary Katherine, who told her parents last October that he was the man she had seen in their bedroom June 5.
Though the Smarts were reluctant to openly criticize the police, Edward Smart declared Mary Katherine "my hero" and said that the girl, who was 9 when the abduction occurred, played a more significant role than the authorities in bringing Elizabeth home alive.
At the news conference, Dinse expressed regret.
"Let me tell you that in hindsight it's 20/20 vision," Dinse said.
Accounts of Elizabeth's behavior suggest that she may have had opportunities to escape or to ask others for help, and yet did not try.
When the police stopped her with Mitchell and Barzee on the street in Sandy, Elizabeth at first gave a fake name.
Sandy police officer Bill O'Neal said she became agitated when officers asked her to remove a wig and sunglasses she was wearing, telling them she recently had eye surgery.
"We took her aside ... she kind of just blurted out, 'I know who you think I am. You guys think I'm that Elizabeth Smart girl who ran away,'" O'Neal said.
The group was taken to the Sandy police station in handcuffs; police said Elizabeth never asked about her family.
Psychologists interviewed Thursday said fear could explain such puzzling behavior in anyone who was abducted.
"This young lady was kidnapped as a 14-year-old," said Dr. James S. Kahn, a child and adolescent psychologist at the University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute.
"We don't know what occurred. The threat of harm, the threat to harm the family, could be a very strong variable."
Authorities in California disclosed Thursday that Mitchell had been arrested and held for five days in San Diego County last month for vandalizing a church.
A fingerprint check conducted as part of his arrest showed he had given authorities a false identity and that he was Brian Mitchell, but deputies had no reason to keep him in custody, sheriff's spokesman Chris Saunders said. Mitchell pleaded guilty and was released on probation Feb. 18.
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002716.html 3/15/03 12:16 AM
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002729.html
Reuters, Mar. 15, 2003
http://story.news.yahoo.com/
Wanda Barzee was quoted on Friday as telling a close friend who visited her in Salt Lake County jail that she and husband Brian David Mitchell had received a revelation from God three years ago that they should take seven new wives, according to the Deseret News.
The report came as police said Mitchell had tried to kidnap Smart's 18 year-old cousin less than two months after allegedly snatching Elizabeth at knifepoint from her bedroom.
Formal charges of aggravated kidnapping against Mitchell, 49, and Barzee, 57, were delayed until Monday. Salt Lake City Sheriff Aaron Kennard said Mitchell would likely also be charged with the attempted kidnapping of Elizabeth's cousin, Jessica Wright.
Kennard said Wright's window screen was cut in July in the same way as Smart's kidnapper entered her home in June. The intruder ran off when Wright woke up and heard a noise.
"We believe we have solid information connecting the two households and the perpetrator," Kennard told reporters.
Police have described Mitchell as a "self-proclaimed polygamist" who had written a manifesto spelling out his unconventional beliefs. They have declined to say whether Elizabeth was sexually assaulted.
Barzee's friend of 28 years, Vicki Cottrell who is also executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Utah, told the Deseret News that she did not have the strength to ask if Mitchell had "consummated" the marriage to Smart.
"I just felt that I couldn't," Cottrell told the newspaper after visiting Barzee on Friday.
Police and family members said that Elizabeth suffered from profound psychological stress that prevented her from escaping when she had a chance.
Elizabeth's father, Ed Smart, has said that Mitchell was "fixated" on his daughter and had brainwashed her. But the family say they have been reluctant to press Elizabeth for details, focusing instead on surrounding her with love and a sense of security.
An open-air party, hosted by Salt Lake City, was being planned for Friday night to celebrate Elizabeth's safe return home. Members of her large extended family were expected to attend but it was not know whether the quiet teen would make an appearance.
Cottrell told the Deseret News that Barzee had spoken lovingly of Elizabeth. "I thanked her for taking such good care of Elizabeth, and she got a very nurturing look on her face and said 'I love her very much. I would never let anything bad happen to her."'
Mitchell's control over Elizabeth, who was forced to wear a wig, a veil and sunglasses, was so complete that when first confronted by police when she was rescued on Wednesday she insisted her name was Augustine.
She appears to have had a chance to escape in February when Mitchell was jailed for five days in San Diego on a minor vandalism charge and a worried Barzee went out for the night to look for him, Cottrell said.
"She (Elizabeth) knew not to wander off," Cottrell said.
According to video and audio footage of his court appearance in San Diego, Mitchell told the judge he was a "minister for the Lord," adding "My wife and my daughter are staying with some friends."
Police said Mitchell took Elizabeth into the mountains above her home for two months after the abduction and later traveled with her and Barzee to San Diego, where they spent six months living in campsites and trailers.
Elizabeth's 9-year-old sister, Mary Katherine, witnessed the abduction and told police in October that the kidnapper may have been Mitchell. But police downplayed his significance as a possible suspect and San Diego police did not connect him to the kidnapping.
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002729.html 3/15/03 12:10 AM
Relatives Recall Kidnapping Suspects' Downward Spiral By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
In their early years, Brian D. Mitchell had been a jewelry designer and Wanda Barzee an accomplished pianist who knew Tchaikovsky and Beethoven and once played the Mormon Tabernacle Choir organ. They met at their Mormon church. He was in drug rehabilitation for a heroin problem, two of Ms. Barzee's sons said yesterday.
But later, as their lives and families began spinning apart, Mr. Mitchell and Ms. Barzee, who married, shared more meager lives in Salt Lake City, moving from apartment to apartment, scraping by on what they could earn from various odd jobs and other low-paying jobs.
Then Mr. Mitchell began hearing voices, his stepson Mark Thompson recalled in an interview yesterday. "He said prophets were starting to talk to him," Mr. Thompson said. "They told him to sell all his worldly possessions, and he did."
And so began, as Mr. Thompson and his brother, Derrick, described it, a downward spiral for the couple. Yesterday they were taken into custody after the police in Sandy, Utah, found them with Elizabeth Smart, the teenager who was abducted from her bedroom in Salt Lake City nine months ago.
The Smart family knew Mr. Mitchell as a handyman who called himself Emmanuel and once worked for them, raking leaves and fixing a roof. As Elizabeth was reunited with her family, the authorities said Mr. Mitchell, 49, and Ms. Barzee, 56, would be charged with kidnapping.
Mark Thompson, 32, said he was not surprised that investigators now believe that his stepfather was responsible for the kidnapping. He recalled a scene some years ago, when he and Derrick, 33, and their sister, Lou Ree, 27, were still living with their mother and Mr. Mitchell. Lou Ree, who was about 14 at the time, could bear it no longer, he said, and left to live with her father. Mr. Thompson said Lou Ree at 14 looked a lot like Elizabeth Smart, who was 14 when she was abducted.
"I was there the day Mom found out" Lou Ree was gone, Mr. Thompson said. "She started screaming, kicking things. She didn't blame anybody, but she was angry and very unhappy. I figure, Brian just tried to get her another child. Who knows, he's so out there."
Once Lou Ree left, the family unit crumbled, the brothers said, with Mr. Mitchell sliding into a world of fundamentalist Mormonism, writing his own bible, launching into unsolicited sermons to anyone who might listen, locking the family television to stations only he wished to watch. After Lou Ree, Derrick and Mark moved to live with friends; three other siblings had also left.
"I'd come home and he'd be praying, every night for two hours," Mark Thompson said. Derrick Thompson remembered the couple "doing seances around their bed and talking to God."
After the instructions to sell everything they owned, Mark Thompson said, the couple began wandering downtown streets, panhandling, spending winter nights in shelters and summer nights in a tepee they pitched in the mountains.
"They shot animals, skinned them and ate them," he said.
As the years went on, contact with their mother and stepfather grew less frequent. Once, Mark Thompson said, his mother called him at work, an optical laboratory. "I started crying," he said. "She told me she wanted to let me know she was doing fine."
"I told her not to forget about her family," Mr. Thompson said. "But she slowly weeded us out of the family. We've had almost no contact with her at all since 1993 or 1994. We had no way to call her. There's no way to contact the homeless. No way."
Last month, a police composite sketch in the Smart case appeared on the television program "America's Most Wanted." Mark, Derrick and Lou Ree all saw it and recognized the face as their stepfather's. They contacted the authorities.
The brothers began looking for Mr. Mitchell and their mother in homeless shelters around Salt Lake City, certain that Mr. Mitchell was involved in the kidnapping.
"We just knew it was him," Mark Thompson said. "I've never liked the guy and felt he's always had something to do with this. I'm having a hard time breathing right now."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/13/national/13SUSP.html 3/14/03 8:54 PM
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002695.html
Deseret, Mar. 13, 2003
http://www.desnews.com/
By James Thalman and Elaine Jarvik, Deseret News staff writers
The street preacher known as Emmanuel was seen all over the place until people started looking for him.
Biblical-looking in his long robes and beard, he was a familiar downtown figure, carrying a staff as he preached and panhandled.
Now, Emmanuel, also known as Brian David Mitchell, is in the Salt Lake County Jail with his wife, Wanda Ilene Barzee, for investigation of aggravated kidnapping. He was picked up by Sandy police Wednesday along a south Salt Lake County stretch of State Street with two other oddly dressed people, one of whom turned out to be 15-year-old Elizabeth Smart, who had been the subject of a nationwide search since her abduction June 5.
The 49-year-old self-appointed prophet preached or tried to at area homeless shelters to captive but generally uninterested audiences. He apparently considered himself a prophet assigned to serve the destitute.
"At least that's what he claimed," said Phil, one of a couple of dozen homeless men queuing up at The Road Home on west 200 South on Wednesday evening. "He was around here and he would try to talk to us. We just thought he was some kind of nut, and we'd chase him off."
Emmanuel was panhandling in downtown Salt Lake City more than a year ago when Elizabeth's mother, Lois Smart, gave him $5 and hired him to help her husband work on the roof of their home. He worked for about five hours and the family didn't see him again, Lois Smart said.
People at the Road Home and several at the Salvation Army said they couldn't remember exactly the last time they saw him but figured it had been about a month.
Family members couldn't track him down either. Mitchell's two stepsons, Mark and Derrick Thompson, canvassed the downtown area after seeing his picture on "America's Most Wanted" as a possible suspect in the Smart kidnapping, visiting their stepfather's favorite haunts, such as the Greyhound Bus Depot, in an effort to find him.
Mark Thompson, who first met Mitchell when he was 16, said that his stepfather had been a jewelry maker at O.C. Tanner. Things were actually pretty normal, but the stepchildren were never close to him. "We didn't like him, but Mom loved him, so we tried."
Mark Thompson said he hadn't seen Mitchell since last April at the funeral of his mother's father. "We didn't speak. He just yelled at us and called us a bunch of sinners."
Mitchell's mother lives in the Fort Union area. Her street was barricaded by patrol cars on Wednesday afternoon after Elizabeth's reappearance.
"They were quite normal at first," said Derrick Thompson about his stepfather and mother, Wanda Eileen Barzee, 57. The changes in his stepfather's philosophies and behavior happened gradually, he said.
The Mitchells met at a group therapy session, according to Wanda's mother, Dora Corbett. "They used to be temple workers (for the LDS Church). But something happened, and I don't know what. They quit going to church." A dozen years ago, Mitchell began having "revelations," eventually changing his name to Emmanuel, Hebrew for "God is here."
Derrick Thompson said his stepfather told him he had taken "10 hits of LSD and talked to God out in the desert" several years ago. "They said they weren't on drugs, but we think that was a lie. We think that's how he could communicate with God. That and listen to the Steve Miller Band."
The Mitchells also got involved in "patriot" groups opposed to paying income taxes, and later became followers of survivalist guru Bo Gritz, according to Corbett. "Then all of a sudden they decided to buy a fifth-wheel trailer and they went up to Idaho where this Bo Gritz was."
When they didn't get along with Gritz and his other followers they left Idaho, sold the fifth-wheel, sold all their worldly possessions, "and went off across the United States" as vagrants.
"She sent me one card in two years," Corbett said.
According to Derrick Thompson, their mother "disowned" them about five years ago. "He's such a wack job," said Thompson about his stepfather. "He obviously brainwashed my mom." Now, he said, "she's going to go down with him."
Mitchell believed he was "above God," Thompson said. "They were always talking about the Lord directing them," Corbett said.
Eventually Emmanuel wrote his version of the Book of Mormon.
Utah County naturopath C. Samuel West, who says he has known Mitchell since the mid-1990s, "started going off the deep end. . . . I was trying to get him back in church, and that's when he left me."
Derrick Thompson just happened to be watching "America's Most Wanted" a show he hadn't turned on in a year, he said the night it showed the composite drawing released by the Smart family and named Brian David Mitchell. The Thompson brothers contacted the show and provided them with pictures of their stepfather, including one that showed him clean-shaven.
Mitchell, they said, liked to preach at the depot, and often traveled by bus.
Mark Thompson said he couldn't speculate why Smart might have gone with his stepfather that night in June.
"But he was fully capable of putting a gun to her head. He was into guns, and we went shooting several times as kids."
Last summer, a Deseret News staff member came upon him one afternoon trying to tear down the "Kidnapped!" poster of Elizabeth that was on display in the paper's first-floor windows.
When the staffer told him to stop, Mitchell told her that "they found the guy." The staffer said she ran from floor to floor trying to get her colleagues to come talk to the man, but no one was interested. At the time, Brian David Mitchell was dismissed as just another eccentric drifter.
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002695.html 3/15/03 1:00 AM
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002697.html
Salt Lake Tribune, Mar. 13, 2003
http://www.sltrib.com/
BY BROOKE ADAMS, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
The sightings now seem to be coming from everywhere -- Elizabeth Smart, disguised in wigs and veils, glasses and shapeless overclothes, at parties, at stores, walking a public street in broad daylight.
So why didn't she run?
The details of Elizabeth Smart's nine months in captivity -- police say she was kidnapped and held against her will -- are still unfolding. Family members say the teenager never had a chance to escape.
"She said there was no way -- she had two people with her at all times," family spokesman Chris Thomas said -- a reference to Brian David Mitchell, who had changed his name to David Emmanuel Isiah for religious reasons and held himself as a messenger of God, and Wanda Ilene Barzee, who are being questioned by police.
Based on similar cases, one expert said it is likely fear or psychological pressure kept the 15-year-old from making an escape -- that she experienced Stockholm syndrome or another psychological reaction that made her believe escape was impossible because of mystical or overt forces.
"We have no idea what psychological or pressure manipulations he used with her," said Janja Lalich, a sociology professor at California State University, Chico, and author of Captive Hearts, Captive Minds and co-author with Margaret Singer of Cults in Our Midst.
Still, she said, past experiences show that "when you are removed from your normal environment and kept confined in some way, which we know [Elizabeth] must have been at the beginning, you can enter a very distorted reality," said Lalich. "If they are good at what they do, they use a punishment/reward system. It doesn't take much for your reality to shift."
That reality, Lalich said, is governed by fear and works to keep a captive in check, even in public settings. "You can't figure out how to [leave] rather than you don't want to," Lalich said, adding that Elizabeth's youth could also have been a factor.
Stockholm syndrome, coined in 1973 after a bank holdup in Sweden, has been identified in hostages, cult members, battered women and abused children. Researchers say, in what may be an instinctive survival strategy, it causes victims to sympathize with, care for and be compliant with their captors, according to the Australian-based Center Against Sexual Assault's Web site.
A similar scenario, experts said, involves a psychologically controlling relationship orchestrated by a charismatic person who professes a belief system or mystical power that is used to control and influence a small number of people.
Lalich says recovering from such an experience depends largely on having a strong support network, and "Elizabeth Smart clearly has a fabulous support network."
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002697.html 3/15/03 12:30 AM
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002706.html
KOMO, Mar. 13, 2003
http://www.komotv.com/
SALT LAKE CITY - Those who study cults say Elizabeth small was the perfect victim: smart, attractive and soft spoken.
Shirley Landa, who has been a cult fighter for almost 30 years, told KOMO 4 News: "She's a very obedient little girl, came from a wonderful family. She's going to do what she's told to protect her family."
Landa believes the suspected abductor, Brian Mitchell, threatened the girl's family and Elizabeth believed him. After all, Landa said, all he got in her house armed with a knife.
Landa is not the only one who believes Elizabeth was brainwashed. Her father, Ed Smart, says: "He did an absolute brain washing job on her and I know its going to difficult and it is going to be a long road."
Landa says it's not that hard to brainwash a child: It happens slowly, one step at a time rather like the way you put on weight.
"It's one pound after another, and pretty soon you've put on 40 pounds and you wonder how could that happen," Landa said. "It's the same thing with controlling someone's mind. You feed in a little bit of information, and a little bit of information and you start to go along with it."
Landa says that gradual acceptance ends in submission.
Lucy Berliner works with victims of abuse at Harborview Medical Center. She says Elizabeth was either controlled by fear or brainwashing.
She doesn't know which, but she's not surprised the girl didn't speak out: "This is true of hundreds of cases of child abuse. They have a chance to speak out. They don't and they go home to be abused or raped again. It's because the alternative might bring more harm to themselves or to their families and it doesn't seem worth it."
Berliner says now the fear is removed, Elizabeth, with appropriate counseling and family support, may be able to recover relatively quickly. One of the reasons she is optimistic is Ed Smart's statement that his daughter was brainwashed. She told KOMO 4 News the family is not putting any of the blame on Elizabeth and that is critical to a successful recovery.
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002706.html 3/15/03 12:08 AM
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002721.html
The Salt Lake Tribune, Mar. 14, 2003
http://www.sltrib.com/
Augustine, she said. Her name was Augustine.
Wearing a wig, a veil and sunglasses, Elizabeth Smart insisted to the police officers who questioned her on State Street in Sandy on Wednesday that she was Brian David Mitchell's daughter, that they were from Florida.
"I know who you think I am," she told the officers. "You guys think I'm that Elizabeth Smart girl who ran away."
The officers persisted, at one point moving Elizabeth away from Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. Behind the sunglasses, her eyes welled with tears. The officers could see her heart visibly pounding beneath her T-shirt. They pressed, and finally the teenager relented.
"Thou sayest," Elizabeth said after being asked yet again if she was the missing teenager.
A day after Elizabeth Smart returned to her family, ending a nine-month ordeal that gripped the state and made headlines worldwide, there is an explanation as to why she did not make a break from her captors.
She couldn't.
Police and her family said Elizabeth was psychologically traumatized -- even brainwashed -- by the homeless couple now in custody for her kidnapping.
"I have no doubt about that," said Ed Smart, Elizabeth's father. "I have no doubt that she feared for her life when she left [her bedroom]."
Experts are putting a name to Elizabeth's behavior while in captivity -- Stockholm Syndrome, in which victims become emotionally attached to and allied with their captors. Experts also are drawing comparisons with another well-known kidnap victim: Patricia Hearst.
"People are in disbelief that she couldn't have run to a phone and gotten help," said Doug Goldsmith, director of The Children's Center, a counseling service in Salt Lake City. "That's a misunderstanding of the tremendous psychological trauma of being held hostage in a situation like she was in."
Hearst, long married to Bernard Shaw and mother of two daughters, appeared on "Larry King Live" on Thursday night to offer insights about how reality shifts for a hostage and what lies ahead for Elizabeth Smart.
"It's going to take awhile," Hearst said of the healing process. "She still believes that her kidnappers have some kind of control over her and it is going to take at least a couple of weeks being away from them and back safely with her family before she realizes that they have no more powers, that she's truly safe."
A granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst, the then-19-year-old was taken at gunpoint from her Berkeley, Calif., apartment in February 1974 by a group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army. For two months she was kept, blindfolded, in a closet. She was repeatedly raped and beaten.
By April she had a new name -- Tania -- and seemed -- to a skeptical public -- a willing participant in the army's criminal escapades. Freed in September 1975, she served 23 months in prison for her role in a bank holdup; President Clinton pardoned Hearst in 2001 as he left office.
Like Hearst, Elizabeth's family has said their daughter was never out of sight of at least one of her two captors. For two months, they kept her in an isolated camp in a canyon northeast of her home. They then began traveling around Utah and at least two other states. Still unknown is what Mitchell, who called himself David Emmanuel Isiah and believed himself a messenger of God, told Elizabeth or how he frightened her into compliance.
The trio used the line -- "We are messengers of the Lord, Jesus Christ" -- repeatedly when picked up by police this week.
Experts said classic conditions for brainwashing appear to have been present -- an environment controlled by a zealot who uses loaded language and professes mystical powers or access to a higher power.
"She had no contact with family, friends and lived, literally behind the veil, so to speak," said Rick Ross, executive director of the Ross Institute in Jersey City, N.J., and an expert in destructive cults and movements.
"What he may have set up in her mind is that everyone and everything outside their small family group was evil and threatening, and even her future, her salvation and safety depended on him for safety and guidance."
She did what was necessary to survive, the experts theorized.
"Because you have been so abused and so robbed of your free will and so frightened, you come to a point where you believe any lie your abductor has told you," Hearst told King. "You don't feel safe, you think that you will be killed if you reach out to get help. You believe that your family will be killed. You're not even thinking about trying to get help anymore."
Now that she has returned to her family, the hard work begins -- for her and them. That said, the odds of a full and rapid recovery, experts said, are in Elizabeth's favor.
"The security and support [trauma victims] receive from their families is what allows [these] victims to recover," Goldsmith said.
In the short term, it would not be surprising for Elizabeth to show concern for her former captors -- to even relate good experiences she had while with Mitchell and Barzee, the experts said.
Surrounded by strong family support, she will be free to "gradually unfold and relax and reveal what happened and what went on in the group," Ross said, and to accept a new reality.
Her parents and siblings also are likely to experience diverse emotions: grief, relief, anger, sadness and, overwhelmingly, joy.
The Smarts have not said whether Elizabeth is receiving counseling, but that is likely -- and necessary, experts said.
"Right now, there is a honeymoon phase," said Georgia Hilgeman-Hammond, executive director of the Vanished Children's Alliance in San Jose, Calif. She speaks from experience: her daughter, then 13 months, was snatched in 1976; the girl was recovered in Mexico five years later.
The Smarts face the hard task of working back into everyday life and regaining a sense of security about letting Elizabeth be a normal teenager, Hilgeman-Hammond said.
They also will have to help Elizabeth cope with emotional triggers -- seeing a homeless person, for example -- that reignite terror, Hilgeman-Hammond said.
If her captors are put on trial, Elizabeth -- as well as members of her family -- would likely have to relive and retell stories of the past nine months, which is helpful to some victims but traumatizing for others.
The crush of media attention will make it hard for the Smarts and Elizabeth to regain a sense of normality, and it is likely Elizabeth will never be just another Utahn again.
"It's really important, given what we can assume is a fragile state of mind, that people leave her alone," Goldsmith said. "She didn't ask to become the new 'American Idol.' That is not her personality. Because you know about her through the media doesn't mean you know her, and that she wants to walk through town hugging everybody."
Echoes Hilgeman-Hammond: "I hope we can give this family some space. It's going to take them time to heal. There is a lot of strength in the human spirit. People can heal and develop a new, normal life."
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002721.html 3/15/03 12:12 AM
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002704.html
Reuters, Mar. 13, 2003
http://reuters.com/
By Dan Whitcomb and James Nelson
SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - Elizabeth Smart was taken against her will at knife-point from Salt Lake City home nine months ago but at some point in her captivity she "psychologically" joined her captors, police and family members said on Thursday.
Salt Lake City police chief Rick Dinse, speaking a day after Smart's "miraculous" return to her family, declined to say whether the teen had been physically or sexually abused, although police knew what happened to her during her ordeal.
"We are not going to talk about what physically happened to her," Dinse told a news conference.
He said she was kidnapped at knife-point from her Salt Lake City bedroom last June by Brian David Mitchell, 49. a street preacher who believed in polygamy and who thought he was a prophet.
The chief said Elizabeth was held against her will for two months in a remote mountain campsite and later became "psychologically affected" by Mitchell and her other captor, Mitchell's wife Wanda Barzee. That attachment prevented her from escaping when she might have had the means.
Asked why Elizabeth had not tried to escape from the street preacher and his wife held on suspicion of kidnapping her, Dinse said; "There was clearly a psychological impact that occurred at some point. There is no question she was psychologically affected by this group."
Tom Smart, Elizabeth's uncle, told a small group of reporters, "I think maybe she has been wildly converted to a weird thing." Then he rephrased this comment, saying, "I am tired, I shouldn't be saying that -- the Stockholm syndrome is what I mean."
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME
The Stockholm syndrome refers to prisoners taken hostage who then identify with their captors, based on what happened in 1973 during a prolonged Stockholm bank robbery. America's most famous example of the syndrome was heiress Patricia Hearst.
Dinse declined to speculate on the motive for the kidnapping, which riveted Americans last summer amid a spate of child kidnappings.
"I think it would be premature (to say) what the motive was. I'd like to stay away from that," he said.
Police gave few details of their investigation other than to say they were not looking for suspects other than Mitchell and Barzee. The pair are expected to be charged on Friday.
But they revealed that Mitchell had slipped through police fingers last month, when he was arrested in San Diego, California, for vandalism at a local church. Mitchell gave a false name and because there was no national alert for him at that time, he was not picked up on suspicion of Smart's abduction.
Mitchell, who was excommunicated from the Mormon church years ago, Barzee and Smart had spent several months in San Diego, living in a run-down trailer, police said. Smart was not recognized because she always wore a white veil and baggy clothes.
Elizabeth's father Ed Smart called Mitchell "evil" and "fanatical."
"He was looking for a pure, innocent girl, and she (Elizabeth) was angelic. This was what he wanted and he was fixated on her," Smart said in a radio interview. Mitchell had briefly worked as a handyman for the Smart family.
Police said that on Thursday they had found the remote campsite where Mitchell took Smart in the hills just above the Smart family home and kept her there for two months. The trio later took a bus to San Diego, using money "from God," Dinse said.
'WEIRD' MAN
Mitchell was described by his stepson, Derrick Thompson, as a "weird" man who had talked to God in the desert after taking 10 hits of LSD. "They said they weren't on drugs," Thompson told the Deseret News of Salt Lake City of his stepfather and his mother, adding:
The Smart family have focused on their joy at the "miraculous" safe return of a young girl many people assumed was dead. "I can just tell that he (Mitchell) did an absolute brainwashing job on her," Ed Smart told ABC's "Good Morning America."
"We know she's been through hell but whatever she's been through, we're going to be OK. We thank the good Lord we have her back," he said
A police source quoted in The Seattle Times said Mitchell had told them he wanted Smart to become his wife. "It was a religious thing. This guy just wanted another wife and God told him this was the one."
The Salt Lake Tribune said Mitchell was a formerly devout member of the Mormon church who married and fathered four children before divorcing his wife in the late 1980s. He remarried Barzee, who had several children of her own.
Mitchell's stepsons, Mark and Derrick Thompson, said that Mitchell and their mother, Barzee, had lead an "average life," before they started to wear white robes, and sold their possessions to live on the street to preach to the homeless and panhandle.
Mitchell's stepdaughter, Louree Gayler, said she moved out of their home in her early teens. "Brian was always hugging me the wrong way and kissing on me and I just didn't like it over there. So I went and moved back with my dad and I haven't seen my mom since," Gayler said on morning television.
http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/rnb/archives/00002704.html 3/15/03 12:14 AM
The 20 by 11- inch box, known as the James ossuary, has an inscription that reads, from right to left, ``James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.''
Museum officials unveiled the repaired ossuary Thursday, giving journalists a view of the artifact that drew global attention when its existence was made public last month Biblical Archaeology Review.
A beige box sits in a glass case in the center of a red-painted room on the third floor of the museum. A crack that runs through ``brother'' and ``of'' in the inscription is visible by the lighter beige filling.
Informational text written in black on the walls contains historical, biblical and archaeological details. For example, the text notes an inventory of almost 900 ossuaries showed 19 have the name of a Joseph and 10 of a Jesus, with one known to have the name of Jesus, son of Joseph, inscribed on it.
``Statistically, the combination of the three names in the James ossuary increases considerably the possibility that this was James, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth,'' the text reads.
Dan Rahimi, the museum's director of collections management, said extensive work on the ossuary left it in ``great shape'' for the public exhibition scheduled to run until Dec. 29.
He said the repairs were left unpainted so that viewers could see them, and were reversible.
Curators said they saw what they believed were fossils of plant roots and bacterial staining during the repair. They also discovered an incised star-circle and minute flecks of red paint on the back of the box, common decorations on ossuaries dating between 50-70 A.D.
``It was very exciting to make this discovery when the ossuary had already received such intense scrutiny because of the inscription,'' said Edward Keall, the museum's director of Near Eastern and Asian civilizations. ``Others did not see it because they were mesmerized by the inscription and did not look at the back side.''
Experts date the ossuary, a Latin word for bone box, to 63 A.D. If, as some scholars maintain, the box and the inscription are authentic, it would be the first physical artifact from the first century related to Jesus.
Keall said it was unlikely anyone will ever prove scientifically it held the bones of the brother of Jesus.
``It won't stand up in a court of law,'' he said. ``Believing is an act of faith.''
Some experts have said the box might be a forgery, or that it might have been the burial box of a different James, unrelated to Jesus Christ. The names James, Joseph and Jesus were popular during the period.
Museum officials said they expected the ossuary to be a popular attraction, and additional security was in place. The museum paid US$25,000 for the exhibition.
The owner of the artifact, a 51-year-old engineer from Tel Aviv, said he bought the ossuary in the mid-1970s from an antiquities dealer in the Old City of Jerusalem for several hundred dollars. It's now estimated by some to be worth millions.
Also on this page is the entire article on archeology from the 1992 Encyclopedia on Mormonism. The question everyone is asking is why do LDS scholars never make such finds in support of the Book of Mormon?
Sisters sue local priest, LDS church
10/03/2002
Associated Press
REPORTED ON PORTLAND CHANNEL 8 NEWS
Two sisters have filed a $10 million lawsuit, accusing a Mormon high priest of abusing them in their home, his truck and a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Portland.
Sheryl Siatunuu-Larrison and Patricia Nebergall say Manuel Ulibarri repeatedly molested them from the early 1970s until the early 1980s.
The sisters say their parents reported the allegations to the ward bishop, who told them not to report it to the police while church officials investigated. The sisters say the church did not act.
The suit was filed Wednesday in Multnomah County circuit court against both Ulibarri and the LDS church.
David Ernst, an attorney who represents the church, said Ulibarri was not a church clergy member and that "high priest" is a title given to virtually any Mormon man older than 40.
Ernst denied that church officials were told of any abuse allegations until the mid-1990s, when they put a note in Ulibarri's file that he not be given any assignments that put him in contact with children.
"This church unequivocally condemns (child abuse)," Ernst said. "And if he did it, we are saddened to learn of the allegations that these girls were abused a quarter-century ago."
According to the sisters, their family joined the Mormon church in 1973 and Ulibarri was assigned to be the family's home teacher. He started abusing them almost immediately, they said.
Neither was aware that the other was being abused nor that Ulibarri was molesting other children in the family, said Michael Morey, the Lake Oswego-based attorney who represents Nebergall.
In 1977, another sister reported being abused to Bishop Guy Piersall, who responded by telling her she was dressing inappropriately, Morey said.
Four years later, Nebergall, who was 18, told her parents what had been happening.
The parents arranged a meeting with Bishop Gary Larsen, who talked to the children, Siatunuu-Larrison said.
"He asked us questions about what had happened. He acted like we were lying. He (told) us not to say anything," Siatunuu-Larrison said.
Stephen English, another attorney representing the church, said his client abhors child abuse, but cannot be held responsible for abuse committed by one member against another.
"This appears to be a blatant attempt to ride the coattails of the recent (Catholic) clergy abuse situation," English said.
http://www.kgw.com/news-
local/stories/kgw_1003_news_mormon_abuse.8151cc50.html 10/3/02 7:08 PM
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 18:48:08 +0000
Last July some Utah friends and I started encouraging unhappy Mormons to
get their names off the records of the church. By early January I had
received photocopies of resignation letters from 110 people. Recently I
learned that the church has actually been handling thousands of these
requests in the past few months, probably due mostly to their activities
in California on behalf of the Knight Initiative.
A clerk in the Member Records office told a caller "five full-time
clerks are handling 150 to 200 of these requests a day".
One person who sent me a copy of her letter to the church was a woman
from a very small town in Kentucky. That woman, Tori McGowan, has been
meeting with a lawyer and he is going to file a lawsuit against the
church for their harassment of her and of other people who ask the
church to remove their names from the membership rolls.
Tori mailed her resignation in July. Her letter was returned to her and
then she received unwanted phone calls, letters and visits from
representatives of the church. She and I made multiple calls to the
member records office in Salt Lake and still couldn't seem to get the
problem taken care of. Even after talking personally with at least two
people in Member Records on two different occasions, Tori still got an
unannounced and unwanted visit from the bishop and from another man in
the ward. Someone in the church also called her father, who lives in New
York and is a life-long Baptist. Tori's father was not happy about the
call and Tori was furious.
As I said, Tori and her lawyer are now preparing to file a lawsuit and
they would very much like to make it a class action lawsuit. The goal
is to get the church to stop harassing and threatening people who want
to get their names off the records of the church AND to try to get a
court to award monetary damages to those who've been harassed and
threatened in the past.
If you are a former Mormon and if you had a bad experience when you
asked the church to remove your name from the records, this is your
chance to help get the courts to force the church to put an end to their
cult-like treatment of people who dare to leave the church. Please
write back to me or write to Tori at grmercy@vci.net
A number of other people from other areas of the country have indicated
they are interested in being co-plaintiffs in the suit. Even more
people have offered to testify or give depositions about harassment,
threats, and invasion of privacy and about deliberate delays by the
Mormon (LDS) church in response to their requests to have their names
removed from the memberships rolls.
The main point of the lawsuit is to ask the court to order the church to
handle resignations promptly and without harassment, threats and without
unwanted phone calls, letters and visits. Mr. Medlin, the attorney, is
also probably going to ask the court to order the church to not maintain
records on people after they leave the church and especially not to
continue to watch people and make annotations to the records on an
individual AFTER the person leaves the church. (Something the church
routinely does, apparently.) There is definitely a possibility that
there will be a financial reward to those who are willing to be
plaintiffs. If you are willing to talk to the press about your
participation (assuming someone wants to do a story on it), thats even
better.
Besides looking for plaintiffs and for stories to use to build the case,
we are also seeking donations for a retainer for the attorney. The
retainer will only be used for expenses as the attorney is taking the
case on a contingency basis.
Donations for expenses for the lawsuit can be sent directly to the
attorney in Paducah, or they can be sent to Worthington in Salt Lake
City, but checks should be made out to 'Mark Medlin, Attorney' with 'for
McGowan lawsuit retainer in the memo area of the check. Worthington has
made a promise to see that donations are treated as loans - and repaid -
if there is a cash award or settlement in the case. As of January 30,
$550 had been donated for the expenses for the lawsuit.
Mailing and contact information:
on the Book of Mormon and other Ancient Scriptures
Cosponsored by the Portland Chapter of the BYU Alumni Association and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies
Date: 12 October 2002
Location: Beaverton Stake Center, Portland, Oregon
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Beaverton Oregon Stake Chapel
6605 Southwest Garden Home Road,
Portland, OR 97223
(503) 245-8171
NEW YORK CITY The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced today the construction of a temple in downtown Manhattan.Located near Lincoln Center, the new temple will occupy the top floors of an existing Church facility a pattern already established successfully in Hong Kong. The temple in Manhattan will be the Church's second in New York. Church President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated a temple in Palmyra on 6 April 2000 exactly 170 years after the Church was organized in nearby Fayette. The fast-growing faith currently has 113 temples in operation throughout the world and another 13 announced or under construction.The Church also has land and building permission for a temple at Harrison, New York. http://www.lds.org/media/newsrelease/extra/display/0,6025,116-1-626-10,00.html
Saturday, September 7, 2002 Desert News Reported White Supremacy Gangs Are Growing in Northern Utah. Pat Reavy, Deseret News staff writer.
Police are seein a rise in activity of white supremacy gangs.
And lately, white supremacists in Utah have been in the public eye:
· Scott Biswell, a leader with the Soldiers of Aryan Culture (SAC), was shot and killed by a SWAT team Aug. 11 in a Provo motel.
· David Fink was arrested by Salt Lake County sheriff's deputies Aug. 27 after allegedly breaking into a house and then attempting a carjacking in the same neighborhood. Fink is a member of SAC, police say.
· Jeremy B. Williams, another member of SAC, was arrested in Richfield Aug. 29. He was wanted in connection with two drive-by shootings in Sandy.
Police say these cases are high-profile examples of the recent activity by SAC and other white supremacist groups along the Wasatch Front. While white supremacists, their philosophies and their activities are not new, they have been more visible in northern Utah in recent years. Concern over their activity prompted officers from a dozen police agencies to meet in Salt Lake City to address their multiplying encounters with the law. "It's become a statewide problem," said detective Brent Jex of the Salt Lake Metro Gang Unit. Numerous forgeries, check frauds, home invasions and, in some cases, homicides, have been linked to them. Examples:
· The U. S. Postal Service estimated that as of this week, white supremacists in Utah were responsible for $98,000 worth of stolen checks from mailboxes, Jex said.
· Quinton Hurlick, a documented white supremacist, was sentenced in 2000 to five years to life for shooting a Murray police officer during a failed attempt to cash a forged check.
· In May, Ogden police revealed they had broken up a plot by members of two white supremacist groups to deliver pipe bombs to Jewish athletes during the Winter Olympics.
Gang detectives have documented 352 white supremacists in Utah, but they believe that number is low. The figure only represents those who have been in prison.
It used to be that white supremacists were almost always recruited in prison. Today, police say, recruitment is happening in and out of the Big House.
"They're out 'patching' right and left," Jex said. "Patching" refers to the tattoos white supremacists receive, one of their most distinguishing features.
There are four principal white supremacist groups in Utah: SAC, Silent Aryan Warriors (SAW), 4th Reich and Krieger Verwandt (KV). The origins of these groups can be traced to Utah correctional facilities in the 1990s.
Most white supremacists, Jex said, are quite paranoid because they're often high on methamphetamines. Because of that paranoia, they like to carry guns. Then, when supremacists who are parolees are arrested for a violation, they automatically face federal charges since, as restricted persons, they are prohibited from being in possession of firearms.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C405029151%2C00.html Monday, September 09, 2002
A Formal Combined Statement on the Reality of the Mormon Jesus Christ. They titled this 20 page statement "Special Witness of Christ." Hinckley begins by making a statement about Christ's mortal life from Jerusalem. He introduces 15 special witnesses in the form of the first presidency and twelve apostles living today. Neal Maxwell addresses Christ's "premortal" ministry. Maxwell avoided mentioning the Book of Abraham's message about that period. Instead he quoted hymns, the Book of Mormon, one passage from the Doctrine and Covenants and the remainder being New Testament passages. No one quoted Abraham chapter three in this statement. Maxwell said "by obedience to His laws and His commandments" we may return one day to His presence and that of our Heavenly Father." Russell Nelson said "the ultimate blessings of the Abrahamic covenant are conferred in holy temples." Richard Scott said "only those who make and keep the covenant of baptism, diligently obey His commandments, and receive all of the other necessary ordinances will have a fulness of joy on earth and will live eternally in the celestial kingdom."
Robert Hales mentioned Christ's "teachings both in the land of Palestine and in the Americas," reaffirming their belief that the Book of Mormon still has geographic meaning. Russell Ballard said the New Testament apostles "knew that the future would bring 'a falling away' from the teachings of the gospel [2 Thess 2:3]; they also knew that eventually there would come to the world a restoration of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I testify that the Restoration ... was accomplished ... with the appearance of the Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the spring of 1820. Since that day more than 90 men have been called to serve as Apostles." The church is still affirming this message even though ten versions of the same event exist. Hinckley from the "sacred grove" said "the Eternal Father, appeared with His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, the resurrected Lord. The curtains that had been closed for centuries were now parted. A new and glorious gospel dispensation was opened, introducing yet other marvelous revelations." Hinckley himself affirmed this version of the vision. Hinckley said "standing as the 15th in line from Joseph Smith and bearing the prophetic mantle which came upon him, I solemnly declare my testimony that the Prophet Joseph's account of these events is true, that the Father here bore witness of the divinity of His Son, that the Son instructed the boy prophet, and that there followed a train of events which led to the organization of the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which, He declared, I, the Lord am well pleased." Does this sound like just another Christian denomination as current television advertisements would lead us to believe?
http://www.lds.org/features/frames/0,5963,252-307-1,00.html
There are many ill effects of havingungodly leadership nationally. One evidence throughout the Clinton years has been the rise in confidence levels among polygamists. We have seen them on all the talk shows and news programs in such open ways promoting such open evil. Polygamy is not a victimless crime. Juab County District Attorney David Leavitt who brought this case to life is also the brother of Utah Governor Mike Leavitt.
David said "I believe there could be other polygamists in Juab County. I don't have any evidence to prosecute any of them but Tom Green. What makes Tom Green different from any other polygamist that may be in Juab County is that I have evidence against Tom Green." Many believe there are more than 30,000 practicing polygamists in Utah. More than in Brigham Young's day. Following his conviction Green stated he will appeal and remain living with his five wives. http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/dailynews/polygamy010519.html
May 13, 2001 Who Has the Most "Clout" in Utah? Mormons Believe it is Hinckley. The Deseret News, the official arm of the church is running this series. This places Hinckley in contrast to Christ and the apostles who wanted to be the "least" as an example of genuine servant leadership.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,270018448,00.html
http://deseretnews.com/dn/sview/1,3329,270018446,00.html
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,295009170,00.html? On July 18, 2001 Senator Hatch of Utah parted company with evangelicals and Catholics in the prolife community. Hatch defended his stance by claiming embryos conceived outside the womb should not be considered as fully persons. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,295011762,00.html?
This was the year Blomberg and Robinson released How Wide the Divide A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation, Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1997.
April 1997 Statement to the San Francisco Chronicle. Don Lattin religion editor, interviewing Gordon B. Hinckley, San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 1997, p 3/Z1 The article can still be viewed at the Chronicles web site by searching their archive. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1997/04/13/SC36289.DTL
Official But Private Mormon Denials of Any Change by Gordon B. Hinckley's Office 1997 Luke Wilson has made available his copy of the letters from Hinckley's office dated August 27, 1997. They can be read online at his web site. A request can be made for copies at his web site. http://www.irr.org/mit/hinckley.html
Read the Newsweek article on this event http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980622/22out1.htm 8,500 Southern Baptists spent a week meeting in Salt Lake City. Associated with that event was a "Crossover" where many SBC did an outreach into the region. Many Mormon watchers view Hinckley's confusing statements as a defensive method to soften the blow of this event. These statements together with Blomberg and Robinson's How Wide the Divide had the effect of minimizing counter cult ministries. People ministering to Mormons took a "wait and see" attitude to see if the Mormons were about to join evangelicals through historic changes in foundational doctrine. But three months after the SBC outreach into Utah Hinckley began making careful specific public denials that any actual changes were intended. The cloak of uncertainty in the 1997 statements was replaced with reaffirming statements about historical LDS doctrines.
In this interview Larry King was very active in probing Hinckley about any changes being announced. Hinckley denied there any changes. A complete transcript of the entire interview can be read at this site. http://www.burgoyne.com/pages/mallan/Essays/hinckley.htm
The Barna Institute did a survey of Mormons, Evangelicals and Catholics with some interesting results. This is the way the poll was reported in LDS news circles. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,295010793,00.html? Here is the web address of the Barna Institute Online. This site has an archive that can be searched. http://www.barna.org/cgi-bin/Home.asp
REALITY CHECK: At this update in September 2002 we do not see any fewer local web sites.
"The Church of Jesus Christ." They do not want to be referred to as Mormons or as LDS but as The Church of Jesus Christ. This change is associated with a February 23, 2001 memo by the first presidency. Problem: in the months since this memo came out the official church web site still refers to itself as LDS. http://chat.amarillonet.com/stories/030601/usn_mormons.shtml
FBI agent: Longo confessed
Item 1188 Posted on: 11/14/2002 Weblogged by Religion News Blog
The Tullahoma News, Nov. 9, 2002
http://www.zwire.com/
By BRIAN JUSTICE
A Normandy resident who was disfellowshipped from Jehovah's Witnesses is suing the organization for $7 million on grounds the alleged action against her was wrong.
Barbara Joanna Anderson filed the lawsuit Thursday in Coffee County Circuit Court.
She is seeking $2 million in compensatory damages, plus $5 million in punitive damages.
The defendants are listed as:
* Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York Inc.
* Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania Inc.
* Watchtower Enterprises LLC.
* Watchtower Foundation Inc.
* Watchtower Associates LTD.
* Kingdom Support Services Inc.
* Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses.
* Religious Order of Jehovah's Witnesses.
* The Watchtower Group Inc.
* Manchester Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses Elders.
* Lawrence A. Seely, Gary Hobson, Dale Dormanen, Robert E. Matthews, David Semonian, J.R. Brown, and John Does No. 1 through No. 4.
Mrs. Anderson and her husband, Joe, had publicly spoken about alleged sexual child abuse being widespread among the Jehovah's Witnesses denomination.
The Andersons are members of the Silentlambs, which was organized to stop what they say has been repeated sexual abuse permitted because of Jehovah Witness bylaws.
Mrs. Anderson had said the denomination has a policy that does not require pedophile incidences to be reported to law enforcement authorities. She added that Jehovah Witnesses say they handle such matters in house.
However, Mrs. Anderson said what in effect happens is pedophiles end up being protected by a cover-up which allows them to continue their illegal actions.
She added they are often moved about through the denomination's many locations, which allows them to continue their actions.
She said child sexual abuse cases have occurred in Coffee County.
Mrs. Anderson said her and her husband's efforts to help change the system have resulted in retaliation from the denomination.
The Andersons have been disfellowshipped by the Kingdom Hall in Tullahoma where they attended. Disfellowshipping, the equivalent of excommunication, is the harshest punishment handed down by the organization against members. Shunning is included as part of the punishment, which separates families.
Mrs. Anderson said she is no longer able to see or communicate with her son, Lance Anderson, or his family who live at Mishawaka, Ind. She added that Lance is a practicing Jehovah Witness and is bound by the denomination's rules.
Watchtower spokesman J.R. Brown previously defended Jehovah's Witnesses' policies.
"Clearly, with us having 95,000 congregations around the world and three to five to six elders in each, mistakes may have been made," he said. "But that does not mean that we don't have a strong and aggressive policy that shows we abhor child molestation."
Brown said that anyone found guilty of molestation by a church judicial committee is removed from all positions of responsibility and cannot evangelize door-to-door without being accompanied by a fellow Jehovah's Witness.
Mrs. Anderson says in the lawsuit that she can "no longer pursue her work to assist Jehovah's Witnesses who are ch
From: "joanne ferguson"
Reply-To: "MIT-Talk"
To: "MIT-Talk"
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Newsletter ~ LOOKING FOR OTHER PLAINTIFFS
For a lawsuit against the LDS church
From Kathy Worthington, Salt Lake City
Mark Medlin, Attorney at Law PO BOX 1392 Paducah KY 42002
Kathy Worthington, 3262 Oakeson Circle, Taylorsville UT 84118-3040
KathyWUT@aol.com
Tori McGowan, Calvert City Kentucky grmercy@vci.net Apologetics NEWS
Portland Conference FARMS
MORMON CHURCH IN THE NEWS
7 August 2002 Temple To Be Built in Manhattan
MORMON AREA IN THE NEWS
MORMON CHURCH IN THE NEWS
April 2001 First Presidency and Twelve Apostles Statement Jesus Christ
May 19, 2001 Thomas Green Convicted of Polygamy
July 6, 2001 LDS Leaders chose to make no stand on the controversial issue of stem cell research.
June 23, 2001 Mountain Meadows is Back in the News Again.
While Utah is trying to build a monument to the site they have removed remains of the victims. The original victims were from Arkansas. Today relatives are defending those remains from further exposure to controversy.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,280008893,00.html? June 22, 2001 Church is Trying to Bring a Dead Sea Scroll Presentation to Salt Lake for the Olympics.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,280008720,00.html? To date the Church has assisted the Olympic group with a $5 million contribution of a downtown parking lot for use as a medals plaza, Mormon Tabernacle Choir concerts, participation in SLC's downtown building decoration program that will use entire buildings to display gigantic Olympic images, a family history library at the University of Utah's athletes village, parking facilities, and a proposed exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also supplied were numerous "volunteers" in the form of SLC Church office staffers. Apologetics NEWS
Time Line Gordon B. Hinckley's "Changing" Beliefs Interviews 1997
August 4, 1997 Gordon B. Hinckley's Confirming Interview with TIME Magazine 1997.
David Van Biema article August 4, 1997, VOL. 150 NO.5 This article can still be seen online at Time's web site. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/970804/religion.kingdom_come_.html
MORMONS IN DENIAL?
June 1998 Southern Baptist Convention Invades Salt Lake City Utah.
September 8, 1998 Interview with Larry King.
Barna Survey Comparing Mormons, Evangelicals, & Catholics
STORIES INVOLVING MORMON PEOPLE
March 27, 2001 Mormon Church tells local members to close down local web sites.
This leaves only the official Salt Lake City Church on the web?
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,270008412,00.html? March 6, 2001 the Salt Lake Church Name Change:
Apologetics NEWS
OREGON JEHOVAH'S WITNESS SHUN SEX MURDER CHRISTIAN LONGO
10/02/2002
Associated Press
The FBI agent who accompanied Christian Longo from Mexico testified Wednesday that Longo confessed to killing his wife and three small children, and that Longo said he did it for religious reasons.
Agent Daniel Clegg said he sat by Longo on the flight from Mexico, and that he asked Longo why he killed his family.
Clegg said Longo first denied Clegg's suggestions that Longo had killed his family to cover up sexual abuse.
"I asked him, Why did you kill your wife and three young children?" Clegg testified.
"His response was, your scenario (sexual abuse) could not be further from the truth," Clegg said. "He said, 'I sent them to a better place."'
Clegg paused and the courtroom was silent for about seven seconds. Penny Dupuie, the sister of mother MaryJane Longo, sobbed quietly.
Christian Longo looks over paperwork, while Penny Dupuie, right, Mary Jane Longo's sister, and Kathy Baker, second right, Mary Jane Longo's sister in law, listen at a hearing at the Lincoln County Circuit Court. (AP Photo)
The testimony provided the first clues to a motive for Longo since the discovery of the family's bodies around Christmastime last year.
Longo was once a Jehovah's Witness, but was excluded from the church after he pleaded guilty to using his laptop computer to print counterfeit checks. His wife and children continued to attend the church.
Earlier, Judge Robert Huckleberry had said he believed the defense argument that Longo's arrest in Mexico violated an international treaty may lack legal grounds.
"The fact that you don't agree with the way things shook out doesn't mean ... that (it) was illegal," Huckleberry told Longo and his two lawyers.
Longo's lead court-appointed attorney, Ken Hadley, argued Wednesday that his client would never have left Mexico voluntarily had he known it would expose him to the death penalty in Oregon.
"He got conned into waving his rights in coming back to face the death penalty," Hadley said.
Huckleberry's belief, however, may stymie the defense team's attempt remove the possibility of the death penalty for Longo before the trial begins.
The defense has also filed a motion to suppress the confession Clegg gathered on the Continental Airlines flight from Cancun to Houston on Miranda grounds. Huckleberry has not ruled on that motion.
Clegg asked Longo to sign a document advising him of his rights outside the airport in Cancun. At the time, Longo was still in Mexican custody.
Longo fled to the Cancun area of Mexico around Christmas time last year after the body of 5-year-old Zachery Michael Longo was found floating in an ocean inlet near Waldport just before Christmas.
His sister, 3-year-old Sadie Ann, was found three days later, cocooned inside a sleeping bag, a floral print pillow case containing a rock tied to her ankle.
A few days later, the bodies of his wife, 34-year-old MaryJane, and their 2-year-old daughter Madison were found inside a suitcase in a Newport marina, and police began an international manhunt.
As an attorney in a capital case, Hadley's main goal is to keep his client alive.
http://www.kgw.com/news-
local/stories/kgw_1002_news_longo_update.7cf41e47.html 10/3/02 7:21 PM MORE JEHOVAH WITNESS NEWS
[Jehovah's Witnesses] Banned church member sues Jehovah's Witnesses