Mental competency update hearing set for woman charged in 2002 Elizabeth Smart kidnapping

Hearing set on competency of woman in Smart case

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah State Hospital officials planned to update a state judge Friday on the mental competency of the woman charged in the 2002 kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart.

Wanda Eileen Barzee, 63, was expected in a Salt Lake City court for a hearing. Barzee has been receiving court-ordered psychiatric treatment since May 2008 after being twice deemed incompetent to stand trial.

Barzee and her estranged husband, Brian David Mitchell, were arrested in March 2003 and charged with multiple felonies related to the June 2002 kidnapping of Smart in Salt Lake City.

If state hospital officials believe Barzee now meets the legal standard for competency, the case could be headed to trial.

In an August letter written to her mother, Dora Corbett, Barzee said that based on her own conversation with a doctor and a social worker, she expected that she would be deemed competent.

“Needless to say how nervous I am,” Barzee writes in the letter, one of a dozen Corbett provided to The Associated Press last month.

Barzee had long refused medication for religious reasons. In 2006, Judge Judith Atherton ruled Barzee should be forcibly medicated, and the Utah Supreme Court upheld the ruling in late 2007. Attorneys for Barzee appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, but were denied a review in May 2008 and Utah State Hospital doctors began forced treatment.

Barzee and Mitchell face charges of kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary in the state courts. A federal grand jury also has indicted the two on charges of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor.

A self-proclaimed religious prophet, Mitchell was also ruled incompetent for trial. Last year, Atherton refused to order forced medication, saying she was not convinced that anti-psychotic medications would restore Mitchell’s competency.

Mitchell faces a Nov. 30 competency hearing in the federal case.

Smart was 14 in 2002 when she was taken from her bedroom at knifepoint and led off to a mountainside camp above Salt Lake City. In federal court testimony Oct. 1, Smart said Mitchell raped her daily over the nine months she was held captive. She also said Mitchell used religion as a ruse to get what he wanted, but never appeared to be spiritual or close to God.

On the Net:

Utah State Courts: www.utcourts.gov