Elizabeth Smart stood before news cameras Thursday to say her kidnapper, Wanda Barzee, remains a threat to the public and should not be released from prison. 
 
 Smart spent the past two days processing the unexpected announcement that the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole would be releasing Barzee next week, after previously saying that she would stay in prison until at least 2024. After exploring her options, Smart conceded she has no legal recourse to keep Barzee, 72, locked up. 
 
 Instead, standing in front of the Utah Capitol, she asked the “powers that be” to re-evaluate the decision. If they won’t, she hopes Barzee’s family will have her committed to a mental health facility. If that doesn’t happen, she said she at least wants whatever community Barzee is released into to be vigilant. 
 
 Smart didn’t mince words: "I think the community should realize that she is dangerous. 
 
 “She did appalling things when I was in captivity," Smart said. "I know the depths of her depravity.” 
 
 Barzee’s family told The Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday they want nothing to do with her. The parole board responded to Smart’s request to re-evaluate by reiterating that Barzee has served her 15 years and they can no longer legally hold her after Sept. 19. 
 
 Barzee and her husband Brian David Mitchell took Smart, then 14, from her Salt Lake City home at knifepoint in 2002 to fulfill what Mitchell, a fanatical preacher, saw as his destiny. Smart has testified that Mitchell raped her almost daily during the nine months Barzee and Mitchell held her. 
 
 During Wednesday’s news conference, Smart didn’t minimize Barzee’s role in her kidnapping. She said while Barzee was manipulated at times by Mitchell, Barzee abused Smart “just as much as he did.” She said Barzee referred to her as her “handmaiden” and treated Smart like a slave. 
 
 “She is a woman who had six children and yet could co-conspire to kidnap a 14-year-old girl and not only sit next to her while being raped, but encourage her husband to continue raping me,” Smart said. “So do I believe she is dangerous? Yes, but not just to me.” 
 
 FILE - This 2016 photo provided by the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office shows Wanda Barzee. Barzee, a woman convicted of helping a former street preacher kidnap then-Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart from her Salt Lake City home in 2002 has been denied early parole, which was expected after she refused to attend a hearing last month before the state parole board that could have helped her get out of prison before her January 2024 scheduled release. (Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office via AP, File) 
 
 Smart was saved in 2003 when a passerby noticed her while she, Barzee and Mitchell were walking in Sandy. Barzee and Mitchell have been in custody ever since. In late 2009, Barzee pleaded guilty to federal charges related to Smart’s kidnapping, and to state charges in 2010 involving a plot to kidnap Smart’s cousin. Barzee was sentenced to federal prison that year and was given credit for the seven years she had spent in the state hospital. 
 
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 She was released from a federal prison in Texas in 2016. Barzee is finishing a one-to-15-year state sentence. 
 
 When prosecutors and Barzee entered into plea agreements, each knew the sentences from the two courts would run at the same time. Barzee’s attorney, Scott C. Williams, pointed that out in filings for Barzee’s parole hearing in June. 
 
 Barzee declined to attend that hearing. At that time, the board decided to keep her incarcerated and scheduled another parole hearing for 2023. Until earlier this week, Smart said she had always been told Barzee wouldn’t be released until 2024 at the earliest. Then the board decided it made an error and reversed itself. 
 
 “So, yes,” she said, “it was a very big shock.” 
 
 Smart’s father, Ed, said during Thursday’s news conference that his daughter should have been notified of the possibility of Barzee being released before 2024 “long ago.” 
 
 He said the board’s apparent error proves there is a communication breakdown in the justice system, one he said needs to be fixed for survivors like his daughter. 
 
 Elizabeth Smart also questioned a criminal justice system that would release a convict who, in Smart’s opinion, has not been rehabilitated. She said it’s her understanding Barzee has not undergone therapy nor taken prescribed medicines. Smart said she’s heard from a “reliable source” that Barzee still carries around the book of revelations Mitchell wrote before and during her captivity, when he was apparently inspired by God. 
 
 “That’s where he said to kidnap me and six other young women,” Smart said about the book. “If she’s still carrying that around, yes, I do think she’s a big threat.” 
 
 Smart said she hopes federal officials will keep a close watch on Barzee during probation. 
 
 Utah’s U.S. Attorney John Huber said federal probation officers — who have fewer cases to keep track of than local Adult Probation and Parole agents — will do just that. 
 
 “Wanda Barzee will be closely monitored. If she falls off track to what her requirements are, that’s a very short leash.” 
 
 If she violates any of the conditions, Barzee would be brought before a judge who has a “range of remedies” at his or her disposal, including sentencing Barzee to more time in federal prison before restarting her supervision. 
 
 “The judge will have a lot of options to keep the victim safe and help this perpetrator get back on track in life," Huber said. 
 
 While Smart said Barzee is dangerous, she also told reporters that she isn’t scared of the woman who kidnapped her. Shocked, surprised and concerned by her earlier-than-expected release? Yes. But she isn’t scared. 
 
 Smart said she’s spent the past 15 years trying to overcome the fear she experienced in those nine-months of captivity and refuses to go back to that. 
 
 When asked at the end of the news conference if she had anything to say to Barzee, Smart declined. Smart said she doesn’t want to see Barzee, much less think about or talk to her ever again. 
 
 Smart said she’s forgiven Barzee — and that’s enough. ||||| A key player in one of Utah’s most notorious crimes will get out of prison next Wednesday in an unexpected move announced by Utah’s Board of Pardons. Wanda Barzee has spent more than 15 years behind bars for helping to kidnap Elizabeth Smart. 
 
 The parole board initially denied Barzee an early release date in July, declining to include her eight years in federal prison as time served on state charges and setting a new hearing for 2023. 
 
 Smart said Tuesday’s reversal by the Utah Board of Pardons left her “surprised” and “disappointed.” 
 
 In explaining the board’s decision, Greg Johnson, the director of administrative services, said, “Upon further review and advice from legal counsel, the board must count time spent in federal custody toward Ms. Barzee’s state sentence.” 
 
 The woman has admitted to helping her husband, Brian David Mitchell, kidnap then-14-year-old Smart from her Salt Lake City bedroom at knifepoint in 2002. 
 
 Barzee testified at her husband’s trial that Mitchell told her God wanted them to kidnap seven young girls to become plural wives as a way of restoring the true church to Earth during an end-of-times battle with the Antichrist. 
 
 Mitchell raped Smart almost daily during nine months of captivity, which included a journey to California and back to Utah. Smart was rescued — and Mitchell and Barzee arrested — after the three were spotted on a Sandy street in March 2003. 
 
 In a statement Tuesday, Smart said she plans to speak publicly once she has a better understanding of the situation. 
 
 (Rick Bowmer | Associated Press file photo) In this July 6, 2017, photo, Elizabeth Smart looks on during a tour of the state crime lab in Taylorsville. Wanda Barzee, a woman convicted of helping a former street preacher kidnap then-teenager Smart from her Salt Lake City home in 2002, will be released from prison next week. 
 
 “It is incomprehensible how someone who has not cooperated with her mental health evaluations or risk assessments and someone who did not show up to her own parole hearing can be released into our community,” Smart said Tuesday. “I appreciate the support, love and concern that has already been expressed and will work diligently to address the issue of Barzee’s release as well as to ensure changes are made moving forward to ensure this doesn’t happen to anyone else in the future.” 
 
 Barzee, 72, did not attend her June parole hearing. She has refused to meet with a psychiatrist at the Utah State Prison, a board member had said — a mandatory requirement for parole after Barzee pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the attempted kidnapping charge. 
 
 Barzee has been behind bars since the couple were arrested in 2003, spending time in a county jail and at the Utah State Hospital before pleading guilty to federal charges in late 2009 and state charges in 2010. She was sentenced to prison that year and was given credit for the seven years she had spent in custody up to that point. 
 
 She was released from a federal prison in Texas in 2016 after completing her sentence in Smart’s kidnapping. 
 
 But she also had pleaded guilty in state court to attempted kidnapping in connection to a plot to kidnap Smart’s cousin in July 2002, about a month after Mitchell and Barzee kidnapped Smart. She now is serving a one-to-15-year sentence on that charge. 
 
 When calculating a release date in state prison, the parole board counted credit for time served in jail and the state hospital before she was convicted, Johnson said, but did not include the time spent in federal prison. 
 
 Later Tuesday, Johnson said Tuesday’s decision did not amount to an “early release.” 
 
 “The Board of Pardons and Parole does not have legal authority to hold Ms. Barzee beyond September 19, 2018,” he said. 
 
 The parole board in July had initially set another review hearing for Barzee in January 2023 — just one year before she will have served her maximum sentence of 15 years in state prison. 
 
 Smart’s father, Ed Smart, said Tuesday that their family began hearing about the possibility of Barzee’s release just last week. 
 
 “We’re certainly surprised,” he said. 
 
 Scott C. Williams, who was Barzee’s trial attorney, said after Barzee’s parole hearing that he was concerned that the plea deal they had agreed to wasn’t being followed. 
 
 Williams said Tuesday that he had submitted documents to the parole board before Barzee’s hearing arguing that the board must count time spent in federal custody toward Barzee’s state sentence. He also argued that the plea agreement made with state and federal prosecutors did not include any further time behind bars after Barzee was released from federal custody. 
 
 “It speaks for itself as to what the board did,” he said. “To their credit, they were willing to look further and reconsider the law in light of the facts, and when convinced, changed their mind.” 
 
 The attorney said Barzee will not be on parole with the state system once she is released next week, but will still be under federal supervision. 
 
 That supervision will last for 60 months, according to court documents, and includes restrictions on firearms use, visits from a probation officer and work requirements. Barzee will also be required to comply with sex offender registry requirements and must participate in a mental health treatment program, the 2010 sentencing documents state. 
 
 At Mitchell’s 2011 trial, Barzee called him “a great deceiver” who used religious blessings and revelations to gain her cooperation.
– "I know the depths of her depravity." That's what Elizabeth Smart had to say Thursday about her kidnapper, Wanda Barzee, who is set to be released from prison, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. During a press conference, Smart said Barzee is still a "danger and a threat to any vulnerable person in our community" and asked the 72-year-old's family to try to have her committed to a mental health facility, as "there does not seem like there is any viable legal recourse to this situation." Barzee will be released Sept. 19, according to KSL. "I was told she wouldn't be let out until 2024," Smart said, adding that learning of her former captor's impending release was a "very big shock." Barzee and her husband, Brian David Mitchell, kidnapped Smart from her Salt Lake City home at knifepoint in 2002, when Smart was 14 years old. Smart later testified that Mitchell raped and threatened her continuously during her nine months of captivity. Of Barzee, Smart said Thursday that the woman "saw me as her slave. She called me her handmaiden. She, in her own right, abused me just as much as [Mitchell] did."