SHOCKING

Elizabeth Smart’s Kidnapper, Wanda Barzee, Released From Prison

Nearly six years ahead of her previously scheduled release date.

Wanda Barzee, the woman who infamously kidnapped 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart and held her captive for 9 months, was released from prison Wednesday after Utah prison officials announced last Tuesday that her sentence had been miscalculated. Barzee was originally supposed to serve nearly 6 more years in prison for her role in Smart’s torment. Smart says Barzee encouraged her husband, Brian David Mitchell, to rape her. Smart, now 30, harshly criticized the decision to shorten Barzee’s sentence, which was announced last Tuesday. “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,” she wrote in a statement cited by The Daily Beast. This June, Smart also expressed concern that Barzee still allegedly had a book from her husband, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2011, that detailed the “revelations” he “received” to kidnap six girls to be his brides. “I will continue to pray that she will never be a threat to myself, my family, or any vulnerable person ever again,” she wrote on Instagram.