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Debbie Mitchell never got her day in court.
Married to Brian David Mitchell for five years in the early 1980s, Debbie Mitchell sought help from LDS Church leaders to try to escape an abusive marriage with the man who would eventually be convicted of the 2002 kidnap and rape of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart.
But when Debbie Mitchell told her bishops about the physical abuse, they didn't believe her. And when she suggested Brian Mitchell was sexually molesting his four biological children — including an 18-month-old daughter the couple shared — they laughed at her assertions.
Brian Mitchell was never prosecuted for molesting his own children, or his three stepdaughters — Debbie Mitchell's children from a prior marriage. So Wednesday — the day Brian Mitchell was sentenced for sexually abusing Smart during nine months of captivity — Debbie Mitchell seized the opportunity to talk of her own victimization at the hands of her ex-husband.
Brian Mitchell filed for divorce from Debbie Mitchell, his second wife, in 1985. He would later marry Wanda Barzee, his accomplice in the Smart kidnapping.
"You have closure when you get divorced. But with what he did to my children, because nobody believed us, there was never closure," said Debbie Mitchell, 60. "When I wanted to leave him, the bishops said, 'No, you need to work on your marriage.' I would go to church with black eyes, and they'd ask me what I did to make him hit me."
Debbie Mitchell's divorce from Brian Mitchell was the start of a lifetime of healing. But she said her children are still traumatized from the abuse they suffered.
But one her daughters, Rebecca Woodridge, has become a public supporter of her former step-father.
Woodridge attended Brian Mitchell's trial and visits him twice weekly at the Salt Lake County jail. She plans to release a book about her life with Brian Mitchell and how it led her down a troubled path before she found a way to forgive him.
Debbie Mitchell has also written a book about her time with Brian Mitchell, titled No One Would Listen. Not yet published, she said it has been used to help educate bishops in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on how to interact with members who report domestic and sexual violence.
Debbie Mitchell, who volunteers at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and calls herself a dedicated LDS Church member, wishes church members would apologize for not believing her story back in the 1980s.
"I haven't had one person in the clergy say, 'I'm really sorry that Brian fooled us. I wish I would have been there for you,' " Debbie Mitchell said. "That would help."
She is also imploring her ex-husband to apologize for his misdeeds.
"You were the father of our children in our home, and your children were robbed of that safety time and time again; and ... you are now convicted of what you did to Elizabeth, and there is closure for her," Debbie Mitchell said. "There is no closure for us. If you don't repent for what you've done to us before you die, I believe you will suffer pain in the life to come as terrible as the pain you've caused us in this life."