Brian David Mitchell, a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist, kidnapped Elizabeth Smart from her suburban Salt Lake City bedroom when she was 14-years-old. For weeks her family and law enforcement were stumped as to what might have happened to her but a relatively unknown anti-polygamy activist named Flora Jessop came forward not long after the kidnapping to warn law enforcement and the public that this had all the markings of the work of a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist.
She was ridiculed and laughed at, and as it turns out, she was right.
It took over 8 years but he was eventually convicted in a federal court for kidnapping Elizabeth and raping her every day, in order to fulfill his mission to his false Mormon god. You see, he needed her, because without participating in polygamy, according to his prophet, Joseph Smith, he could never reach the highest level of the afterlife, where he would become the god of his own planet and live out eternity having sex with all his spiritual wives in order to populate his planet.
A court rejected his argument that he was insane and a jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to 15 years in a federal prison for what he had done to Elizabeth. He stole her innocence and her childhood.
Elissa Wall was born into the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints in 1986. At the age of 14 she was informed by her family that she was to be given in marriage to her 19-year-old cousin, Allen Steed. She resisted. She cried. She begged her family not to make her marry him. She stood sobbing as her mother and other family members made her stand still for her wedding gown to be fitted.
She was then transported across state lines [violation of Mann Act? Human sex trafficking?] to a motel in Nevada, where the sect's leader, Warren Jeffs performed a marriage ceremony for the two. She told her new "husband" that she did not want to have sex. She begged him not to violate her innocence, and he did it anyway. Later she went to Jeffs to beg him to release her from the "marriage", but he advised her only to go home and submit herself to her rapist, "mind, body and soul."
There you have it, two 14-year-old girls, both raped by fundamentalist Mormons in order to become gods and get their own planet in the afterlife. You see, they needed these girls, had to have them or they wouldn't "get to Heaven."
The difference?
Today the state of Utah offered Allen Steed a plea deal for raping then 14-year-old Elissa. He will serve 30 days in jail for his crime.
Brian David Mitchell raped a 14-year-old and got 15 years in prison.
What is the difference, when neither child was willing to submit to their rapes?
Elissa had the bad luck to be born into fundamentalist Mormon polygamy, and that my friends is a very dangerous place for any girl with her own mind to be born.
Someone please try to imagine your 14-year-old little girl being pushed down and having a man repeatedly forcing himself into her, over and over...and then being sentenced to only 30 days in jail for it.
Shame on Utah, it doesn't deserve to be in our Union, not today. Today you are VILE!
And to any polygamists here it Texas? You take a good long hard look at that flag at the top of this page. You will not succeed in coming here to Texas to rape us or our children, or in making us VILE like YOU. Got it?
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Correction! Thank you, Texas-1 for pointing this out:
"Brian David Mitchell has been convicted, but has not yet been sentenced, his sentencing will be 25 May 2011 in SLC.
Mitchell's wife Wanda Barzee was sentenced to to 15 years, which she is serving at a prison located in Fort Worth."
Brian David Mitchell has been convicted, but has not yet been sentenced, his sentencing will be 25 May 2011 in SLC.
ReplyDeleteMitchell's wife Wanda Barzee was sentenced to to 15 years, which she is serving at a prison located in Fort Worth, Texas. Here's more:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51263291-76/barzee-smart-elizabeth-mitchell.html.csp?page=1
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705366959/Elizabeth-Smarts-parents-ask-parole-board-to-make-Wanda-Barzee-serve-time-in-Utah-too.html
We are certainly getting an interesting collection of polygamists here in Texas prisons.
To get an idea about what it's like to be forced at 14 to be a plural wife read the following links, cut and paste to browser. This is difficult to read, the horror of it is shocking.
ReplyDeleteDay one Elizabeth Smart testimony:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50632966-76/smart-viti-yes-defendant.html.csp
Day two: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50639245-76/smart-viti-yes-cable.html.csp
Day three: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50647494-76/elizabeth-mitchell-smart-viti.html.csp
Thanks, Texas-1. I was rushing to get this posted this afternoon and tried looking up the sentence quickly. You are, of course, correct.
ReplyDeleteIt was his female accomplice, which coercive religious polygamy almost always requires, who received that sentence.
The actual rapist should be receiving much more time than 15 years. Fortunately, it was the feds rather than the state of Utah that tried them, or they would have been out on some technicality already.