Salt Lake City ? An independent commission will be appointed to investigate how police handled the Elizabeth Smart abduction case, Salt Lake City’s mayor said Monday.

Rocky Anderson said the five-member panel would begin its work after the completion of the case against Brian Mitchell, who is suspected in the kidnapping. He did handyman work at the Smart house one day in November 2001 and was identified by Elizabeth’s younger sister as the man who may have taken the teen.

The commission will likely focus on the level of attention authorities gave the self-proclaimed prophet during the investigation, and whether they concentrated too hard on Richard Ricci.

Ricci had worked as a handyman at the Smart home more than a year before the kidnapping and was considered a possible suspect in the weeks after Elizabeth’s disappearance. Ricci died last August of a brain hemorrhage in jail, where he was being held on an unrelated parole violation.

Elizabeth was spotted with Mitchell and Wanda Barzee in Sandy, Utah, on Wednesday, nine months after she vanished.

Mitchell, 49, and Barzee, 57, remained in jail Monday as prosecutors weighed their case against the pair. They will likely face federal or state charges by Wednesday, said Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Utah.

Mitchell’s father and attorney said authorities should be lenient.

“There’s a lot of people that kidnap little kids and murder them,” said Shirl Mitchell, 83. “He took care of the girl and she came back in good health.”

Attorney Larry Long, who is representing Mitchell, said that giving his client a light sentence could encourage kidnappers to keep their captives alive. He said Mitchell considered Elizabeth’s disappearance a “call from God” and took her as his second wife.

Mitchell also told his attorney he wants Smart to be renamed “Remnant Who Will Return.”

Smart family spokesman Chris Thomas dismissed Long’s comments.

“Elizabeth was taken against her will at knifepoint, she’s a minor, and whatever rationale Mitchell used to believe that she was his wife and loved him is grossly mistaken,” Thomas said. “The definition of love is not degradation, humiliation, or robbing someone’s life of control and respect.”

Investigators are reviewing a 27-page manifesto written by Mitchell that promotes polygamy as a blessing from God. Questions about whether Elizabeth was sexually abused have become a focus.

Brian Mitchell had few friends, his father said, and once spent time in juvenile detention for exposing himself.

“His childhood could be summarized by the idea of isolation, loneliness and lack of attention. He’s kind of a nonentity, it seems like. There’s really a blank in my mind when I think back to his youth,” Shirl Mitchell said. “It seems like I can tell all the negative things about Brian but very few positives. Maybe I’m a lousy father.”