SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — After nine months of shabby living under bridges and in tents with a self-styled prophet and his wife, Elizabeth Smart returned to her million-dollar home alive -- but not unchanged.

When stopped by police, she readily lied about her identity and said the two drifters were her parents. The 15-year-old was nervous and agitated when asked to remove her sunglasses and gray wig and never asked about her family once the truth emerged.

"There is clearly a psychological impact that occurred at some point," Salt Lake Police Chief Rick Dinse said.

Dinse said Mitchell had been excommunicated from the Mormon church, the religion Elizabeth was raised in, and considered himself a polygamist, but Dinse added, "I do not want to attach his relationship with Elizabeth in that fashion."

Asked Friday about reports that Elizabeth had been taken to be a wife, the girl's aunt Heidi Smart said, "That's not actually information that we've been given at this point."

"The information that we've been given is that she was kidnapped and she was held captive and what went on from there psychologically is information that is still to come out," she told NBC's "Today" show. "I think we're looking at a lot of those speculations and stories as just that."

Debbie Mitchell, Mitchell's ex-wife, told "Today" Friday that Elizabeth was likely manipulated psychologically.

"I think there must have been a lot of brainwashing to begin with. I know that's how he worked in our marriage, I know how controling he was," she said.

Elizabeth's alleged kidnapper distributed a pamphlet called "The Book of Emmanuel David Isaiah," to everyone he knew. It was 27 pages of densely packed text, filled with the religious ramblings of a disturbed man.

A day after his arrest, a portrait of Mitchell began to emerge -- a portrait of contradictions, with Mitchell described variously as soft-spoken and kindhearted, controlling and violent.

The common theme is one of a gradual slide in Mitchell's grasp of reality.

Mitchell, 49, who eventually roamed the streets as an itinerant preacher, grew up in Salt Lake City, the third child in a family of six. He graduated from Skyline High School, where he was a middling student with few friends, according to his father, Shirl Mitchell.

He lost himself in hobbies, building contraptions in the backyard and shooting off model rockets. A Mormon, he went to church, but wasn't active.

His teenage years were troubled, Shirl Mitchell said, adding, "He was maladjusted."

Shirl Mitchell said his son became heavily involved in alcohol and drugs. He married early, a woman named Karen, when he was 19 and she was 16. It lasted a few years. They had two kids, before splitting.

Soon after, in 1980, he met a woman named Debbie. They both attended a lecture by a religious scholar at a ward house of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By that time, Mitchell had grown extremely religious, quoting Scriptures easily from memory and serving in the church.

Debbie was attracted by his soft-spoken nature and big eyes. They married eight months later, and he supported them with a job as a custodian. But their relationship, which produced two children, was tumultuous.

He wouldn't let her wear anything with bright colors, so her wardrobe was brown and black. More seriously, he beat her, she said.

A few years later, they divorced, and Mitchell promptly took up with Wanda Barzee, who was arrested alongside him Wednesday.

For a while, three of Barzee's teenage children from a previous marriage lived with them. Louree Gaylor, one of those children, said her stepfather's excessive touching made her uncomfortable. But it never went further than that, she said.

The couple moved to Idaho, borrowing money to buy a trailer. But they couldn't keep up with the payments.

Upon their return, Mitchell worked a series of jobs, as a messenger, running errands, and as a designer at a jewelry company. He was known as a responsible employee, those close to him said.

By this point, however, the "revelations" had already begun. In the late 1990s, the couple met C. Samuel West, a self-described natural healer of sorts.

Mitchell, who had changed his name by this point to Emmanuel, hung around the office, answered phones and talked with patients. He was very interested in the science, West said.

Mitchell and Barzee disappeared for a few months in 1998. When they returned, they'd taken to dressing in white robes -- what West called "Israelite clothes."

The couple had sold all their belongings and taken to the streets. They told relatives they'd gotten visions that told them they needed to preach to the homeless.

They stayed with West a few more months, building a mini-covered wagon on his back porch to push around town. It had a table and a bed. They later stocked it with blankets and canned goods.

West finally kicked them out because Mitchell was growing hostile, repeatedly insulting the Mormon church and pushing his own set of religious teachings.

Soon, the couple had become a familiar sight panhandling in downtown Salt Lake City. Ed Snoddy, a homeless outreach worker, met them three years ago.

"I knew him as 'God Be With Us,"' Snoddy said. "His wife was known as 'God Adorn Us."'

Mitchell's preaching style verged on incoherent, said Pamela Atkinson, another worker. "He really does believe he's God," she added.

But Atkinson said she never heard Mitchell raise his voice or threaten anyone. Basically, he seemed harmless, she said.

Snoddy and Atkinson pushed for Emmanuel to seek help for his mental problems, but he refused.

About seven months before Elizabeth, now 15, vanished, her mother ran into Mitchell panhandling in downtown Salt Lake City. She hired him to work on the roof of the family's house, a stint that lasted five hours.

Just before Elizabeth's disappearance, Mitchell and Barzee were staying with Mitchell's mother, Irene. She booted them because they were taking advantage of her and Mitchell was becoming abusive, his father said. She eventually secured a restraining order against him.

The couple then dropped out of view, except for occasional sightings. Police said they were camping out in the foothills behind the Smart home.

When they resurfaced, a third person was with them, also dressed in white and wearing a veil.

It was Elizabeth Smart.

Police briefly outlined Elizabeth's movements, saying she was snatched from her bed at knifepoint on June 5 and spent her first two months with Brian Mitchell and Wanda Barzee achingly close to home. She was held in a tent in Dry Creek Canyon, a popular hiking area within two miles of the Smart's house. The area was searched many times last summer.

Hours after she vanished, Elizabeth heard one of her uncles calling out her name but was unable to respond, her family said.

In October, Elizabeth and her captors rode a bus to San Diego and spent the winter there. They sometimes slept under a highway bridge. Mitchell was arrested twice during the time police say Elizabeth was with them, once in Salt Lake City on suspicion of shoplifting and once in San Diego for breaking into a church.

The trio returned to the Salt Lake area Wednesday in dirty clothes and carrying bedrolls. They were arrested within hours when two couples recognized Mitchell and called police.

When officers approached the teen, Sandy Officer Bill O'Neal said, "she kind of just blurted out, `I know who you think I am. You guys think I'm that Elizabeth Smart girl who ran away."'

Smart told police her name was "Augustine" and that her cheap black sunglasses protected her eyes while they healed from surgery. When they asked why she wore a wig and T-shirt for a head scarf, she became upset.

"Her heart was beating so hard you could see it through her chest," O'Neal said.

Handcuffed and loaded into a separate police car from Mitchell and Barzee for the ride to the station, Smart began to cry.

"We kept telling her, do this for your family, do this for yourself. Do the right thing -- we know you're Elizabeth Smart," said Sergeant Victor Quezada.

Smart responded with a biblical quote, "Thou sayest."

Elizabeth seemed to adjust well on her first night home. Sierra Smart said she and several other cousins spent about three hours with Elizabeth. "She's like totally talking, totally casual," said Sierra, 22. "She got all new clothes. She gave a fashion show."

Elizabeth may have been kept from escaping or crying out for help by the growing influence of her captors, police said. Investigators have not talked to her since Wednesday evening and have no immediate plans to interview her again, Dinse said.

"That is subject to the information that we develop. We will work with her family about that," he said. "We did have a productive day yesterday. She's a very bright, very smart young lady who answered our questions very articulately. She was very helpful in our discussion with her."

Her father said he had not pressed his daughter for details of her ordeal.

"I don't have it in me to try and make this harder for her than it is," he said.

Mitchell and Barzee remain jailed Friday on suspicion of aggravated kidnapping.

Mitchell had been previously arrested in Salt Lake City, September 27, for allegedly shoplifting batteries, gum, a flashlight and beer, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Friday. The man, who told police his name was "Immanuel" and "Lueal," skipped a subsequent court appearance, the paper reported, citing court records.

Authorities in California disclosed Thursday that Mitchell had been arrested and held for six days in San Diego County last month for vandalizing a church.

A fingerprint check done after the arrest indicated he was also known as Mitchell, but deputies had no reason to keep him in custody, sheriff's spokesman Chris Saunders said. Mitchell pleaded guilty and was released on probation Feb. 18.

"There's really nothing different we could have done because Salt Lake City authorities didn't identify him as a suspect until March 1," Saunders said.

Ed Smart has criticized police for focusing too much on another possible suspect and failing to act quickly on a tip from Elizabeth's younger sister that ultimately led to Mitchell. But he also sounded forgiving.

"I believe that they tried to do their best," he said.

Dinse acknowledged investigators were slow to release a sketch of Mitchell.

"Hindsight is 20-20 vision," he said. "If we had to go back over it again, I think every one of (our investigators) would say, `I wish we had gone public with that ... earlier."