My Story Read Free

remember. This is not a foolish man. Some say that he is brilliant. Indeed, this proved to be part of his power, the ability to appear harmless and unassuming, even while he was plotting and demeaning and raging inside.
    Throughout the ensuing investigation, his family has cast very little light upon my capture, perhaps partly because they don’t want to talk, and perhaps mostly because they simply don’t understand him. He’s had very few friends, and those few people he was ever close to were forced to abandon him as they realized what a wicked man he was.
    But though he has always refused to talk to the authorities, and his background is depressingly convoluted, Brian David Mitchell has not hidden everything beneath his deceptions and his lies.
    Indeed, the trial of Brian David Mitchell for my kidnapping and criminal sexual assault left few stones unturned. Though I would happily have withdrawn myself from the process, I couldn’t, for I was the central figure in the case, the most important witness, the reason for it all. Everything that was said or done during the trial had to be focused to some extent on me.
    But I also understand that thousands of hours have gone into building the prosecutor’s case. Dozens of investigators, police officers, attorneys, doctors, judges, psychiatrists, mental-health officers, criminal forensic specialists, jurists, and advocates helped to pull the various pieces together, each of them having a bit of the story to tell.
    Press reports provide thousands of pages of additional information. Indeed—and I say this with very mixed emotions—few stories have so captured the nation’s attention as did my case, the abduction and trial being covered extensively among the local, national, and international press.
    But while these sources may be helpful in understanding Brian David Mitchell, the real story can only be told by those of us who were there.
    Mitchell’s wife, Wanda Barzee, is one of those. And she wasn’t an innocent bystander. She is a wounded and evil woman—a mother who once secretly fed her daughter her own pet rabbit, watching her eat it with a smile—who must accept her share of the blame. But at least she has been somewhat willing to discuss the events that took place.
    Of course, there is also Brian David Mitchell. But once he was finally captured, he went from incessant talking to not speaking at all.
    Which leaves the keys to the story lying in my hands.
    I am the one who lived through nine months of hell. I am the one who was forced to lie beside Mitchell every night. I am the one who had to listen to his stories, including long and wandering tales that revealed some of the most intimate details of his life. I am the one who felt his hot breath on my face, hiked with him atop the mountain, washed with him, ate and napped with him, hid behind Dumpsters and in the mountains with him, hitchhiked and rode on a cross-country bus with him. I am the one who was forced to watch things between Barzee and him that no one should ever be forced to see. I am the one who witnessed Mitchell turn away Barzee’s jealous rage with nothing but a soft word about his weaknesses and a blessing upon her head. I am the one who had to listen to his incessant talking, sometimes interrupted only long enough that he could rape me before going back to sharing his insights once again. I am the one who saw him play other people like a fiddle, watched him deal with police and investigators—people who were trained to spot deception—as if they were nothing but children in a game of hide-and-seek. I saw his calm. I saw his cool. I saw him constantly pull the wool over other people’s eyes.
    I saw all this, and more. Which is why I know Brian David Mitchell better than any other person in the world. Believing I would be his wife forever, he told me about it all.
    I know his comings and goings in the months leading up to the night when he snuck into my room. I know what he did on the day he came