Wanda Barzee takes stand in Smart kidnapping case

SALT LAKE CITY -- Wanda Barzee took the witness stand Thursday to testify in the case of her estranged husband Brian David Mitchell, who is on trial for kidnapping Elizabeth Smart.

Barzee wore a blue and white striped jail suit and shackles. She was nervous and breathing so heavily that defense attorney Bob Steele told her to pause and take a deep breath.

Barzee testified for a little more than an hour about her life with Mitchell in the years leading up to the kidnapping. She described the first year of her marriage to Brian Mitchell as "hellish."

Barzee said in 1985 she was divorced from an abusive husband and attending group counseling. That's where she met Mitchell, who she said was supportive of her and became her best friend. They married nine months later.

Barzee said the two argued a lot and Mitchell would get so upset he would leave the house for hours. She said soon after they were married Mitchell became "possessive" and controlling." She said he would often say he had become, "consumed with fear and doubt."

She said a few years later, things got better because she learned to be silent and submissive.

Barzee said Mitchell often gave her blessings and had revelations about their lives.

Mitchell told her it was "God's will" that they sell their belongings and move across the country.

As Barzee waited to testify and sat on the witness stand during a break, Elizabeth Smart briefly stared at her.

Elizabeth and her family have been in court every day. A girl who served an LDS mission in France with Elizabeth has been sitting by her side too. She said, "[Elizabeth Smart]She's incredibly Strong. Everyone knows that. She's incredibly strong."

Earlier this year, Barzee pleaded guilty to kidnapping and is currently serving 15 years in a Texas prison.

Barzee will continue testifying Friday morning.

Younger brother talks about Mitchell's formative years

Another family member of Brian David Mitchell's took the stand Thursday to talk about Mitchell's formative years.

Tim Mitchell, Brian Mitchell's younger brother, took the witness stand first. A counselor at Bear River Mental Health, he testified that as a child, Brian had many projects going on, sometimes not to the approval of his parents.

"He was, um, a creative person. He always seemed to have some sort of funny or interesting project going on. He and I were probably close because he was my big brother and I looked up to him," Tim Mitchell said.

Among Brian Mitchell's projects as a child: he built model airplanes, model rockets, tried to build a roller coaster in his backyard and one day tried to build a parachute so he could jump off his neighbor's garage.

During one particularly interesting project, Mitchell tried to turn his backyard into a nudist resort by putting up sheets around his backyard.

"One day my sister came in and said, ‘Brian is out there in the backyard sunbathing without any clothes on,'" Tim Mitchell recalled.

On another occasion, Mitchell tried to build a hot air balloon, but it landed on a roof and caught it on fire, prompting the children to throw snowballs at it to try and put it out.

Tim Mitchell recalled the teasing Brian Mitchell gave his younger siblings and the confrontations he had with his mother. Their father often disciplined Brian by either whipping him with a belt or dropping him off in downtown Salt Lake City and making him find his way home. But during those times, Tim Mitchell said Brian Mitchell actually enjoyed the adventure of finding his way back.

On some occasions, Brian Mitchell would feel bad about the trouble he gave his family and how he was viewed as the dark sheep of the family.

"At times I'd see him crying, upset, remorseful," Tim Mitchell said.

Tim Mitchell talked about Brian Mitchell's first wife, Karen. The two got married as teens and lived in Mitchell's house after she became pregnant. But Tim Mitchell did not believe Karen was someone Brian would have otherwise married. The two continued to party and drink even after having kids, he said.

Tim Mitchell admitted it was "emotionally upsetting" to be on the witness stand Wednesday. He talked about when he went to visit Brian Mitchell after his brother fled with his two children to New York and New Hampshire to avoid a custody battle with Karen. At that time, drinking and smoking marijuana was part of his brother's lifestyle, Mitchell said.

After Brian Mitchell returned to Utah, he went with Tim to southern Utah and had a kind of "conversion religious experience," Tim Mitchell testified.

Brian Mitchell still did not want Karen to find him, so they took a trip to a sort of compound in Escalante. At that time, Brian Mitchell was sort of atheistic, Tim Mitchell said. But during a heart-to-heart conversation while sitting around a campfire, Brian Mitchell threw his cigarettes in the fire and decided he wanted to change, he said. Brian Mitchell shaved his beard and started going to church when he got back.

But Brian Mitchell would not take the sacrament in church, telling his brother, "My sins were worse than yours."

When Tim Mitchell came back from his LDS mission, Brian Mitchell had met a woman named Debbie, moved in with her, had cut off communication with the family and was acting "suspicious" or paranoid of all family members, he said.

After Brian Mitchell's divorce from Debbie, he married Wanda Barzee. He told Tim Mitchell that he had to "go through a lot of counseling" and met Barzee there.

"He seemed more stable at that time," Tim Mitchell said. "He seemed more himself."

Brian Mitchell got a job at O.C. Tanner and was involved in the LDS Church again at that time, Tim Mitchell said. He said Barzee always seemed to have a smile on her face in the early years and laughed a little, but she also always seemed nervous.

"There was something a little different about her," Tim Mitchell said.

Brian's son from his first marriage, Travis, moved in with Brian Mitchell and Barzee and was having trouble in school and rarely attended. Travis was one of two children whom Brian Mitchell placed into foster care and eventually the children were adopted by another family.

Later, in a letter that Tim Mitchell received from Brian, his brother was very upset over a scolding he received from their mother about adopting the two children. The letter seemed odd, Tim Mitchell said, and his brother's downward spiral started from there.

When Tim Mitchell saw Brian a little later in Logan, Brian Mitchell hugged and kissed his brother.

"I got the impression he was trying to be perfectly righteous, tried to do everything by the Bible," he said.

That was also about the time Mitchell got involved in the study of lymphology, calling it a revolutionary medical treatment that could cure anything. But Mitchell felt there was a conspiracy in the nation to prevent lymphology from spreading. Tim Mitchell told him that it was nothing more than massage. The family then lost contact with Mitchell and Barzee, only later to find out they had been traveling the country and were homeless.

"He told me that he felt that Wanda had a special spiritual gift for music, and they went to different churches and asked if Wanda can do an organ recital. He said, ‘I'm on a ministry to the homeless,'" Tim Mitchell testified. "He said he was on a mission from God to serve the homeless."

Tim Mitchell told his brother he thought he was drifting away from the church and that he may have been "deceived by a spirit."

Barzee responded by saying she was having a bad feeling and they both stormed out.

In the time leading up to the kidnapping, Brian Mitchell told his family that Barzee had had a revelation and wanted them to call them by their new names, something Tim Mitchell refused to do.

"He's getting weirder and weirder," Tim Mitchell said, adding that he told his brother: "I'm not going to call you David. I think you're going off on the wrong path."

That's when Tim Mitchell told his family that his brother's condition "is really starting to look like mental illness." Tim Mitchell sent letters to his brother encouraging him to get help.

"He was becoming increasingly emotionally disturbed," Tim Mitchell said.

After the kidnapping, Tim Mitchell was interviewed by Dr. Michael Welner, the prosecution's key expert witness. Tim Mitchell told him that based on his mental health training, looking back now, he thinks Brian Mitchell exhibited symptoms in his teenage years that he would diagnose as bipolar.

"The only thing I sensed was he was kind of asking me questions based on what he believed," Mitchell said, noting that he disagreed with the direction Welner was going in his interview. "But there's a lot about Brian that I don't know and a lot about it that I don't understand. I just have my impression, it's based on what I observed, but I might be wrong."

During cross-examination, Tim Mitchell was asked if he knew how many interviews Welner conducted for his study.

"I heard he got paid $500,000 so I assume he did a lot of interviews," he replied.

Kristian Erickson, pastor of the Christ Lutheran Church in Murray, recalled a time before the kidnapping that Mitchell and Barzee came to his church with their homemade handcart and asked if they could camp in the parking lot.

"They had experienced some type of accident that had injured his wife," he said. "He said that their handcart had rolled over her and possibly inured her ribs."

Erickson said he took note of Mitchell's robes and that he asked to be called "Immanuel."

"It was a robe, not unsimilar to robes I wear on Sunday mornings. It was a traditional Sunday School type picture of Jesus, long hair, long beard," he said. "I wondered about mental stability, about possibly being delusional."

Erickson described Mitchell as being very well mannered and did not pose any type of threat to anyone or anything.

During cross-examination, prosecutors asked if Mitchell had any religious debate or disagreement with the pastor. He said he did not.

Mitchell and Barzee lived for six months in the mid 1990s on a farm in a commune in a small community near Lewiston, Idaho. Patricia McKnight's husband was the bishop of that area.

"It was through our church that we met them," McKnight testified.

McKnight remembered Barzee as a very talented organist. Both of them were very well kept at that time, she said. At that time, Mitchell and Barzee lived in a fifth wheel trailer that McKnight later found out Mitchell had stopped making payments on.

But during her testimony, her answers seemed to favor the prosecution more than the defense. McKnight remembered one incident in particular in which Mitchell gave Barzee a special blessing. "She said, ‘He told (Barzee) that (she) was one of the chosen people and that when the Lord came back, I would be playing the organ for him.'"

McKnight said Barzee was "just glowing" over the blessing.

"She was just so thrilled about it ... more than happy," McKnight said. "She wanted to please the Lord in every way and wanted to be accepted."

But then McKnight added, "I think that Brian manipulated her that way. I that was his control over her. … I thought it was an unusual blessing to promise her those things."

McKnight said she didn't think that so much at the time, but looking back now, she said that's what she believed was happening.

She also added during cross-examination, "I didn't feel (Mitchell) was dominating her continually." Prosecutor Felice Viti asked what it would have been like for Barzee to be taken away from her music when Mitchell decided to leave.

"I imagine it would be like tearing out her heart," McKnight said.

Mitchell sang "Oh Come, O Come Immanuel" for several minutes before singing another Christmas song. He actually stopped singing briefly, but resumed again when U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball first entered the room. He briefly paused again just before the jury was brought into the courtroom, but resumed singing "Oh Come, Oh Come Immanuel" again and was removed from the courtroom to a nearby annex.

Barzee was sentenced earlier this year to federal prison in Ft. Worth, Texas, and was subpoenaed by Mitchell's defense team to testify. She arrived at the federal courthouse Thursday morning from the Davis County Jail, where she is being held until her testimony is over.

Both Mitchell and Barzee were charged in state and federal court with kidnapping Smart in 2002 and holding her captive for nine months before the three were discovered walking along State Street in Sandy.

For many years, Barzee was ruled incompetent to stand trial. But after treatment at the Utah State Hospital, her competency was restored, which resulted in a quick plea deal in both her state and federal cases. As part of the deal, Barzee was to cooperate with prosecutors in Mitchell's federal court case.

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Story compiled with contributions from Pat Reavy, Andrew Adams and Sandra Yi.

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