Elizabeth Smart Reacts to Imminent Release of Kidnapper

Elizabeth Smart said Tuesday that the Utah parole board’s decision to release one of the people who abducted her was surprising and “incomprehensible.” Wanda Eileen Barzee wasn’t expected to be released for at least another five years. However, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole said it hadn’t credited her sentence in the state system with the time she served in federal prison. As such, Barzee, now 72, will leave prison September 19. Barzee and her husband, Brian David Mitchell, were convicted of abducting Smart, then 14, at knifepoint from her Salt Lake City bedroom in June 2002. Mitchell is serving a life sentence.