Elizabeth Smart kidnapper Wanda Barzee’s prison letter triggered brutal replies from her children

Netflix recently released Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, which looks at the Elizabeth Smart case where she was kidnapped in 2002 by Brian David Mitchell and his wife at the time, Wanda Barzee.

Barzee pleaded guilty in 2009 to kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor.

From hospital custody, Wanda Barzee wrote a letter to one of her children. The letter was sent to her daughter, Rhonda. It later became public during an interview her children did with Oprah in 2010.

Rhonda is the only one of the siblings who stayed in contact with her mum. She said at the time, “I visited her last January at the state hospital.”

Then, in January, Rhonda received this handwritten letter from Barzee. It read, “Dear Rhonda, Oh how much you mean to me and the boundless love I have for you and each one of your brothers and sisters. I am so very sorry for the lives of abuse you each had to live through growing up. And that you have had to live without a mother and a grandmother to your children. It is my constant prayer that each of you may find it in your heart to forgive me. Each of you are so precious to me.”

Her daughter Louree said it felt too late and didn’t change anything for her. She said, “It kind of makes me sick because you always want a mother to love you. And she’s just never been a mother.”

And added, “It makes me angry that now when it’s too late…usually, as children, you either get a mother or a father that love you, but we never had either.”

via Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office

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Her son, Derrick, also spoke about how difficult their relationship was. He said, “We all knew she was sick, but she’s had a lifetime of not getting help for anything.”

And, “Now that she’s in her 60s and she’s getting help for something, there’s chasms between us. How do you bridge that? How do you overcome that distance? I don’t know how to do it.”

Despite everything, Barzee’s children have all said the experiences shaped who they became.

Louree said, “I don’t regret anything that’s happened to me in my life. I respect every single incident because it made me who I am and the kind of mother I am.”

She added, “I know what not to be. So it’s made me stronger in that sense and very close with my children.”

She also said she doesn’t fear becoming like her mum. “I’ve educated myself pretty well in the psychological department. And I’ve studied a lot of mental illnesses. I think just like if you have cancer that runs through your family, you have to be aware of it.”

And Derrick said, “I had to look back and say, ‘I was on the wrong path.’ Like she went down.”

He added, “Once I figured out that I had to own my mistakes, it was a whole new world for me. I realised I couldn’t be a victim of my circumstances anymore.”

So, the world knows Wanda Barzee for her role in one of the most infamous kidnappings in US history, but for her children, the damage didn’t start with the crime. It started long before that, inside their own home.

Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.