Wanda Barzee, who helped kidnap Elizabeth Smart, will be released from prison

"It is incomprehensible that someone who has not cooperated with his mental health assessments or his risk assessments and someone who has not presented himself to his own hearing of Parole can be released in our community, "Smart said in a statement. She added that she would comment further after having had time to digest the news of the impending release of her abductor.

In addition to his role in the kidnapping and captivity of Smart, Barzee also pleaded guilty in the Utah court to the attempted kidnapping of Olivia, Smart's cousin, that Mitchell also wanted to take a second wife and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Barzee completed his federal sentence in 2016 and was transferred to a Utah prison to serve his sentence. The parole board had said that Barzee was to be released in January 2024. But according to his lawyer, Scott Williams, Barzee was supposed to serve both sentences simultaneously, and his time is up. Williams did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post.

"I'm glad they've been willing to reconsider," Williams said of the overthrow of the parole board, according to reports from KSL.com.

Now separate from Mitchell, Barzee painted him throughout his trial as a "great deceiver" who manipulated him by their shared faith. She met Mitchell at a group therapy session organized by the Mormon Church after leaving her abusive ex-husband, but the comfort that he offered her quickly became in terror, she said. A professional church organist, Barzee described the early years of their marriage as "infernal" and stated that he had stopped playing music, that she had stopped to attend church and had even checked what she was watching on TV.

Brian David Mitchell is escorted by a US Marshal as he arrives at the Salt Lake City Federal Court in December 2010. (Colin E. Braley / AP)

Once, Mitchell ordered Barzee to cook the rabbit of his 14-year-old daughter, Peaches, and give it to him for dinner. She obeyed, Barzee testified.

Their life together has improved, she says, once become more obedient. She abandoned her six children from her previous marriage and focused solely on Mitchell. She told the jurors that Mitchell claimed that God had ordered him to become polygamous in 2001 and that he hoped to gather 350 women. When Barzee collapsed in her arms, crying in protest, she said Mitchell consoled her with a blessing, telling her that her plan was to make her "mother of Zion."

Again and again, Barzee said that she had been horrified by her husband's ideas but she said that she had not wanted to go against the will of God.

"Being perfect, was obeying him, no matter how much you did not want to do it, no matter how bad it hurt [me]", Testified Barzee.

After pleading guilty in 2010, Barzee apologized for the agony that she had caused to Smart and her family.

"I hope you will be able to forgive me someday."

In her book "My Story," Smart described waking up in her bedroom in June 2002 as Mitchell stood over her, squeezing a knife against her throat. One of her little sisters was sleeping in her bed next to her.

"Get out of bed," Smart remembered, remembering that Mitchell was whispering in the dark. "Or I'll kill you and your family."

Mitchell walked Smart on a mountain to a campsite that he had spent weeks with Barzee preparing for his arrival. Smart always wore his red silk pajamas. In the days and months that followed, Smart was hungry, tied with steel cables, kept in a dugout canoe full of mice and spiders. Her Mormon faith forbade her to use intoxicants, but she was forced to take drugs and drink alcohol. Instead of her first name, her captors only called her "Esther" or "Shearjashub". She was raped almost every day. After the first rape, Smart wrote that she was wondering if her family would even want her to come back or if Mitchell had ruined him.

Elizabeth Smart, now a child safety advocate, is holding a photo of Elizabeth Elena Laguna Salgado at a press conference in April 2015 in Sandy, Utah. (Rick Bowmer / AP)

Smart's nine-month nightmare ended in March 2003, when Mitchell took him on a refueling trip to Walmart, Sandy, Utah. Entering the store, Smart stopped in front of a picture covered with pictures of missing children, looking for his own face. Mitchell tore it up, muttering that she had been forgotten, that no one cared for her anymore. A client then recognized "America's Most Wanted" and called the police.

An officer dismissed her and asked her if she was Elizabeth Smart, explaining that her parents desperately wanted her home. She struggled to talk, haunted by all the times Mitchell had sworn to hunt down her family and kill them if she tried to escape.

"I'm Elizabeth," she said finally.

Smart, now 30, is a child safety advocate who works to prevent children from being abducted and injured. She is married now, with two children. She is expecting a third in November. His father, Ed, said his daughter was worried that Barzee would come to her or her children after her release, according to the Deseret News report.

Although Barzee accused Mitchell during the trial, she still follows her false teachings, her sister, Evelyn Camp, told KUTV that Barzee had jumped at his own parole hearing in June. She walks around Mitchell's handwritten "Bible," Camp says, and sends letters full of Scripture almost every week. She is always convinced that she is the "mother of Zion".

"She thinks her laws are the laws of God," Camp Kutv said. "Nothing has changed."

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