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CNN Sunday Morning

Who Is Brian Mitchell?

Aired March 16, 2003 - 07:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We turn now to the Elizabeth Smart investigation. A photojournalist for our affiliate station KUSI unknowingly caught what appears to be Smart and her alleged abductor, Brian Mitchell and his wife attending a Christmas Day dinner at a San Diego homeless shelter. You see the video right there.
Meanwhile, in this exclusive interview, CNN's Jeanne Meserve sat down with Mitchell's father to get some insight into the kind of person Mitchell is. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Since Brian Mitchell's arrest for the abduction of Elizabeth Smart, his father has written a time line of events that might help explain how his son ended up here.

SHIRL MITCHELL, BRIAN MITCHELL'S FATHER: Like the guy's fallen off a skyscraper, he can't reverse the direction of gravity. So if there's a force of gravity in the events affecting a person's personality and it just builds up and builds up, builds up, he's going to reach that bottom point, splat. He's there. And Brian's right there now.

MESERVE: The list begins with an accidental conception, a difficult birth, suspicions that Brian might have been abused in daycare, and goes on to catalogue their own troubled relationship, the time he hit Brian with a hose and another incident when Brian was 12.

MITCHELL: I drove out to Rose Park and said now Brian, you're on your own. I want you to realize how you appreciate having a home and place to stay just by being loose in the world for a little while. That might have been a set, you know, set his mind that pattern. Now he's been wandering around the whole country that way.

MESERVE: Shirl Mitchell says Brian was a tease and a tormentor, who had an intense rivalry with a younger sister, Lori.

MITCHELL: He was always being isolated and singled out as an odd one, the black sheep.

MESERVE: Was he an odd one?

MITCHELL: Yes. Yes.

MESERVE: Shirl is a self confessed voyeur, who has written two volumes about his personal theology that are full of explicit sexual content. He admits showing his 7- or 8-year-old son pictures of human genitalia. And he believes his erotic literature contributed to an episode of indecent exposure one day after school when Brian was a teenager.

MITCHELL: And then this little girl walks into the house, you know. And I don't know how she got there, but she did. And he's the only one there, and then goes and tells her daddy that Brian showed his privates to her.

MESERVE: A few weeks in juvenile detention, Shirl Mitchell says, put Brian in with a tough crowd, alcohol and drugs. An LSD trip put him in the hospital. Then there was a period of relative stability, with second and third marriages, children, and jobs before Brian got absorbed with religion, became a transient, and produced a religious tract which Shirl interprets as not supporting polygamy.

MITCHELL: Well, he talks -- still talking to God -- asks God up here.

MESERVE: That, Shirl says, may explain Brian's alleged abduction of Elizabeth.

MITCHELL: I think it kind of ties in with a -- with his sense that if he's in that big a position, he's above the law in some respects.

MESERVE: Shirl Mitchell says that though there may be an explanation for what his son has done, there is no justification. But he says, his son's action should be put in perspective.

MITCHELL: How many of these themes, degenerates, take little kids and dismember their bodies or kill them outright and bury them? Now they -- when they're getting to be overcritical of Brian, they should remember that. They're continue to say he's a monster for taking away a minor, but they got to back up a little and realize compared to these other themes, he's the same.

MESERVE: As he sifts through his son's life, trying to find explanations, what happy memories can Shirl recall?

MITCHELL: Well, you know, with all the other things I'd say, it's hard to find one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: Shirl Mitchell last saw his son before the Smart abduction when he dropped off a copy of his religious tract and stood in his father's driveway, shouting that he was Isaiah. The two were never close and had barely talked in the last 15 years, but Shirl Mitchell feels partially responsible for what has happened to his son and wants to do what he can to explain. Back to you.

COOPER: You know, Jeanne, it's so interesting in that interview, you know, because you usually hear relatives saying it couldn't be my son, that there's no way this would happen. This person's not capable of this. You don't really hear any of that sort of thing from this man's father?

MESERVE: Well, you do hear a little bit of that in parts of the interview that I didn't play when I asked, you know, were you surprised at this? And he said, "Yes, I was." You know, as unusual as he obviously found his son to be, he said this was something he never would have expected of his son.

COOPER: All right. Well, we will be seeing more of the interview throughout the day. Jeanne Meserve, appreciate you joining us. Thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired March 16, 2003 - 07:45   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We turn now to the Elizabeth Smart investigation. A photojournalist for our affiliate station KUSI unknowingly caught what appears to be Smart and her alleged abductor, Brian Mitchell and his wife attending a Christmas Day dinner at a San Diego homeless shelter. You see the video right there.
Meanwhile, in this exclusive interview, CNN's Jeanne Meserve sat down with Mitchell's father to get some insight into the kind of person Mitchell is. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Since Brian Mitchell's arrest for the abduction of Elizabeth Smart, his father has written a time line of events that might help explain how his son ended up here.

SHIRL MITCHELL, BRIAN MITCHELL'S FATHER: Like the guy's fallen off a skyscraper, he can't reverse the direction of gravity. So if there's a force of gravity in the events affecting a person's personality and it just builds up and builds up, builds up, he's going to reach that bottom point, splat. He's there. And Brian's right there now.

MESERVE: The list begins with an accidental conception, a difficult birth, suspicions that Brian might have been abused in daycare, and goes on to catalogue their own troubled relationship, the time he hit Brian with a hose and another incident when Brian was 12.

MITCHELL: I drove out to Rose Park and said now Brian, you're on your own. I want you to realize how you appreciate having a home and place to stay just by being loose in the world for a little while. That might have been a set, you know, set his mind that pattern. Now he's been wandering around the whole country that way.

MESERVE: Shirl Mitchell says Brian was a tease and a tormentor, who had an intense rivalry with a younger sister, Lori.

MITCHELL: He was always being isolated and singled out as an odd one, the black sheep.

MESERVE: Was he an odd one?

MITCHELL: Yes. Yes.

MESERVE: Shirl is a self confessed voyeur, who has written two volumes about his personal theology that are full of explicit sexual content. He admits showing his 7- or 8-year-old son pictures of human genitalia. And he believes his erotic literature contributed to an episode of indecent exposure one day after school when Brian was a teenager.

MITCHELL: And then this little girl walks into the house, you know. And I don't know how she got there, but she did. And he's the only one there, and then goes and tells her daddy that Brian showed his privates to her.

MESERVE: A few weeks in juvenile detention, Shirl Mitchell says, put Brian in with a tough crowd, alcohol and drugs. An LSD trip put him in the hospital. Then there was a period of relative stability, with second and third marriages, children, and jobs before Brian got absorbed with religion, became a transient, and produced a religious tract which Shirl interprets as not supporting polygamy.

MITCHELL: Well, he talks -- still talking to God -- asks God up here.

MESERVE: That, Shirl says, may explain Brian's alleged abduction of Elizabeth.

MITCHELL: I think it kind of ties in with a -- with his sense that if he's in that big a position, he's above the law in some respects.

MESERVE: Shirl Mitchell says that though there may be an explanation for what his son has done, there is no justification. But he says, his son's action should be put in perspective.

MITCHELL: How many of these themes, degenerates, take little kids and dismember their bodies or kill them outright and bury them? Now they -- when they're getting to be overcritical of Brian, they should remember that. They're continue to say he's a monster for taking away a minor, but they got to back up a little and realize compared to these other themes, he's the same.

MESERVE: As he sifts through his son's life, trying to find explanations, what happy memories can Shirl recall?

MITCHELL: Well, you know, with all the other things I'd say, it's hard to find one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: Shirl Mitchell last saw his son before the Smart abduction when he dropped off a copy of his religious tract and stood in his father's driveway, shouting that he was Isaiah. The two were never close and had barely talked in the last 15 years, but Shirl Mitchell feels partially responsible for what has happened to his son and wants to do what he can to explain. Back to you.

COOPER: You know, Jeanne, it's so interesting in that interview, you know, because you usually hear relatives saying it couldn't be my son, that there's no way this would happen. This person's not capable of this. You don't really hear any of that sort of thing from this man's father?

MESERVE: Well, you do hear a little bit of that in parts of the interview that I didn't play when I asked, you know, were you surprised at this? And he said, "Yes, I was." You know, as unusual as he obviously found his son to be, he said this was something he never would have expected of his son.

COOPER: All right. Well, we will be seeing more of the interview throughout the day. Jeanne Meserve, appreciate you joining us. Thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com