CNN - December 10, 2010
Jury reaches verdict in Elizabeth Smart case
By Lena Jakobsson and Michael Christian, CNN
Salt Lake City, Utah (CNN) -- A federal jury in Utah has reached a verdict in the kidnapping trial of a homeless street preacher accused of kidnapping 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart and keeping her for nine months as his "celestial wife."
Jurors deliberated for about five hours before announcing they had a verdict in the case of Brian David Mitchell, 57, court officials said. Mitchell is charged with kidnapping Smart and taking her across state lines for sexual purposes.
Smart, now 23, was the prosecution's star witness. She spent three days on the witness stand after traveling to Utah from Paris, France, where she is on a mission with the Mormon church. Afterwards, she sat with her parents in the front row of the courtroom, watching the trial.
Smart testified that she awoke to find a man holding a cold steel blade to her neck. She was taken from her bed and marched up a rugged mountain path in her red silk pajamas. When they reached Mitchell's remote camp, Smart testified she was "sealed" to her captor in a marriage ceremony, raped and shackled between two trees with a metal cable. She said she was degraded and treated "like an animal."
Smart said she was raped nearly every day during nine months in captivity and forced to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and watch Mitchell have sex with his legal wife, Wanda Barzee. She was forced to wear robes and a veil in public and was not permitted to speak to other people. She said she feared Mitchell would act on his threats to kill her and her family if she did.
"I felt that because of what he had done to me, I was marked," Smart testified. "I wasn't the same. My personal value had dropped. I was nothing. Another person could never love me," she added. "I felt like I had a burden the size of a mountain to carry around with me the rest of my life."
She said Mitchell told her their marriage was preordained and that she would be by his side as he took seven times seven wives and successfully battled the Antichrist. They would hold exalted positions in God's new kingdom, she was told.
A battle over a Mitchell's mental health played out during the month-long trial, with defense attorneys arguing that he was so mentally ill at the time he took Smart that he did not know it was wrong. Defense experts told the jury he was delusional and psychotic. One expert diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic.
"An insanity defense is designed by Congress to be a very, very difficult thing to prove," assistant federal defender Robert Steele told the jurors. "I have to convince you by clear and convincing evidence there's a high probability that he has a severe mental illness. I have to convince you as a result he was not able to understand what he was doing, or what was wrong."
"If I've convinced you that God told him to kidnap, take another wife, take Elizabeth Smart, then he is not guilty by reason of insanity of kidnapping," Steele said during his closing argument. "If he believed he was commanded to go get more wives, that's part of the delusion, and that charge, too, is subject to the possibility of a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict."
Prosecutors portrayed Mitchell as a pedophile, narcissist and skillful manipulator who used fundamentalist religious dogma when it benefited him. Their experts said Mitchell could turn his religious beliefs on and off at will and talk his way out of trouble. Religious writings that might have seemed psychotic, including his manifesto, were actually cobbled together from other sources, one expert testified.
"The defendant's professed beliefs are highly consistent with fundamental extremists on what we might call the Mormon fringe -- the belief that polygamy needs to be restored," Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Hagen said during her closing argument. "This is the environment that Brian David Mitchell became immersed in in the early 1990s.
"It provides a perfectly natural, non-psychotic explanation for why Brian David Mitchell behaves the way he does," she told the jurors. "There is no reason to resort to a mental health explanation in this case. The facts you have heard during this trial explain it all."
As winter approached in late 2002, the trio journeyed from Utah to a homeless camp outside San Diego, California, where they spent several months. Mitchell was arrested after he tossed a brick through a church window and spent a week in jail. Back at the camp, Smart and Barzee grew so weak from hunger that they could barely stand up, Smart testified.
Mitchell gave a false name when he was arrested, and authorities released him without discovering his true identity.
The testimony revealed several encounters that could have exposed Smart's identity and perhaps brought her home months earlier had more questions been asked. Their robes and odd ways drew the attention of a police officer in the Salt Lake City Library, as well as others during their travels.
The officer testified that he asked to lift the young woman's veil, but the man refused, citing religious reasons. He did not press them further.
A woman who encountered them in California called the FBI, but the call wasn't followed up on, according to testimony. Another woman dubbed Mitchell "Osama bin Dairy Queen" and noticed the young woman with him seemed oddly withdrawn, but did not pursue it.
After Mitchell's arrest in California, Smart said she convinced him to return to Utah, saying the idea had come to her in a revelation. She said she knew her chances of being found would improve as she got closer to home.
Police stopped Smart, Mitchell and Barzee, on March 12, 2003, after a tipster spotted them outside a Walmart in Sandy, Utah, just a few miles from Smart's home. At first, Smart testified, she was afraid to tell police who she was and gave officers a false name, as Mitchell had instructed.
Smart's demeanor on the witness stand was measured and matter-of-fact. The only time she displayed emotion was when she described being found by police and when she branded Mitchell a self-serving hypocrite.
Mitchell seemed preoccupied more with the pleasures of the flesh than matters of the spirit, she said, and used "revelations" and "blessings" to rationalize everything from sexual acts to smoking marijuana and reading Hustler magazine.
"He was crude, vulgar, self-serving. He was his number one priority, followed by sex, drugs and alcohol, but he used religion in all of those aspects to justify everything," Smart testified.
"Everything he did to me and my family was something I know God would never, would never ask somebody to do," Smart said pointedly. It was the only time the volume of her voice rose noticeably in court.
Mitchell's defense attorneys called a string of family members and friends, who described him as increasingly isolated and volatile as his religious zeal grew.
The defense case was marked by brief, dramatic moments in the courtroom.
Mitchell, who sang in court and was removed each day, fell to the floor with an apparent seizure while singing a Christmas carol. The following day, an upset Smart stormed from the courtroom when a witness testified about Mitchell's plans to have babies with her.
The defense ended its case with a psychologist who had diagnosed Mitchell as a paranoid schizophrenic, saying he suffers from "bizarre delusions." In his 2008 evaluation, Dr. Richart DeMier noted that Mitchell appears to have a family history of mental illness and was deemed "pre-psychotic" at 16 after exposing himself to an 8-year-old neighbor.
The prosecution countered with Dr. Michael Welner, who characterized Mitchell as a sadistic pedophile and a narcissist with a personality disorder. But, Welner said, he didn't have the "severe mental disease or defect" necessary for a successful insanity defense.
Mitchell's legal wife, Barzee, brokered a deal with state and federal prosecutors this year and was sentenced to 15 years in prison in exchange for testimony against her husband. But it was the defense, not the government that called Barzee to the witness stand.
The 64-year-old woman, an accomplished organist, described how the couple went from living in a Salt Lake City apartment and being active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to a nomadic existence as the prophet "Immanuel" and his queen "Hephzibah" -- the Biblical names Mitchell chose for them.
She said she was crushed when her husband told her about a divine revelation that he should take plural "celestial wives" but complied with his instructions.
"We were given the commandment to take young girls, between the ages of 10 to 14 years old. We were to snatch them out of the world and train them in the ministries of God," testified Barzee, who is being treated for mental illness while serving her sentence in a Texas federal prison.
Barzee became emotional under cross-examination by prosecutor Felice Viti, conceding that her husband had taken advantage of her religious faith.
"He's a great manipulator," she said.
******
CNN's Ted Rowlands, Paul Vercammen, Jean Casarez and Ann O'Neill contributed to this story.
This article was found at:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/10/utah.smart.trial.verdict/?hpt=T1
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Salt Lake Tribune - December 10, 2010
Elizabeth Smart: ‘This is a wonderful day’
by Stephen Hunt
A federal court jury on Friday found Brian David Mitchell guilty in the 2002 abduction of Elizabeth Smart.
The 12-member jury reached their verdict at 10:30 a.m. following five hours of deliberations that began Thursday evening.
“There is justice for Elizabeth Smart,” said James McTighe, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Salt Lake City office.
Mitchell was convicted of interstate kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor to engage in sexual activity for holding Smart captive for nine months, including near-daily rapes and a trip to California and back. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced on May 25, which allows time for a presentencing report to be completed.
(Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brian David Mitchell is escorted out of the secure back entrance at the Frank E. Moss Federal Courthouse in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010.
Mitchell was present in the courtroom while the verdict was read, singing the LDS hymn “He Died. The Great Redeemer Died.”
Defense attorneys had argued Mitchell was insane at the time he kidnapped a then-14-year-old Smart from her bed at knifepoint to make her a plural wife. A not guilty by reason of insanity verdict would have meant Mitchell, a self-described prophet preparing to battle the anti-Christ, would have gone to a mental health facility rather than prison.
U.S. Attorney for Utah Carlie Christensen called Friday “a very historic and momentous day in the criminal justice history of this state.”
“We are very pleased with this verdict. ... the success of this outcome is contributable to the exceptional effort of an extraordinary team.”
But Christensen said she was most impressed with the extraordinary courage and determination of Smart, and the “candor, clarity and truthfulness” of her trial testimony.
“She is a remarkable young woman and again, the beginning and the end of this story,” said Christensen.
Daisy Carlson, a neighbor of the Smarts and a family friend, brought a bunch of blue balloons and tied them to the stairwell of the Smarts’ home after she heard the verdict. She also brought white lilies, so that “Elizabeth can be at peace now.”
She placed blue balloons all along the street when Smart was found in 2003.
“I did this years ago for her, and I wanted to do it again,” Carlson said. “I just wanted her to relive the joy of the moment when she came.”
Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said: “Our hope is that the verdict may bring a small measure of comfort and peace to her and her family. Elizabeth is a courageous young woman who throughout court proceedings has been the epitome of dignity and grace, and certainly an example to us all.”
Attorneys wrapped up the trial at 5:35 p.m. Thursday afternoon, handing the case to the five women and seven men who have sat through weeks of testimony. The jury deliberated Mitchell’s fate for three hours before adjourning for the night.
Prosecutor Alicia Cook said she “witnessed some of the finest lawyering that I have seen in my career.”
In the face of damning evidence his client kidnapped, raped and degraded Smart, Mitchell’s attorney had difficulty saying anything positive about the 57-year-old, self-proclaimed prophet in his closing arguments Thursday.
“He is not a good person,” Robert Steele told jurors.
Instead, Steele claimed that Mitchell was mentally ill and suffering from the delusion that he was commanded by God when he abducted Smart.
Rebecca Woodridge, Mitchell’s former step-daughter who has said Mithcell sexually abused her, said Friday’s verdict made her feel “sick to her stomach.” Woodridge has insisted Mitchell was legally insane.
“He knew what he was doing, but was unable to control what he was doing,” she said.
Woodridge said she will now try to “move on,” and hoped the verdict would bring closure for the Smart family as well.
“I’m happy for her [Smart], but sad for Brian,” she said.
During their closing arguments, prosecutors argued against the notion that Mitchell was insane when he committed the crimes. U.S. District Attorney Diana Hagen told jurors that, according to trial testimony, Mitchell disobeyed revelations from God “all the time.”
U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball instructed jurors Thursday that, for an insanity verdict, they must find Mitchell has presented “clear and convincing evidence that, as a result of severe mental disease or defect, he suffered from a delusional belief that he was acting under the direct command of God.”
Attorneys for both sides presented witnesses and experts to bolster their arguments during the course of the 20-day trial. The trial’s most gripping testimony came when Smart, 23, told jurors about the night Mitchell abducted her and the harrowing time she spent with him and his wife, Wanda Barzee.
During her three days on the witness stand, Smart spoke in a matter-of-fact tone to jurors, who listened in rapt attention.
She described the camp in the mountains above her home that Mitchell had prepared, using a cable to tether her, and recounted how he raped her after pronouncing her a plural wife. She testified that Mitchell threatened the lives of her family if she tried to escape, and she shared with jurors the decision she eventually reached.
“No matter what it took, I would live,” Smart testified. “I would survive and do everything he told me to do to keep my life and my family’s life intact.”
Following her testimony, Smart has watched the rest of the trial, with her parents by her side.
Several members of Mitchell’s family also took the witness stand, describing his troubled upbringing and the bizarre behavior that followed.
Shirl Mitchell, his father, gave an often rambling testimony about Mitchell’s rebellious childhood. Shirl Mitchell discussed the book he spent much of his life working on, Spokesman for the Infant God or Goddess, and said his father had spent time at Utah State Hospital for mental illness. His son would write a smaller tome, The Book of Immanuel David Isaiah, which he would use to justify his religious beliefs that he is destined to fight the Antichrist.
Mitchell’s mother, Irene, recalled her son getting into trouble and failing to graduate from high school. She testified about an incident in 1970 when Mitchell was referred to juvenile court for exposing himself to an 8-year-old girl.
Mitchell’s stepdaughters told jurors Mitchell had sexually abused them.
Barzee’s daughter from a previous marriage, LouRee Gayler, testified she was between 12 and 14 years old when Mitchell would show her pictures of nude women while they prayed alongside her mother, kiss her on the lips and thrust his pelvis at her. She also has testified that Barzee and Mitchell served her pet rabbit, Peaches, for dinner, telling her she was eating chicken.
Barzee, who has previously pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 15 years in prison for her role in the crimes, spent two days on the witness stand.
Barzee, 65, called her husband a manipulator, a liar and “a great deceiver.” She told jurors his religious revelations controlled almost every aspect of their marriage and daily life. It was a revelation that he was to take seven plural wives as part of an assignment from God to restore the true church during an end-of-times battle with the Antichrist that led to Mitchell’s attempts at polygamy, she said.
But when Mitchell failed to convince adult women to marry him, he had another revelation instructing him to seek out 10- to 14-year-old girls for wives and take them by force, Barzee testified.
The final phase of the trial was a duel between experts and those who have observed Mitchell act delusional — and normal — during the three years he spent at Utah State Hospital.
The prosecution’s star expert witness, psychiatrist Michael Welner, told jurors Mitchell suffers from pedophilia, antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders and psychopathy — none of which qualify as severe mental defects that would render him guilty by reason of insanity. Welner and expert witness Noel Gardner, a psychiatrist with South Valley Mental Health, both pointed to Mitchell’s ability to control his appearance, demeanor and persona based on situations he finds himself in.
But two other experts, clinical psychologist Richart DeMier and state hospital psychiatrist and clinical director Paul Whitehead, came to different conclusions. DeMier testified that Mitchell was a paranoid schizophrenic, in part, because of his religious delusions about a battle with the Antichrist and having a child with Barzee even though she has had a hysterectomy.
Whitehead told jurors Mitchell suffers from a delusional disorder, which means his mental illness can be encapsulated and he can appear normal unless the delusion is triggered by religious ideas.
—
Q&A
How much time could Brian David Mitchell spend in prison?
Up to life. Since there is no parole in the federal system, Mitchell would not be freed if a life sentence were imposed. If he receives a lesser sentence, he can earn up to 54 days off a year for good behavior.
How will the judge decide?
A federal probation officer will write a presentence report for U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball to review. The report will include details about the crime; its impact on the victim, Elizabeth Smart; Mitchell’s criminal history; whether he accepts responsibility for his actions; his family history; his physical, mental and emotional health; any history of drug or alcohol abuse; his education and work history; and his financial condition and ability to pay any fines.
Kimball will consider the report and federal sentencing guidelines. He must also give Mitchell, his attorney, the prosecutor and Smart the opportunity to speak.
Where will Mitchell serve his time?
Kimball can recommend where Mitchell should serve his time, but the federal Bureau of Prisons has the final call. There are no federal prisons in Utah, so Mitchell will be placed in an out-of-state facility.
The factors that will determine Mitchell’s placement include the level of security and staff supervision he requires; the medical care he needs; and his program needs, such as substance abuse treatment and medical or mental health care.
Administrative factors — the bed space available at a prison, Kimball’s recommendation and necessary security measures — also will be considered by the BOP.
This article was found at:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50849318-76/mitchell-smart-jurors-verdict.html.csp
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CNN - December 11, 2010
Elizabeth Smart aims to return to court -- as a prosecutor
By The CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Elizabeth Smart, said her father, had "been through hell."
Waking up with a knife at her throat. Whisked away and tied up, then raped day after day. Threatened with death and having her family killed, if she dared speak up or escape. Then, eight years later, recounting all the horrors over three days in a Utah courtroom, in front of a jury and her abductor.
And now, after the federal jury in Utah convicted Brian David Mitchell, Elizabeth Smart wants to get back to court -- this time, by becoming a prosecutor to give voice to other victims seeking justice.
"It's subject to change," Ed Smart told HLN's Jane Velez-Mitchell on Friday, about his daughter's plans to become a lawyer. "But usually when she gets a thought in her mind, she sticks to it."
Hours earlier, the jury found Brian David Mitchell, 57, guilty of kidnapping the then 14-year-old girl and transporting her across state lines intending to engage in sexual activity.
Elizabeth, now 23, hinted at her reasoning while addressing reporters after the verdict. The months of preparation, four-week trial and two days of deliberation, she said, gave her newfound faith in the U.S. justice system and hopeful that her decision to confront her kidnapper in court might inspire other crime victims likewise to speak up.
"I'm so thrilled to stand before the people of America today and give hope to other victims, who have not spoken out about their crimes, about what's happened to them," Elizabeth Smart said. "We can speak out, and we will be heard."
Calling Friday a "wonderful day," her joy, optimism and positive demeanor mirrored that of her parents, Ed and Lois. Still, it also flew in the face of what she testified to going through over nine months in 2002 and into 2003 -- "sealed" to her captor in a ceremony, forced to have sex with Mitchell and watch him have sex with his legal wife, Wanda Barzee, and generally being treated "like an animal."
Ed Smart acknowledged that the abduction put a strain on his marriage with Lois, but their union became even stronger as they learned to lean on one another's strengths. And once Elizabeth was found, the Smarts didn't give up their fight.
Elizabeth herself returned to school, her church and, for the most part, her life prior to her abduction. All the while, the family sought justice in her case and on a national level, with Ed Smart in particular fighting for funding and attention for childhood crime victims and becoming head of the Surviving Parents Coalition.
"Our family feels that we have received so much, that we have to make a difference," Ed Smart told reporters Friday, making a pitch for more funding for the federal Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program. "I feel very compelled to send a very strong message to Washington: Our children need something, they have to be saved."
Lois Smart described Friday's verdict and, more generally, her daughter's Elizabeth return to some semblance of normalcy over the previous seven years, as achievements not just for her family, but for women of violent and sex crimes everywhere.
"This is an exceptionally victorious day for us all -- as mothers, as women, as daughters, that ... these things don't have to happen to us," Lois Smart said. "There is a way to put those people behind us, and we can move forward with our lives."
Still, the family's faith in the legal system had been tested in the months after Elizabeth's rescue, when attempts to prosecute Mitchell in the Utah state court system floundered over questions about Mitchell's sanity.
But federal prosecutors took up the case, convinced they could convince a jury that Mitchell, a homeless street preacher, knew right from wrong. During the trial, the defense didn't dispute what Mitchell had done, but they argued that he shouldn't be found guilty because he was insane.
The Smarts never bought the argument, claiming that Mitchell was hiding behind the guise of religion.
"There are people that suffer from mental illness, but Brian Mitchell is not one of them," said Ed Smart. "He is a liar, he is a predator, he is a sex offender."
The prospect of the trial was daunting for Elizabeth, though. Ed Smart recalls talking beforehand with his daughter, who conceded that testifying in such vivid, gruesome detail was going to be extremely difficult. But she went through with it, determined to have the truth be told and have justice prevail.
And when the jury issued its verdict -- over the loud singing of Mitchell -- the Smarts stood up and were smiling.
"We wanted to jump up and down and clap," said an exuberant Ed Smart. "We just wanted to yell out."
Even before the verdict came down, Elizabeth Smart was looking beyond the trial. On Thursday night, while the jury was in the midst of its deliberations, Ed Smart saw his daughter looking up how she could finish her Mormon mission in France, finish her undergraduate music studies at Brigham Young University, then apply for law school.
Ed Smart said the family's dealings with law enforcement weren't all positive, recalling how Elizabeth once stuck her tongue out at a prosecutor who asked her to "give [him] a smile" shortly after she was freed. But he credited the prosecution team that eventually won her case, and Elizabeth's strength and conviction, with providing the impetus for her new career focus.
Friday's verdict, he said, helped his daughter to realize how much good can come out of a courtroom, even when victims like her end up reliving horrific crimes.
"It's [provided] closure for her," Ed Smart said of the trial. "A lot of things came out that she did not necessarily want to come public with. But she's been able to move forward with her life."
This article was found at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/10/utah.smart.family/
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Elizabeth Smart, 10 Years After: Would Fighting Back Have Helped?
ReplyDeleteBy Kayla Webley, TIME June 05, 2012
Ten years ago today, Brian David Mitchell came into 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart's room in the middle of the night, held a knife to her neck and told her that if she didn't go with him quietly, he would kill her and her family. Terrified that Mitchell would be true to his word, she went with him to a campsite not far from her home in Salt Lake City, where she was held prisoner and raped daily for nine months.
We know how Smart's captivity ended. Two people who had seen a drawing of Mitchell on the TV show America's Most Wanted tipped off the authorities. But if she had resisted Mitchell that night, if she had fought back, would her story have been different? "The majority of those [kids] who fight back are able to get away — but I didn't know that," Smart tells TIME. "The only thing I was told by my school was, 'Don't get in a car with a stranger,' and that didn't really apply to what happens when someone breaks into your home and has a knife at your neck." Now a poised, tenacious young woman who has testified before Congress on the issue, Smart has started a foundation in her name dedicated to preventing crimes against children. She has concluded, "We're preparing children for the wrong thing."
According to the Department of Justice, nearly 800,000 children go missing each year — an average of 2,185 per day. In the years since Smart's kidnapping, the U.S. nationalized the Amber Alert system, which is designed to quickly inform the public of abductions, and adopted the Adam Walsh Act, which created a national sex-offender registry and organized sex offenders into three tiers. The law requires the most serious offenders to update their whereabouts every three months.
But even if those systems — which the Smart family advocates — had been in place in 2002, they may have done little to prevent the young woman's abduction. Amber Alerts are most effective when police can give the public specific details, such as a driver's license or a physical description of the abductor, but since Smart was stolen in the middle of the night without anyone seeing Mitchell's face, an alert would likely have been ineffective.
Additionally, it's uncertain whether Mitchell would have been listed in the sex-offender registry had it existed then. He was convicted of a sexual offense as a teenager, but the record of that crime may not have followed him into adulthood.
Because even the most well-intentioned laws and the most protective parents have limits, Smart and other advocates are placing more focus on what kids can do themselves. But unlike the fear-mongering, "stranger danger" campaigns of the 1980s — which told kids not to talk to strangers but did little else to help them learn how to escape potentially harmful situations — the focus now is on teaching kids to fight back. "Twenty years ago we would have told kids to do what the [abductor] says and wait for someone to come help you," says Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). "We now say fight, scream, kick, bite, use whatever tools you have to attract attention to yourself."
The shift has proven effective. Of 7,000 attempted abductions analyzed by NCMEC between 2005 and 2012, 81% escaped either by fighting back or by recognizing the situation and running away. Only 19% of the children who escaped did so because of the intervention of an adult.
continued in next comment...
continued from previous comment:
ReplyDeleteTo help children escape her fate, Smart works with an educational nonprofit called radKIDS, which was founded by former police officer Steve Daley. "I was tired of showing up [after the fact of an abduction]," Daley says. "I knew we needed a different way to protect kids." Daley's method is a five-day training program that teaches three key principles: no one has the right to hurt you; you don't have the right to hurt anyone else (unless someone is hurting you and you can stop them); and if someone does hurt you, it's not your fault. "What radKIDS does is take the fate of the child out of the parents' hands and give control to the child so they know when something is O.K. and when something is not O.K.," Smart says. "It gives them the skills and ability to take care of themselves."
The idea that a 5-year-old should take on an armed adult may sound absurd — but NCMEC has a rationale. "There are still some in law enforcement who teach children that if the offender has a weapon, they should comply in order to avoid being shot, stabbed, etc.," says Allen. "We understand, and that is not unreasonable." But, he adds, "the purpose of the offender is not to shoot the child. Otherwise, they would just do it. The purpose is to use the threat of force in order to get the child into the car and to whatever location the offender has in mind so that the offender can victimize the child in some way." So, Allen says, "the child is most often better off if he or she resists and does whatever is necessary to stay out of that car. Obviously, this is not going to work in every situation, and there is no 100% solution, but we believe that children are far better off if they fight back."
Beyond offering self-defense lessons and role-playing, radKIDS, which has trained some 250,000 children since 2001, works to change a child's mind-set. "Children need to have permission to act," Daley says. "They have instinct, but they often ignore it because their whole lives they are taught to obey adults." Fear causes children to freeze, Daley says. It's likely what made Smart quietly follow Mitchell out the door, rather than scream and kick, and why many other children walk off, seemingly without protest, with the men who will later kill them. "We want to empower the child with an attitude and skill set that says, How dare you touch me, vs. the traditional mind-set of, Help me, help me," Daley says. "It's about teaching them they have a choice — if they meet the bad guy, they have the ability to respond with power instead of fear."
It's a lesson Smart says might have helped her. "In the moment I was kidnapped I didn't think I had a choice — I thought either I go with this man, or I will be killed," she says. "Had I been trained with radKIDS, I would have known that I had more than just the choice of being killed in my bed or going with him. I could have made a plan in that moment. I could have realized that, No, this man is not all-powerful. I would have known I had a chance — that I had power. I may have been confident enough in my skills to fight back. I can't say for sure whether this training would have prevented me from being kidnapped or having everything that happened to me happen, but I know it would have made a difference."
While we'll never know what might have been, the silver lining of Smart's experience is that she lived to tell the tale to future generations. "The legacy of Elizabeth Smart is a very powerful and important one," says Allen.
"Because of Elizabeth, millions of kids are smarter, savvier and have greater self-esteem and self-confidence. Kids today are more able to recognize situations and deal with them in a positive and effective way — and she deserves enormous credit for that."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2116480,00.html
Elizabeth Smart: Mormon teaching on sex stopped me from escaping kidnappers
ReplyDeleteby Elizabeth Tenety, Washington Post May 7, 2013
What role did Mormon culture play in Elizabeth Smart not running away from her captors during her nine-month kidnapping in 2003?
Speaking last week to a panel on child sex trafficking at Johns Hopkins, http://hub.jhu.edu/2013/05/01/child-sex-trafficking-symposium Smart examined that question, and said that the conservative religious culture of her upbringing affected her sense of self-worth after her rape and her unwillingness to attempt escape.
“I felt like my soul had been crushed. I felt like I wasn’t even human anymore. How could anybody want me or love me or care about me? I felt like life had no more meaning to it.”
“It’s feelings of self-worth. It’s feelings of ‘who would ever want me now?’ I’m worthless. That is what it was for me the first time I was raped.
“I was raised in a very religious household, one that taught that sex was something special that only happened between a husband and a wife who loved each other and that’s what I’d been raised, that’s what I’d alwayss been determined to follow, that when I got married then and only then would I engage in sex. And so, for that first rape, I felt crushed –’Who could want me now?’ I felt so dirty and so filthy I understand so easily all too well why someone wouldn’t run. Because of that alone. I mean, you can imagine the most special thing being taken away from you –not that that was your only value in life –but something that de-valued you? Can you imagine going back into a society where you’re no longer valued? Where you’re no longer as good as everybody else?
“I remember in school in one time I had a teacher who was talking about abstinence and she said ‘Imagine you’re a stick of gum. And when you engage in sex, that’s like getting chewed. And if you do that lots of times you’re going to become an old piece of gum and who’s going to want you after that?’
“That’s terrible, nobody should ever say that. But for me I thought ‘oh my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum. Nobody re-chews a piece of gum. You throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value. Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even made a difference, your life already has no value.”
Smart remained in the Church of Latter Day Saints after her 2003 rescue; she attended Brigham Young University and served a mission in France.
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Her comments last week have re-launched a conversation about the impact of abstinence-focused sex education–from critiques within the Mormon community calling for new spiritual interpretation of rape to posts on Double XX Factor saying that “when we instruct teenagers to dress modestly, abstain from alcohol, never go out alone, and certainly never engage in sex, we’re not actually helping them prevent rape—but we are telling them that when they are victimized, they are partially to blame.”
ReplyDeleteWorth a read: Critique of Latter Day Saints teaching at By Common Consent, a Mormon group blog, http://bycommonconsent.com/2013/05/06/dear-church-leaders-fix-this-now/ as well as analysis from Joanna Brooks writing at Religion Dispatches. http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/joannabrooks/7101/traditional_mormon_sexual_purity_lesson_contributed_to_captivity__elizabeth_smart_tells_university_audience/
From By Common Consent:
“However, the very first scripture girls are required to study in their Personal Progress work on the value of Virtue is Moroni 9:9, which describes young women as having lost their virtue by being raped. That scripture reference needs to go, NOW. And we need to start explicitly teaching that this scripture reflects a cultural mistake among Book of Mormon peoples in their understanding of virtue, one which fails to properly apply the principle of agency and denies the power of the Atonement. The chastity in which the Lord delights (Jacob 2) is not merely virginity, and cannot be taken away by another person, especially not by violence or abuse.”
UPDATE, Thursday, May 8: LDS church officials passed along official church teachings on rape, noting that doctrine distinguishes between sexual sin and sexual abuse:
“From the For the Strength of Youth booklet under Sexual Purity:
Victims of rape, incest, or other sexual abuse are not guilty of sin. If you have been a victim of any of these crimes, know that you are innocent and that God loves you. Seek your bishop’s counsel immediately so he can help guide you through the process of emotional healing.
From the Church Handbook under Abuse:
In instances of abuse, the first responsibility of the church is to help those who have been abused and to protect those who may be vulnerable to future abuse. Victims of sexual abuse (including rape) often suffer serious trauma and feelings of guilt.
Victims of the evil acts of others are not guilty of sin. Church leaders should be sensitive to such victims and give caring attention to help them overcome the destructive effects of abuse.”
read all the links embedded in this article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/05/07/elizabeth-smart-mormon-teaching-on-sex-stopped-me-from-escaping-kidnappers/
Elizabeth Smart shares 100 percent of her kidnapping terror in book
ReplyDeleteBy Alan Duke, CNN October 8, 2013
(CNN) -- A decade after Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping ended, she is sharing intimate details of her 9-month-long nightmare.
Smart, now 25 and married, spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper Monday about her book "My Story," which she said tells 100% of what happened to her.
"I didn't just want to go 10% and sugarcoat the rest," Smart told Cooper. "I wanted it to be really what happened and what it was like every single day I was there, because I don't think I'm doing anyone any favors by sugarcoating it."
Her motivation for opening up is the realization that people don't often acknowledge the "just staggering" fact that one in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before age 18.
"I want to reach out to those survivors and those victims," Smart said. "I want them to know that these things do happen, but that doesn't mean that we have to be defined by it for the rest of your life. You can move forward and you can be happy."
Smart's abduction
Smart's horrific story began on the night of June 5, 2002, when Brian David Mitchell dragged the 14-year-old from her bedroom in her family's Salt Lake City home.
"To me, in my bedroom is the ultimate place in safety," she said. "I mean, I felt like that was the safest place in the world for me, so waking up in the middle of the night in my own bedroom having this strange man standing over me, someone I didn't recognize, not only that but having a knife being held to my throat, I was terrified. I had grown up in a very happy home and I really didn't know what the definition of fear was until that moment. That brought whole new meaning."
The street preacher threatened the child unless she left with him quietly, she said.
"He said 'I have a knife at your neck, don't make a sound, get up and come with me,'" Smart told Cooper. "And then I remember getting up and going with him, and then on the way through my house he bent over to my ear again and said 'If you make any sound, if you do anything that causes any attention or causes someone to come, I not only will kill you, but I will kill anyone who tries to stop me.'"
Smart described the first hours of her ordeal, when she was "praying so hard for an escape."
"I kept looking, I kept waiting for something to happen, for some way for me to get away," she said. "I kept looking and it didn't happen. When I didn't see an escape route, I thought 'Oh, my goodness, I'm going to be raped and then I'm going to be murdered, because that's what happens to all of the other kids I've ever seen on the news who had been kidnapped."
Mitchell forced her to hike with him for hours that morning, away from her home, she said.
"I remember stopping him and asking him 'Well, if you're going to rape and kill me, could you please do it here?' because, in my mind, I wanted my parents to know what had happened to me," she said. "I wanted them to know that I hadn't run away, that this wasn't my choosing, I wasn't upset with them. I wanted them to know what had happened to me."
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Mitchells response was chilling.
ReplyDelete"I remember he just looked back at me and said, 'Oh, I'm not going to rape and kill you yet.' And then we kept going and I remember we got a little further and I stopped him again and I said 'Well, don't you realize what you're doing, I mean, if you get caught you'll spend the rest of your life in prison?' And he looked at me again and he said, 'Well, I know exactly what I'm doing and I know what the consequences are. The only difference is I'm not going to get caught.'"
After several hours, they arrived in a mountainside camp where Mitchell's wife, Wanda Barzee, was waiting.
"I was terrified when I got to the camp, but the scariest thing about the camp was this woman," she said. "I remember she came out and she had on robes and she had on a headdress and she came up to me and she hugged me. But this hug was not comforting. I mean, if hugs could speak this hug would have said, 'You're mine, you will do exactly what I tell you to do.'"
Nine months of terror
The constant sexual abuse by Mitchell began that day.
"The next nine months, my days consisted of being hungry, of being bored to death because he talked nonstop always about himself," she said. "I mean, talk about self-absorbed. And then my days consisted of being raped. I mean, not just once, multiple times a day."
While Smart's story is about hope and survival, the details are filled with despair.
"Every time I thought 'OK, this is rock bottom,' I mean, my pajamas have been taken away from me and I'm being forced to wear this nasty robe, the next thing I knew they'd say, 'We're going to have you go naked now,' or I had been forced to drink alcohol, which I had never done before," she told Cooper. "I would throw up and I would pass out and when I'd wake up I'd find that my face and my hair was just crusted to the ground in vomit. I mean, just every time I thought it couldn't get worse, something always happened."
Smart said she eventually decided she would be a survivor and she would get back to her family.
Smart's rescue on March 12, 2003, was followed by second-guessing by people who wondered why she hadn't escaped on her own. Why had she told a detective who talked to her at a library that she was not the kidnapped girl?
Smart: Never judge a victim
"You can never judge a child or a victim of any crime on what they should have done, because you weren't there and you don't know and you have no right just to sit in your armchair at home and say 'Well, why didn't you escape? Why didn't you do this?' I mean, they just don't know," she said. "That's wrong. And I was 14. I was a little girl. And I had seen this man successfully kidnap me, he successfully chained me up, he successfully raped me, he successfully did all of these things. What was to say that he wouldn't kill me when he'd make those threats to me? What was to say that he wouldn't kill my family?"
The second half of Smart's interview with Cooper, in which she reveals details of how she was rescued, will air on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" Tuesday night.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/07/us/elizabeth-smart-anderson-cooper/index.html
How Survivors Stories Helped Shape Netflixs Kimmy Schmidt
ReplyDeleteEllie Kemper has revealed the inspiration for her character Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix's comedy series "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt."
by Lexie Hammesfahr, Newsy June 14, 2015
Ellie Kemper has revealed the real-life inspiration behind her character, Kimmy Schmidt, in her new Netflix series.
If you've never seen "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," Kemper stars as an extremely optimistic doomsday cult survivor, who was rescued from an underground bunker in Indiana after 15 years of captivity.
"Oh, I'm very normal; I've had everything normal happen to me," her character says.
As a result, the always upbeat woman is stuck in the '90s while trying to live in present-day New York.
And while her character is sometimes overly enthusiastic and, quite literally, always looking on the bright side of things, she actually found inspiration for her character after reading two real-life survival stories.
In a recent interview for The Wrap, Kemper said, "I read Elizabeth Smart's memoir, and every night before she would go to bed, she would think about what she was grateful for that day — and she was in the depths of hell."
Smart's memoir, "My Story," describes her 2002 abduction. She was kidnapped at 14 years old and rescued nine months later after her captor, Brian David Mitchell, had been recognized while walking with two women in a Salt Lake City suburb.
Kemper told Deadline she also prepared for the role by reading Michelle Knight's book, "Finding Me," which recounts the more recent rescue of Knight and two other women held captive in Cleveland for almost a decade.
In a March interview with E!, Kemper had this to say about her character Kimmy: "Bad things will happen. That's what life is, but the ability to overcome that and surmount it and let those experiences define you is, I think, what makes [Kimmy] so inspiring."
So while Kemper says it was important to have the enthusiasm of a girl trapped in an adult's body, she also wanted to be prepared for the strength she would need to convey on screen.
She seems to have nailed the part. The first season of the series has a 94 percent critics approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And though Netflix keeps the ratings of its original programming a secret, Variety exclusively reported that Luth Research estimates the new series premiered to a larger audience than season 3 of "House of Cards."
Even real escapees of pre- and post-apocalyptic cults have pointed out that Schmidt's actions in the show are, at times, spot-on. In one Vulture op-ed, a writer who escaped from the Children of God cult said, "Growing up in a cult gives you an abnormal zest for life, and Kimmy Schmidt exuberates this confidence fittingly."
http://www.newsy.com/videos/how-survivors-stories-helped-shape-netflix-s-kimmy-schmidt/