The 15th anniversary of the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart is next year but there are many young people who don’t know her story. In the 2000’s, every single media outlet and every single person was talking about Elizabeth Smart. It was all anyone could talk about, a normal middle-class family, who experienced the most tragic event any parent or child could experience. The events that followed Elizabeth’s abduction are truly heartbreaking. But ultimately, Elizabeth has left her demons in the past and is moving forward in life. With a new Lifetime film adaption of Elizabeth’s abduction, the attention is once again shifted to her story. Here’s what you don’t know about the event that transpired on June 5, 2002.
Who Is Elizabeth Smart?
Born on November 3, 1987 in Salt Lake City, Utah, to parents Edward and Lois Smart. Elizabeth has four brothers and a sister and she is the second-oldest child in the Smart family. Furthermore Elizabeth is an incredibly talented harpist.
Who Is Elizabeth Smart?
Edward and Lois
The Smart family lived in the upscale neighborhood of Federal Heights in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ed is the owner of a real estate and mortgage company in Utah. Edward and Lois have been married since 1986 and have six children together. Just your typical, normal family. Until June 5, 2002 that is, when their lives changed forever.
Edward And Lois
June 4
As a family on June 4, 2002, the Smart family went to an awards ceremony at Bryant Middle School. This was the middle school the kids attended. When they came home and got ready for bed, Ed checked that all doors were locked. However he didn’t turn the alarm on. “If the children got up and moved [in the night], it would set the alarm off. And so we just said we’re not going to bother with it,” Lois would later explain.
June 4
That Fateful Night
Elizabeth, who is 14 at the time, and her sister, 9-year-old Mary Katherine, share a bedroom. During the early hours of June 5, Brian David Mitchell breaks into the home and enters the bedroom the sisters share. Mary Katherine pretends to be asleep while Brian takes Elizabeth.
That Fateful Night
Fear
Mary Katherine listens to the floor creaking and thinks she can tell where Elizabeth and Brian are. When she thinks it’s safe, she gets out of bed so she can alert her parents. However she almost runs into Elizabeth and Brian who are looking into her brother’s soon. So she runs back to her room, fearful she’s been spotted, “I thought, you know, be quiet, because if he hears you, he might take you too, and you’re the only person who has seen this,” Mary Katherine says in a later interview. “I was, like, shaking.”
USA Crime Elizabeth Smart
Mary Katherine Alerts Mom and Dad
Shortly before 4 a.m., Mary Katherine runs to her parents’ bedroom and wakes them. She says that Elizabeth is gone, but her parents dismiss it as a bad dream. Ed goes room to room, but can’t find Elizabeth. That’s when Mary Katherine says, “You’re not going to find her. A man came and took her. He had a knife.” However Ed and Lois don’t think anything of her comment, until Lois notices the downstairs screen window has been cut with a knife.
Mary Katherine Alerts Mom and Dad
The Day After
Immediately the day after Elizabeth has been taken, Ed and Lois appear on television and asked the kidnapper to please return their daughter. As a result, a huge search for Elizabeth begins.
The Day After
The Search Is On
Immediately a massive regional search effort, which is organized by the Laura Recovery Center, kicks off. Some 2,000 volunteers begin looking at the area surrounding Elizabeth’s home. The search than expands and the use of search dogs and aircraft is introduced.
The Search Is On
Focus on Family
In June, a couple months after Elizabeth has been take, her father Ed Smart is brought in for questioning. Ultimately he takes a polygraph test, which he passes. However he and his wife, Lois, are completely outraged that the media claimed a family member had abducted or hurt Elizabeth. And Ed can’t believe the police actually brought him in.
Focus On Family
Stalemate
While the police had Mary Katherine’s eyewitness account, it wasn’t very helpful. Moreover, there was barely any forensic evidence like clear fingerprints or DNA samples which caused a stall in the investigation. An attempt to follow Mitchell and Elizabeth’s path on foot by bloodhounds proved unsuccessful.
Stalemate
What Did Mary Katherine See?
Mary Katherine told police, she saw a white man in his 40’s, with dark hair even on his arms and on the back of his hands. This man threatened Elizabeth with a knife, which she had told was a gun at the time. When Elizabeth stubbed her toe on a chair and said “ouch”, Mitchell said something like: “You better be quiet, and I won’t hurt you.” She said the kidnapper was soft-spoken, even polite and calm. Furthermore Mary Katherine thought his voice seemed somehow familiar, but she just couldn’t pinpoint where or when she had even heard it.
What Did Mary Katherine See?
Bret Michael Edmunds
Police did question and interview hundreds of potential suspects, one man in particular came up. Bret Michael Edmunds, who was 26 at the time, was pursued cross-country but ultimately was cleared after he was located in a West Virginia hospital.
Bret Michael Edmunds
Prime Person of Interest
Finally, a break in the case. The Salt Lake City police announced their prime person of interest was Richard Ricci, a handyman who once worked for the Smarts. A few weeks after Ricci refused to give a confession, he died from a brain hemorrhage. As a result, the police were back to square one. Ricci’s widow spoke out after Elizabeth Smart was eventually found, saying she was relieved Smart made it home and of her husband’s innocence.
Prime Person Of Interest
Media Coverage
Of course the rest of the Smart family and their extended family kept a persistent presence in local and national media. The reason was simply to keep Elizabeth’s name in the press, with the hope that she would be found. As a result, they gave the media home videos of her as a teen and child, and even created a website which provided resources for those who wanted to help.
Media Coverage
Mary Katherine Remembers A Crucial Detail
Several months later, a massive breakthrough arrives. It’s October 2002 and Mary Katherine remembers where she heard Mitchell’s voice from. She immediately told her parents, “I think I know who it is: Emmanuel.”
Mary Katherine Remembers A Crucial Detail
Community Help
So the Smart family wanted to help unemployed people within the community by paying them to complete odd jobs or handy work around the property. Mitchell, who went by the name “Emmanuel”, had been the one to tell numerous homeless people that the Smart family would hire them. Moreover he even worked for them himself. For five hours, he was at the Smarts’ home, helping to do some work on the roof and raking leaves.
Community Help
Not A Worthy Lead
Mary Katherine had now identified “Emmanuel”/Mitchell as the man who abducted her sister. When the police were informed, well they had doubts as to reliability of the information. To them, Mary Katherine had barely heard his voice, and had just awoken from sleep. Several months later and Mary Katherine thinks she heard the voice of a man she briefly met, over a year ago, so the police didn’t consider it a serious nor a worthy lead.
Not A Worthy Lead
Sketch Goes Live
After this, the Smart family and the police clash. The Smarts are furious that the police decide not to thoroughly follow up on this new lead. Therefore, they use the services of Dalene Nielson, a sketch artist, to draw up “Emmanuel’s” face from memory. In February 2003, the sketch is released to the media. With the help of John Walsh, who revealed the drawing while on Larry King Live and also on his own series, America’s Most Wanted.
Sketch
Recognitiion
Not long after and the drawing gets recognized by Emmanuel’s family, who then report his actual name, Brian David Mitchell, to the police. Furthermore, they provide the police with contemporary photographs of Mitchell.
Recognition
Who Is Brian David Mitchell?
Brian David Mitchell was a religious fanatic, who was also addicted to pornography. He even claimed he was a prophet at one point. Furthermore, he was married to Wanda Ileen Barzee, who helped in the kidnapping and took care of Elizabeth Smart in her nine month captivity.
Who Is Brian David Mitchell?
March 12, 2003
March 12, 2003, some nine months after the abduction, Mitchell, who was wanted by the police for questioning, was spotted traveling with two people while in Sandy, Utah. A couple who had seen photos on the news and immediately called 911. The two people seen with him were Elizabeth Smart — who was disguised in a gray wig, sunglasses, and veil — and Wanda Ileen Barzee, his wife.
March 12, 2003
Reunion
After Elizabeth Smart and her captors were brought to the station, Smart was questioned. At first, Elizabeth denied her true identity, “I know you think I’m that Elizabeth Smart girl who ran away, but I’m not.” The reason why was simple, her captors made it clear that if she talked to anyone, there would be severe consequences. However, once she was brought to the station and separated from the two, she soon revealed her identity, and it was finally over.
Reunion
The Call
Elizabeth’s dad wrote a book later that year, Bringing Elizabeth Home, and he recounts the day he finally got that call. An officer called Ed and said, “We think we found a homeless girl that might be Elizabeth.” In the book, Ed says, “She looked like a homeless girl … I wasn’t certain at first that it was her.” He carries on to say, “I went over and put my arms around her and just started bawling. I held her back, looked her in the eyes, and said, ‘Is it really you, Elizabeth?’” To which she replied, “Yes, dad.”
The Call
Charges
On March 18, 2003 both Mitchell and Barzee are charged with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, and aggravated burglary. Unfortunately, both defendants are actually found unfit to stand trial.
Charges
Sentence
Wanda Barzee would eventually plead guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in state and federal prison. On December 11, 2010, Mitchell is finally found guilty of kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in sexual activity. Mitchell is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in a high-security federal prison in Tucson, Arizona.
Sentence
Interviews
In October 2003, Elizabeth Smart and her parents are interviewed on Dateline NBC, along with the Today show with Katie Couric, and also on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Elizabeth Smart then revealed what happened to her in the nine months that she was held hostage.
Interviews
Nine Months of Horror
In those nine months, Elizabeth was drugged, tied to a tree, and also raped as often as four times a day. On the first day that she was abducted, she was raped. But first Mitchell’s wife, Wanda Barzee, forced her to change in to a “robe-type of garment” and Mitchell then performed a pseudo marriage ceremony.
Nine Months Of Horror
Elizabeth Smart Recalls The Abduction
Years later while in court, Elizabeth Smart recalls the moments just before she was abducted from her bed. “He placed his hand on my chest,” she told the court in 2009. “Then put the knife up to my neck. He told me to get up quietly and if I didn’t then he would kill me and my family.”
Elizabeth Smart Recalls The Abduction
Manipulative
Furthermore, Elizabeth Smart has gone on to call Mitchell “manipulative,” “evil” and “greedy.” She also went on to explain, in her Fight the New Drug policy announcement, that it was his pornography addiction which made her “living hell worse.”
Manipulative
The Elizabeth Smart Story
Eight months after Elizabeth Smart came home, a television movie broadcast in 2003. The film was based on the book Bringing Elizabeth Home, which was written by her parents, Ed and Lois Smart.
The Elizabeth Smart Story
Activist
After everything Elizabeth has been through, she is actively involved as a child safety activist. In 2006, she went to Congress in order to support sexual predator legislation and the AMBER Alert system. Then in 2011, Smart founded the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which helps support the Internet Crimes Against Children task force and also educates children about violent and sexual crime.
Activist
Fighter
On top of all of Elizabeth’s charity involvement, she has received numerous humanitarian awards, like the Diane von Furstenberg Award and the Siena Medal. Furthermore, Elizabeth has openly spoken how to emphasize individual self-worth when it comes to fighting human trafficking. Plus the importance of “dispelling cultural myths surrounding girls’ loss of value upon sexual contact.”
Fighter
Life Moves On
Elizabeth Smart moved on with her life, she attended Brigham Young University, where she studied music as a harp performance major. Furthermore on November 11, 2009, Smart also left Salt Lake City in order to serve a Mormon mission in Paris.
Life Moves On
My Story
In October 2013, My Story, was published. Which is a memoir of Smart’s experience that was written with Chris Stewart, and published by St. Martin’s Press. The book details Smart’s kidnapping and also the formation of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation which focuses to promote awareness about abduction.
My Story
Love
While serving as a missionary in the Paris Mission, Elizabeth meets the Scottish boy, Matthew Gilmour. They date for a year when he ultimately pops the question. On February 18, 2012, in a private ceremony in Hawaii, the couple said “I Do.”
Love
Even More Love
In 2015, Elizabeth and Matthew welcomed a daughter, and just this year, they had a son together. She loves being a mother, and credits her own as her biggest source of inspiration. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my mom,” she said. “My mom is a hero and has influenced my life more than any other person, and I’d like to have that same influence on my children.”
Even More Love
In The Media
Currently Lifetime is creating a movie about her life, I Am Elizabeth Smart. Apparently the Nickelodeon actress Alana Boden has been cast to portray Elizabeth Smart. Furthermore Elizabeth is also involved in a new two-part A&E Biography special, Elizabeth Smart: Autobiography, which will come out later in 2017.
In The Media