Kylie Harrison: 	This is Narrating Salt Lake Utah. This episode is brought to you by the gender studies program at Westminster college.

Zoe Kalapos:		My name is Zoe Kalapos and I'm a  junior at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. I’m an USSA student athlete working towards a degree in marketing.

Jon Butcher: 		My name is Jon Butcher. I'm a sophomore at Westminster college. I'm majoring in political science and I am part of the ROTC program. I chose to be part of this true crime podcast because it is important to be aware of crimes like this. 

Kylie Harrison: 	My name is Kylie Harrison and I am on the track and field team as well as co-president of NAMI on campus at Westminster. Despite COVID-19, I just graduated with a mathematics major and a computer science and psychology minor. I am also the daughter of Lance Harrison, whom we interviewed about his experience searching for Elizabeth Smart. 

Zoe Kalapos: 		Back on June fifth, 2002, 14 year old, Elizabeth smart was kidnapped from her own bed by religious fanatic, Brian David Mitchell, and his wife, Wanda Barzee.

			What follows is a nine month search throughout the nation. This episode will cover the search and interviewing a member of one of the many search parties. The viewer will get an idea of how Lance felt to be a part of the search and what life was like after the search. 

			The podcast is more about the actual pursuit of Elizabeth and not about what the kidnapping was like for her, as she tells her story better than any other podcasts ever could. If interested in Elizabeth’s side of the story, you  should look to her book My Story that she wrote with Chris Stewart. 

			Okay, Lance, thanks for being on here. 

Kylie Harrison:		How did you come to be a volunteer to search for Elizabeth Smart? 

Lance Harrison: 	I saw the news reports on the TV and decided to take off some work and go try, probably two days after she was kidnapped.

Kylie Harrison:		How much work did you take off? Do you remember? 

Lance Harrison: 	Two weeks. 

Zoe Kalapos: 		How much time, or how many days did you spend searching for her? 

Lance Harrison:		Probably 12 days, maybe. 10 to 12 days, probably. 

Kylie Harrison: 	And when you were in your search groups, did you ever come close to finding her? Do you know, or do you have any inclinations as to if you came close?

Lance Harrison: 	That’s a tough one because I get it mixed up with the news reports and my memory, but I do remember being in a search group and I was not the search leader. And we had gone above her house, but we were, we were mile, at least a mile in past her house. We were North East of her house and we were going up the canyon in there. And I remember the search group, I, I was in. For some reason I have memories of her uncle being in the group. But I don't know if that's just memories of seeing TV reports or if it was memories from actually being in there. Cause I mean, I seen him a lot, a lot of times. I don't know if I w- you know, I’m pretty sure I was in that group of the one where she said that she could hear her uncle's voice. I remember reading something or hearing something that she had said that she could hear her uncle's voice yelling her name. 

			So I remember where we went and I remember, I remember the hillside we were on and after, after she was found and the campsites were found. I looked on a Google earth map and we were a couple hundred yards away. It was the same exact hillside that I remember, but I remember looking at it when I came home that day and just cause I kind of, I'd never been up that hillside before. And, um, my understanding is she was West of us and we decided to go East when we got to the, to this high point. We had a decision, we had a meeting at the top. “Do we want to go this way? Do we want to go that way?” And, uh, the consensus was by the team leader is we're going to go East instead of West. Some of us thought we should go West and go down the ravine and he decided to walk along the hillside and go down the, the ridge. And that's what we ended up doing.

			I don't want to blame the team leader or anything like that. We actually discussed it, but that was the final decision, is we went East instead of West. Than if we would've went West, we would've walked right into the camp, I think, from where I remember seeing the, on the maps. 

Kylie Harrison:		Do you remember how big your search party was?

Lance Harrison: 	Most search parties were between 10 to 16 people usually. It depends on what you were doing. We did a golf course and then we probably had 25 of us because it was a big golf course. You'd go out for like two, two and a half, three hours. Cause you had certain areas you went into, and depending on where they were sending us was how big the party was, so it was really not up to us, except for when John Huntsman Senior asked me to get a group together. That group was eight. I do remember that one because he had a canyon above his house that he owned and he wanted us to search, uh, an old deserted barn and stuff like that. And we ended up searching the barn, but also a bunch of the canyon too. I remember that party. So I was, it was eight cars and I got to pick how many came with me on that one, so. but most of the times it was, it was kind of preset by the search committees or whatever, so.

Zoe Kalapos: 		How do you think that being a parent affected how you approach being a member of the search party, as opposed to someone who maybe wasn't a father at the time? 

Lance Harrison:		I'm sure it had a lot of effect, ‘cause most people in most of the search parties that I was at had kids, and I worked with people that came from out of state. I remember people from Idaho and Nevada and Colorado and Arizona, and you know, all those different states coming down and helping. And they were in my search parties, mostly elderly. Well, well, not really elderly, but a lot of the ones were coming from out of state could take off work. And so there were a little older people and were coming down and helping, but a lot of them were parents. We did have some teenagers that helped, but most were parents. 

Zoe Kalapos:		And did you ever feel a sense of obligation to help search for Elizabeth?

Lance Harrison: 	Not really an  obligation more of just, ‘what if it was my kid?’ You know, I would hope a lot of people would come out and help, especially the way the, the kidnapping happened, the aggregiousness of it, of how it happened, where he actually was bold enough to go into the house and, and take her right out of her own bed that, that struck me different. You know, it was different from other abductions. It was definitely more publicized than other kidnappings had ever been. So it got a lot more media attention. It was just so different. A lot of kidnappings you, you hear about, you know, the kid was walking home from school or something like that, but, but this one, you know, goes into her house and takes her while she's sleeping. I don't know. It was just the way it happened. 

Zoe Kalapos: 		What was it like coming home to your daughter after searching for someone else's own missing daughter? 

Lance Harrison:		It was hard, um, because the longer we went, the less chance we had, you know, and the news reports and that, you know, the, the experts on the TV were all saying, ‘you know, you know, after 72 hours, the chance of her being alive is like 5%,’ you know, whatever the percentage is, there, every day that went on longer, her chances of her being alive were, were less, you know? I mean, you, you hear these stats, you know, you go out there and I mean, we were going door to door. Sometimes I was up in, up in the sugar house area, going door to door and, you know, asking people, if we could search their yards and if they would let us search their house, we, you know, most of them, we didn't even ask really search in the house, but you know, some of them, some of them let us volunteer to search theirhouse. But I mean, most of it was just searching their yards it's by that. And cause we couldn't just go into their house, you know, we had no search warrants or anything like that. 

			Um, but I did a lot of, I did a couple of golf courses. I did some parks that were, um, I did this park up by, on the I 215. It was right off of I 215, and it had a lot of trees. It was really a woody, wooded tree area. And it was hard. And especially with the canyon that we went up that Huntsman Senior owned, um, that was kind of a, that was rough because we were, we really were afraid we were going to come upon, come, come upon her, but not come upon her alive, but come upon her dead. Um, and that was, you know, that was kind of, uh, something that, you know, you just never wanted to, you know, do. You know you still wanted to search, but we were, you know, the longer it happened, and I think when I did the Huntsman property, that was probably a week into it. And, um, Huntsman knew me fairly well. And he had asked me specifically to get a party together to go up. This was not one of the organized search parties that they had, but he had some influence and went, and obviously he had influence, I mean, 
			Huntsman has a big name and, you know, in the valley and, and, uh, he just went there and it happened to be at the church that they were doing the staging at.

			And he just said, ‘Hey,’ you know, and he knew me from prior experiences and, and asked if I could get a team together to go search his own property. Um, and that was, so that was a little off the normal, you know, searches that we had done, but we still treated it the same way. But that one was a little different for me, cause I just, I had a really weird feeling on that one. And so did some of the other searchers, we talked about it afterward that we, we really thought we were going to come upon her on that. That trip. And maybe we, maybe we were, I mean, her, hisproperty wasn't close to where I was at, but maybe we could have maybe come across Brian. Maybe he had come down close to that way or whatever, you know, when it came down to the Valley, the different times he came down, I don't know. It was just a, it was a weird, we just had an eerie feeling.

Kylie Harrison: 	Um, I'm going to kind of go back to that question a little bit and kind of focus more on what it was like coming home to your daughter. Was it, how did that affect your relationship with your own daughter?

Lance Harrison: 	*sigh* I don't know if it really affected it a lot. I mean, obviously, um, it was hard. I mean, at least I could come home and see my daughter where they couldn't. Um, you know, so it was, it was a joy to come home and be able to see you. But, um, And that I think that's what gave me the strength to go out the next day. It was cause, you know, I, I had you at home. So, you know, I was hoping I could, you know, find somebody else's daughter so they could have her home too, so.

Kylie Harrison:		So that the other family could have the same joy that you had when you were able to come home. 

Lance Harrison: 	Yeah.

Kylie Harrison: 	What are some emotions and feelings that you can remember from being in the search party?I  know you mentioned a little bit of apprehension and a little bit of fear when you were up near the Huntsman's property. Was there any other emotions and feelings that you can remember from when you were in the search parties? 

Lance Harrison: 	I remember seeing, and this is not what I was searching. This is, this is, after the fact, but I wish I would have been downtown when they came downtown as a group, as a party. You know, I know, I know they came down for a party that came down at the library or, I mean, they came down a few times, but I wish I would have been around when they would’ve come down because I would have known it was Elizabeth. I would have known, I knew her eyes. You know, maybe it was another searcher that we talked about it, but I knew Elizabeth's eyes. And so if I would've seen her eyes in that mask, I would have known it was her. I just, I just strong feeling, but I just would have known and they were pretty bold. They went pretty close to where her uncle worked. I think he worked at the Tribune or Deseret News, but that was right on the corner of first and main street. And y’know, the library is only a couple blocks away from that. I mean, that was pretty bold for them to go down where they went. I'm just 
			suprised other people didn't figure out it was her.

			I mean, the police officer that met her in the library. He had a really strong feeling, but he couldn't do anything about it because the way Brian Mitchell manipulated the religious, ‘you can't see my daughter's face, the only one who can see my daughter's face as her husband and family members. And that's it, ever.’ And he manipulated that and the police officer was obligated that he couldn't do anything more than that because he wasn't 100% sure. But I really think he, he knew, you know, 

Zoe Kalapos: 		How long did you hear news reports about the case? Just kind of going off of being a Utah citizen, like to the media coverage, carry on just in the beginning and kind of through it.And after, what was it like, do you remember? 

Lance Harrison: 	I remember all of June and a good chunk of July, there was a lot of reports. There was, like, daily briefings and I think the last daily briefing was probably in - and well, I don't know if it was really daily briefings, but where they were doing briefings with a father and mother. I think the briefing stopped around September, but the searching, the main searching probably lasted for about a month.

			I know when I stopped going, it was starting to fizzle out a little, but I had to go back to work, but then they would, you know, they first suspected the father and then they suspected that this other guy, I can't remember his name. But they suspected this one guy and they actually caught him in another state. It was back East. I think they caught him like in Tennessee or something like that. And they interviewed him, found out, or he had no involvement because I don't think he was even in a state at the time. Then they suspected another guy, Ricci, I think was R I S- no. Yeah, R-I-C-C-I or something like that, but they suspected this guy for a while. And so that was in the news for awhile. And then I remember in, I think it was late October or November that Mary Katherine had remembered the voice that she heard when she, because she had her back turned when he was in her room, but she was awake and she remembered that the, the voice being Emmanuel. And so that's where, that's where his name started being			brought up. But that, and I think that was in late October, November. And then it just kind of fell off the radar for a while. And then I think it was like the 2nd of February of 2003, that Ed and his wife released a picture of Emmanuel. When he called himself Emmanuel, then America's most wanted, took it, took it on. I think that was the end of February. And they did, uh, an entire show of America's Most Wanted, and they highlighted him directly, but they were still in San Diego. And I know he got arrested really close to that time. But for some reason, even though he was arrested and they had his photo out, the police didn't put two and two together. And I think the America's most wanted episode happened before he got arrested in San Diego. When he broke into the church, because I know when he broke into the church, it was the end of February. And they, he came back from, from being in jail and he was in jail for almost a week, or it might've been in jail for a full week.

			And it came back to the count site and Wanda and Elizabeth hadn't eaten for over seven days. And he had another ‘spiritual’ revelation that he shouldn't leave San Diego. And Wanda wanted to go back to Boston because that's where she was a teacher at. Or had some teaching stuff back in, I think it was Boston. And so Emmanuel and Wanda were talking about going back East and Elizabeth came up and said, ‘why don't we go back to Salt Lake?’ You know? And she manipulated them. She, by this time knew their fake religion inside and out, and she knew how to start pulling their strings. And she was able to convince them to go back to Salt Lake city. And I, I think the way she did it is, he was still looking for another bride. And I think he had actually tried somebody else in San Diego. I know we tried her cousin in late July, to try to kidnap her cousin, but he also tried in San Diego, but just, or I don't know if he'd really tried, but there was just, there was no ways of getting anybody. And I think she 
			manipulated him to come back to Salt Lake City because of, of the church and all the girls’ camps. And she says it would be, you know, ‘you could abduct somebody from a girl's camp.’ And I think that's how she was able to convince him to come back to Salt Lake City.

			Cause it was now March and, uh, girls camps, would it be starting, starting to happen in June and so they could get prepared. And I don't know. I think she just, she, but I know, I know that she manipulated them to come back to Salt Lake City.

Kylie Harrison: 	Were there ever any points where you thought that she would never come back or never be found?

Lance Harrison: 	I think as a F- personally, myself in September, I probably just thought., I 
			didn’t think she was alive. 

Kylie Harrison:		Around that time in September, when you thought that she was no longer alive, how did that make you feel? Knowing that you'd been searching for this girl and just everything with the case?

Lance Harrison: 	I don't know. I mean, obviously it was just lost hope. I mean, just hoping that the parents could find her body, you know, still wanted her to be found, but, you know, obviously I was assuming that we're going to be finding in her body to, so her parents could have some closure. 

Zoe Kalapos: 		How did you hear that Elizabeth had been found? 

Lance Harrison: 	I actually heard it probably 15 minutes after she was found. I don't know where I was. Somebody had called or texted me, or called me. And they had heard on a police scanner because she got found pretty close to around noon on March 12th, I think it was around noon. I remember it being in the morning. Um, I remember it was, I heard it before the news cause I came home wherever I was at.

			I came home, turned the TV on and they still hadn't announced it yet. So the news stations hadn't even heard anything yet. So I heard it before them, and I don't know who I heard it from. It was probably just one of my friends that knew that I was searching for her, had searched for, and had heard it on the police scanner or whatever. So I think that's how I heard about it. 

Zoe Kalapos: 		How did you feel when she was found? Did you feel largely relieved or. . .

Lance Harrison: 	I mean well, yeah, obviously that was, I mean that she had consumed a big portion of my life in 2002. And a big emotional part of my life too. I mean, even as a, as a family, we were praying for her safety and, and stuff like that. And, you know, we were doing that for months. I bet we, we probably prayed as a family for her safe return probably till September. And that's probably when we stopped praying is when we, when the hope basically gave up. 

			And then ironically, um, just during our family prayers that night before on March 11th, Kylie was, Kylie's turned to say the prayer. And she had mentioned in her prayer and I mean, this hadn't been done for six months now. And all of a sudden she says, you know, you know, ‘pray for Elizabeth Smart.’ And it was, I remember that distinctly because the next day she was found and it was just like, “Whoa!” you know, kind of. You know, we, she kind of dropped off the radar with us.

			I mean, I'd still heard news reports and stuff like that. Not like the family had, I'd watch the America's Most Wanted episode with Tom Walsh. And so I was following the story, but I don't know how closely my family was. And, and we hadn't talked about Elizabeth for quite a while. So for, for Kylie to all of a sudden bring it back up, and she was only, she was not even, yeah, she was just barely four. She had just barely -

Kylie Harrison: 	I was five. . .

Lance Harrison: 	Oh I guess, yeah, it's five. Yeah, just barely turned five. 

Kylie Harrison: 	What was it like? Just a five-year-old girl, just suddenly out of the blue six months, and you haven't really talked about her, but six months have gone by, and this five-year-old little girl decides to suddenly pray for Elizabeth Smart?

Lance Harrison; 	Well, I, I remember kind of, when you, when you said the prayer I remember kind of smiling about it going, 'Oh yeah, we haven't prayed for Elizabeth for a long time.' And I just, and then ironically, the next day when she was found, it was just like, “Whoa.” You know, but I remember telling you, I think I told you before I told mom, cause you know, brought it up the, you know, the day before, or I don't remember a lot that day. I don't even know if I was working or not.

			I just remember when I heard it. Well, whatever I did, I stopped, you know, if I was in a deposition, I would have, we would literally would have taken a break in and looked. Cause I remember turning the news on and, and not hearing anything. And then all of a sudden, you know, after we'd had the news on for, you know, five, ten minutes, all of a sudden it came on.

			So we, we had heard it before anybody else. And I don't know if I was in it, if I was working that day and one of the attorneys heard it or, and we could stop the deposition or if it was me, I don't remember how I heard, but I remember we heard really early, like literally right when, right when, after she was rescued, 

Kylie Harrison: 	What kind of emotions do you remember from that? 

Lance Harrison: 	Joy. Pure, pure joy. I mean, it was like she's safe, she's alive, you know, total shock. I, cause I had written her off as dead. 

Zoe Kalapos: 		Did you do anything differently from a parenting aspect once you learned about this case, did you ever fear for the safety of your own children after you saw just how easily Elizabeth was taken?

Lance Harrsion: 	No. Cause we were already kind of doing that. Um, w we. We have an alarm system in our house. We turn it on every night, but I think we were definitely more vigilant to make sure it was on, but we pretty much had it on every night anyway. But we also were very vigilant with Kylie. ‘If somebody comes in to scream.’ I'm like, ‘I can be in your room within three seconds. They're not going to be able to kill you in that time. I'll be there and just scream. Fight back.’ And that was something we always taught Kylie, even throughout her life. You know, we have friends that taught her, ‘If you got abducted, fight back, you know, it's better to try to jump out of the car when you're driving than to, to let them get you to the destination. Just fight back. However you have to fight back. Fight back.’

Kylie Harrison:		Going along with that, I still get lessons. Even now. One of my mom's high school friends will come up behind me. They'll give me a big bear hug. They'll be like, okay, ‘You're being abducted. What do you do?’ And so I'll go through the steps with them. It's like, okay, here's what I do. Cause you're hugging me from behind or whatnot. Um, but I also remember being taught, you know, always scratch by whatever, if you scratch, you can potentially get some DNA samples, then you have some proof. I remember weird stuff like that. And I remember being taught to scream and all that.

			But do you remember doing anything different also with your youngest son? Cause he wasn't very old. He was only a year or two old.

Lance Harrison: 	No, we were doing it for the whole family, but no one's going to come into the house and. Kidnap you guys without me mentally. I'm a very light sleeper anyway. So I usually hear noises, so. 

Kylie Harrison: 	Yeah, I can attest to that. 

Zoe Kalapos:		Why do you think that this case gained so much attention? 

Lance Harrison: 	The Smarts are obviously fairly well off wealthy wise. I think Ed had a lot of influence with other high up people. The governor, the mayor. I think he was friends with them. I don't know. The way she was abducted, was also different, but I think money had a lot to do with it. Um, unfortunately, because I think every children's kidnapping should be publicized like this, but he had the influence and obviously his brother that worked at the newspaper, he had a lot of influence on a lot of pull, and so they were able to run the story in the newspaper, and then the TV stations just decided to pick it up.

			So it got pretty good attention, pretty high up. And I've never seen any other search as organized as this anywhere ever. I mean, the other states they'll have searches for a day or two and they'll get a couple of hundred or a thousand people that go and search. But these guys had thousands of people every single day. And for weeks, weeks and weeks, I mean, I did it for at least two, two and a half weeks. And almost the entire month of June, I did it through and there was thousands of people there. So I think money had a lot to do with it. Unfortunately, I don't know if religion had a lot to do with it, but it could have, but I know money had a lot to do with it.

			And they had stuff like water and snacks and stuff like that that were donated by different stores. So the searchers could have stuff to go out with, a bottle of water or granola bar or something like that to go out on the search with and stuff. So I just, I don't remember any other case that, you know, ever got that type of attention.

Kylie Harrison: 	How did you feel about the trial and sentencing of the Smart case? 

Lance Harrison: 	The trial was rough. Elizabeth was now, boy, when was the trial, the trial was what, 2007, 2008, something like that. So she was probably 17, 18, 19 years old at the time when they were finally doing the trial and she had, you know, go on the stand and testify against him.

			She is an amazing girl to, to sit there and, you know, he has to be able to be there a lot of times he was, he would just sing and they would take him back out know cause he was such a lunatic, but I know when she was on the stand, he was there for part of it, but I'm glad Wanda finally turned on him and testified against him.

			And what did he get? Two life sentences or something like that? I mean, it was, whatever it got was, was well justified. I don't know. I wish Wanda would've got more, but I understand why she didn't get as much. I think she got a 15 year sentence and then she got released on good behavior and for testifying in the, in his case.

			So. She, she definitely got what she deserved. And so I think she deserved a little bit more. She was compliant and, and holding her hostage, especially up on the mountain in Utah, but she was also a victim too. He had manipulated her pretty bad, but she still had a say. Cause she would, she would argue with him and then leave. She’d could go off for a day or two. And just leave,

Kylie Harrison: 	Going back a little bit towards Mitchell. How do you feel about that? Knowing he has no chance of ever receiving parole.

Lance Harrison: 	He shouldn't, first of all, he didn't even represent himself in trial. He had gone through all that medical rehab and stuff like that. And he's a smart man. He knows what he's doing. I don't believe the doctors that are saying that he's off the wall. He knows exactly what he's doing. He's manipulating the system, but it didn't help him any, it might've delayed him getting the sentencing, but he was still serving jail time anyway, so it didn't matter. And he would go into the trials and he would just sing or he would just be really disruptive. And so he didn't even try to defend himself. He, he, he deserves what he got. I don't, I don't think he deserves execution, but you know, he definitely deserves a life sentence and I believe it was if I remember right, I think he got two full life sentences. 

Kylie Harrison: 	Any other thoughts or feelings about all of this as you've been reminiscing about it?

Lance Harrison: 	 I know I got invited to, they had a searcher party that we're trying to thank all the searchers and I, I didn't go and I regret not going. Because I wanted to meet her, you know, I've never met Elizabeth smart in person, and I want it, I want to at least shake her hand.

Kylie Harrison: 	So if you ever did have the opportunity to meet Elizabeth, would you say anything? What would you do? 

Lance Harrison: 	Oh yeah, I would, I would, you know, banker for being the example, she was, I mean, what, what a strong individual, I mean, what she went through. Being raped every day for 270 days or however long she was, you know, I think it was 270 or 280 something days, um, going through what she went through and, and just staying strong and eventually learning to manipulate him to save herself. I still think she had the fear that he could kill her and go after her family and stuff like that. But I think she was manipulating them enough and I think she could turn it around, you know. She saved herself. 

Kylie Harrison: 	Any other thoughts or comments that you might say to her if you ever met her? 

Lance Harrison: 	Obviously I would tell her about you praying that day before being religious. I think she would appreciate something like that. I'm glad she, got on with her life. You know, she got married, has two kids, and I don't know if she has a third now, but I know she has two and she just didn't let this ruin her life. She goes around the country speaking and probably around the wrld to basically empower other people, to teach her kids this. And, you know, and, and a few are ever abducted are able to get away and get on with your life. And it's possible. And teaching kids, if you get abducted, fight back. Save yourself, try. 

Kylie Harrison: 	Any other last minute comments, thoughts? 

Lance Harrison: 	Not that I know. 

Kylie Harrison: 	All right. Well, thank you so much for your time. 

			This episode was hosted by John butcher, Zoe Kalapos and Kylie Harrison.

			Our show was produced by the gender studies program at Westminster. Thanks to Lance Harrison, Kristjane Nordmeyer, and Eileen Chanza Torres.

Jared:			 This episode was produced by the gender studies program and the sociology department at Westminster College editing and sound designed by Jared Win music by Lou Crumbo and our logo was created by Catherine Nielsen.