A bumbling Utah cop could have rescued kidnapped teen Elizabeth Smart six months sooner — had he not been duped by her lying captors after stumbling on them in a public library, according to sensational court testimony yesterday.
The clueless cop approached the table at the Salt Lake City library where Smart, then 14 and veiled in religious garb, was sitting with abductors Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee, in early fall 2002, Smart told jurors.
“He said he was looking for Elizabeth Smart,” she said of the officer.
“He wanted me to remove the veil so he could see my face.”
The now-23-year-old said she didn’t make a move, terrified as Barzee squeezed her leg.
Mitchell told the cop that Smart was his daughter and “that it was not allowed in our religion and that only my husband would ever see my face,” Smart said.
“[The officer] asked if he could be a part of our religion for a day, just so he could see my face, just so he could go back [to the police station] and say, ‘No, it wasn’t Elizabeth Smart,’ ” she said.
Mitchell refused, and the cop left.
“I felt like hope was walking out the door,” Smart said.
“I was so mad at myself that I didn’t say anything,” admitted the teen, who had been snatched from her bedroom by Mitchell and subjected to months of rape before she was recognized on the street and rescued in March 2003.
“I felt terrible that the detective hadn’t pushed harder and had just walked away,” she said.
“Maybe something would have happened for me . . . I was just very upset.”