Wanda Barzee, 73, is reportedly living in a run-down house two-tenths of a mile from where a downtown Salt Lake City school where children in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade are educated.
The woman who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart has moved into a home in Utah only blocks away from an elementary school after being released early from prison, according to reports.
Wanda Barzee, 73, is living in a run-down house two-tenths of a mile from a downtown Salt Lake City school where children in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade are educated, RadarOnline reported.
Barzee is reportedly not permitted to set foot on the grounds of licensed day cares, preschools, primary schools, secondary schools, community parks or playgrounds.
She was released early from Utah State Prison in September after 15 years in police custody. Barzee will be on supervised release for five years and has been warned to have no direct or indirect contact with Smart or her family.
Smart, now 31, was 14 when she was abducted from her bedroom and held captive for nine months by Barzee and her husband, Brian David Mitchell, between 2002 and 2003. Smart was kept prisoner in the woods, where she was repeatedly raped, drugged and threatened with death if she tried to escape.
She was rescued after two witnesses recognized Mitchell and Barzee from an episode of “America’s Most Wanted.” Mitchell is serving two life sentences in federal prison.
Barzee had been sentenced to 15 years in prison, but a parole board granted her attorney’s request for the first seven years she spent behind bars before she pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexual assault to count as time served.
Smart spoke out against the release, saying she believed Barzee to still be a danger to the public.
“Through my sources, I've heard that she's still carrying around this 'book of revelations' that Brian Mitchell wrote ... that said he should kidnap me, and not just kidnap me but six other young girls, and that we'd all be his wives ... clearly, she hasn't let it go,” Smart said on “CBS This Morning” in September.
Smart is now a motivational speaker, child safety activist and author. She is married, and she and her husband, Matthew Gilmour, have three children.
Sharing a photo of her, her husband, their children, and her mother and father posing with Santa Claus earlier this month, Smart wrote of her kids: “I just want them to remember the feelings of always being loved, always knowing they’re special to someone, and always knowing Matthew and I are here for them.
“I’m alive today because my parents instilled those same feelings in me from the day I was born.”
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