Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart (2026) Movie Script

1
[wind blowing]
If Elizabeth is listening right now,
Mary Katherine, what would you say to her?
That I miss her and I want her to know
that our whole family loves her.
I wonder why would somebody
want to kidnap Elizabeth?
[tense music playing]
[Mary Katherine] I was nine years old
when Elizabeth was taken.
I missed not having my sister.
She was my best friend.
[inhales deeply]
[music fades]
[voice breaking] I think you're asking me
have I dealt with it?
I think it's something I still deal with.
[unsettling music playing]
That night, Elizabeth and I
said our prayers together
and we went to sleep.
[eerie, unsettling music playing]
The next thing I remember,
there was a man in my bedroom
telling Elizabeth if she screamed,
he would kill her.
I was paralyzed.
I just couldn't believe what's happening.
-[clock chiming]
-[unsettling music continues]
I finally worked up enough courage
to tell my parents Elizabeth was gone,
that a man had come in and taken her.
[tense music playing]
[newsman 1] Every parent's
worst nightmare.
[newswoman 1] A 14-year-old Utah girl
taken from her bedroom
while her family was sleeping.
[newsman 2] How could it happen
right in her own bedroom
in an affluent community?
[newsman 3] Where in the world
is Elizabeth Smart?
[dramatic music playing]
This case captivated the nation.
[newswoman 2] Authorities have launched
a nationwide manhunt.
It just had all the elements
of a Hollywood story.
[newsman 4] A strange and puzzling
new twist tonight.
[newswoman 3] Police are continuing
to focus on her family members.
Law enforcement don't believe
we're telling the truth.
As a family, we weren't gonna
just leave it to the authorities.
There is somebody out there
that knows something.
I had this overwhelming feeling
Elizabeth was still out there.
I needed to find my daughter.
[music intensifies]
When I made my bid for freedom,
I wanted it to be a sure thing.
I was gonna do whatever it took
to escape.
[chilling music playing]
[music fades]
[tense music playing]
[man] As a father,
you are there to protect your child
and to keep them from harm's way.
That didn't happen.
I didn't keep her from harm's way.
That just repeats over in your mind,
over and over and over again.
[music swells]
I remember specifically at 3:58,
Mary Katherine came into the room
saying that somebody had taken Elizabeth.
I thought, "You know,
you've just had a bad nightmare."
"Elizabeth is probably
somewhere in the house."
But as we went room to room,
the anxiety started rising.
[dramatic music playing]
In the kitchen, I saw this cut screen.
And the window was wide open.
My wife screamed, "Call 911!"
[music swells]
[music subsides]
On June 5th, early in the morning,
my pager was going off.
We had had a kidnapping of a young woman
up in Federal Heights.
The abduction of a child
taken from their bedroom
is extremely rare.
So I felt some pretty good urgency
to get down there.
[unsettling music playing]
I went up to the scene.
A captain briefed me.
[camera clicking]
Elizabeth Smart was
a young 14-year-old girl.
-[camera clicks]
-Involved in music.
Involved heavily with her church.
[camera clicking]
The family said
she'd been taken from her bedroom
in the middle of the night.
[camera clicking]
The window was open.
[camera clicks]
There was a cut screen.
[camera clicks]
Then outside, somebody had
put a chair up against the wall.
My initial impression was this isn't
gonna be a long-term, ongoing thing.
We'll have answers in 48 hours.
I was wrong.
This morning at about two o'clock,
we had what appears to be an abduction
from a home up here
in the Federal Heights area.
[newswoman] Terror set in
as the news spread.
In Salt Lake City,
I'm Nicea DeGering, 7 News at 11.
I recall my first report on the story.
"A little girl is missing
in Federal Heights,
taken from her bedroom
in the middle of the night."
And I remember being shocked by the words
as they came out of my mouth.
[tense music playing]
Federal Heights is one of
the most ritzy areas in Salt Lake City.
The homes are gorgeous.
The Mormon church is interwoven
into the community.
You wouldn't think crime happens here.
And I remember thinking,
"Is this a real kidnapping?"
[ominous music playing]
I got a call, and my brother Ed said,
"Please come, I need your help."
I remember walking into the front door.
Ed came over and got me.
And he just looked like
he'd been put through a meat grinder.
[sobbing] Elizabeth, if you're out there,
we're doing everything we possibly can
to help you.
We love you.
We want you to come home safely to us.
[somber music playing]
[Dave] Elizabeth's mother, Lois,
was in the front room
surrounded by family and friends.
And there was just this bloodcurdling
moan and cry coming from her.
"Where is my daughter?"
[phones ringing]
[Cory] Right from the get-go,
we set up a phone room to take tips.
The number of leads that came in
from the public numbered about 40,000.
And so we assembled a team
of hundreds of investigators.
Oh well, no matter how much lipstick
you put on this pig,
I'm not gonna look any better.
We went out to the school
and to contact Elizabeth's friends.
[applause]
Our investigation revealed no boyfriends,
no shady associations, no drug use.
Elizabeth Smart was just a very typical
14-year-old devout Mormon girl
living a very normal life
in a very nice neighborhood.
[Dave] Everyone knew who Elizabeth was
up in that area.
And by 4:30,
the neighborhood had mobilized.
[woman] Any of you know CPR
or rock climbing?
[Dave] Our community is very strong,
and so everybody was willing to just
drop what they were doing and search.
[man] Why are you doing this?
I love Ed and Lois,
and they are a wonderful family.
My handsome husband.
[Ed] Our home is nestled up
into the hills.
Oh, happiness and joy.
Lois and I and the family
had been there for about eight years.
[pensive music playing]
We had six children. Four boys, two girls.
Hi, Mom.
[Lois] Hi, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, you know,
she was the first daughter.
[giggling]
[giggling]
[Ed] She was fiercely competitive,
especially with her brothers.
As far as, you know, her inner strength,
she just really had a very strong spirit.
[determined music playing]
[newswoman 1] Authorities have launched
a nationwide manhunt today,
Thursday, June the 6th.
[newswoman 2] The search goes on
this morning for kidnapped Utah teenager
Elizabeth Smart.
An innocent girl has been stolen
from what should've been
the safest place in the world.
Today, Salt Lake City police
announced a reward.
A quarter of a million dollars
for Elizabeth's safe return.
The media response to this case
was insane.
[newsman 1] CBS News.
-[newswoman 3] Fox News.
-[newsman 2] NBC News.
There was a lot of pressure
on the police department
to try and resolve the case
very, very quickly.
There was so little evidence to go on.
But there was a witness to the kidnapping
the nine-year-old sister
of Elizabeth Smart, Mary Katherine.
-[ethereal vocalizing]
-[birds chirping]
[Mary Katherine] As a nine-year-old,
I don't think I understood
what was going on.
Just that my sister was gone
and I was very frightened.
We tried to do everything together.
I wanted to be just like her.
We did fight, mostly over how messy I was.
But any opportunity to be able
to spend time with her, I was there.
[ethereal vocalization continues]
Mary Katherine was very likely
going to be the key to finding Elizabeth.
Anybody who has a traumatic memory
will make certain memory imprints.
And so we wanted her interviewed
in a controlled, safe environment.
The guy said, "Be quiet."
"If you scream, I'll shoot you.
But if you don't, I won't harm you."
Did his voice sound familiar to you?
Yeah.
Can you tell me
where you've heard that before?
No, I can't remember.
Mary Katherine had indicated
that the voice seemed familiar to her.
She couldn't say whose voice it was,
but it was a familiar voice.
[ominous music playing]
You know, first impression
looking at the Smarts,
they looked like a happy, normal family.
But, statistically, more often than not,
the perpetrator of this type of crime
is a parent or a family member.
So we started looking very hard at them.
[tense music playing]
We brought members of the Smart family in.
We did in-depth interviews.
And there were a couple things
that came up that made us go, "Huh."
I was told that the alarm
had been inadvertently left off.
[camera clicking]
-And the window.
-[camera clicks]
When I looked at it the first morning,
there were no scuff marks
on the outside wall.
Even if you step up on a chair,
you're gonna make a scuff mark.
I did not see any.
My initial assessment was
maybe this wasn't the point of entry.
Maybe it was a staged one.
Someone had cut the screen after the fact,
but didn't come and go through the window.
So we searched the home.
We're looking for any indication
that harm befell Elizabeth.
Is there even a body in the home?
We have a really good bloodhound
on the department.
His name is JJ.
We had a lot of confidence in him.
[JJ panting]
And he picked up the scent for Elizabeth.
Went out the back,
and then up into the trees.
[pensive music playing]
And he followed a trail,
got up to the street up there,
which is a dead end,
and lost the scent.
I made the assumption
that she was probably
taken away in an automobile.
[dramatic music playing]
There's some indication
that this may have been an inside job.
Police confirming they have taken
12 computers from the family.
[Nicea] We were peppering police.
Is it the family?
Are we looking at the family?
I want to thank you all for your help.
I can't thank you enough.
I I know it's gonna take
everyone's effort to find her.
It's really hard to think of somebody
coming in there and taking her.
I I would do anything
to have her back in my arms.
[Nicea] Ed and Lois Smart,
I think initially you felt their grief,
but it definitely shifted.
People would watch Ed on TV
when he was talking,
and they would make statements like,
"There are no tears when he's crying."
[Nicea] There was a sense of,
"Is he telling us everything?"
[dramatic music continues]
"Could he be involved?"
[man 1] Something strange
about that story.
As a reporter, you you
you ask some good questions,
but there are a lot more questions
to be asked.
-[man 2] Like?
-It doesn't ring true.
And it's somebody
that seems to have understood
the layout of the home
and how to find her in the home.
[newsman] They have given
the father of Elizabeth a polygraph test.
[music fades]
[Cory] Sometimes children are
are killed by their own parents.
[tense atmospheric music continues]
And there were theories
of what had happened.
One was that Ed had killed her
and disposed of her.
[Ed] I had a call from Lois, my wife,
and I got down there,
and, um,
I saw this this tear.
And she basically said,
"Law enforcement don't believe
that you're telling the truth,
that you're hiding something."
[uneasy atmospheric music playing]
I was overwhelmed
to the point that I was shaking,
and I couldn't, um, stop shaking.
I had absolutely nothing to do with this.
And my father said,
"If you don't calm down,
I'm gonna commit you."
So he took me over to the hospital
and put me in the psychiatric ward,
and I
I cried that whole night.
-[Elizabeth giggling]
-[somber music playing]
[Ed] To have your daughter go missing
is horrendous.
Do you like that, Elizabeth?
And then to be a possible suspect
I was beyond words.
[newswoman] In Utah, police searching
for 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart
are continuing to focus
on her family members.
Scrutinize everybody.
Anything it takes. Do it. Do it.
[newswoman] Newsweek magazine
was reporting that her father, Ed Smart,
that he completely cleared
a polygraph test,
but his brother Tom's polygraph,
that was inconclusive.
I had three brothers.
Tom was kind of
a little bit on the edge of things,
always getting into some trouble.
She plays the harp like an angel,
and she rides a horse like a cowboy.
She's she's unbelievable.
Is a failed polygraph test suspicious?
Yes. Absolutely.
Maybe one brother
doesn't like another brother.
[spluttering] Don't get me wrong on that.
-This family--
-We love each other.
We love each other
more than any brothers possibly could.
A couple of the camera people said,
"Dave is Tom okay?
"Something's going on with him.
He's just really jittery."
-We need to run.
-[reporter] Okay.
Thanks so much.
[reporter] Thank you both very much.
Good luck.
[Dave] I took Tom to the side
and just said, "Hey, Tom."
"A lot of the media are wondering,
are you hiding something?"
[tense music playing]
[Tom] I believe that this person
is not a bad person at all, and just--
And our family has felt strongly
for a wh-- a while,
and there's been a comfort here
for a while
that this is just
somebody who actually likes Elizabeth.
We all have issues. If you've--
Anybody who's taken-- They--
We've been ripped apart to the core,
and we understand
that everybody has issues.
This is a wonderful story in a lot of ways
because it's about, foremost,
a beautiful little angelic girl.
Everybody has issues.
[music fades]
-[man whistles]
-[horse snorts]
[Tom] Anybody who watches that interview
will think,
"Tom Smart is a crazy son of a bitch,
and maybe he did do it."
We came out of that interview,
and my wife turned and says,
"You fucked the family."
One of the family traits that we have
between my mother, father, the rest of us,
is monomaniacal behavior,
which is, basically,
totally obsessive behavior.
You know,
in a situation like the kidnapping,
where it doesn't seem
there's much you can do
other than keep turning over stones,
neighborhoods, people.
You know,
after three or four days of that,
with no sleep, um
you you tend to collapse on yourself.
[gentle instrumental music playing]
When I'd been polygraphed,
it had been five and a half days into it.
I mean, I was hearing things.
But finding Elizabeth
was the only important thing.
I mean, we were never waiting for them
to tell us we were cleared.
I mean, who gives a shit?
[chuckling] We knew we were cleared.
[pensive music playing]
As a standard in these kinds of cases,
the families get looked at,
and it's really, really tough on them.
But their alibis checked out,
and with all of the computers we'd seized,
emails that we'd looked at,
we did not find anything suspicious.
It was dumbfounding
as to how long it took the police,
essentially, to clear the family.
[somber music playing]
And as the finger was pointed at us,
we saw a real drop in people that were
were coming to help us search.
[Dave] The numbers just took a dive.
I don't think those reporters
realized the impact that they had.
But we just keep going,
keep going, keep going.
Don't give up.
[Cory] We got a call.
There were remains found
out by the Great Salt Lake
by Interstate 80.
It was a female victim.
Called Ed and Lois and said,
"Look, we don't know,
but potentially, it could be Elizabeth."
[somber, unsettling music playing]
[Ed] The girl's body
had been burnt beyond description
so that there
You know, she could not be recognized.
I tried to shield myself
from the raw emotion
until it was confirmed.
[music swells]
[music fades]
[Cory] We were able to determine
that it was not Elizabeth.
It was another poor victim.
[somber music playing]
[Ed] I felt such a relief,
but your mind was just constantly going,
"Where is she? What's happening to her?"
[Cory] I dealt with Ed and Lois every day.
They were strong.
In my family, we've experienced
some loss and tragedy,
and I had a basic understanding
of what Ed and Lois were going through.
It hurt to watch them suffer.
Elizabeth, if you can hear us,
we love you, Elizabeth.
We haven't forgotten,
and everybody wants you back,
and we won't stop until you're home.
[Ed] The not knowing
is the worst part of anything.
What is she going through?
How is she surviving?
You know, what could you possibly do
to bring this to a close?
[newswoman 1] The key person in this case
is the nine-year-old sister.
Time is of the essence here.
The clock is ticking.
[newswoman 2] Right, exactly.
[birds chirping]
[ethereal music playing]
[Mary Katherine] The police officers
didn't want me talking to anyone
because it would possibly
influence my memory.
So I was on my own lonely island,
if you will.
Wanting to know,
trying to sneak and hear tidbits
of things that happened, but
people shutting me out.
[birds chirping]
I tried to remember who it was
who had taken Elizabeth.
I knew I'd heard the voice,
I just couldn't remember
where I'd heard it from.
I wanted to help in any way that I could.
I was interviewed multiple times.
They even tried to hypnotize me
at one point.
But there was pressure from everyone.
Pressure not to have me talk to anyone.
Pressure of "Let's get everything out."
It was a lot for a nine-year-old.
-[music fades]
-[birds chirping]
[Cory] Mary Katherine was
in a heck of a place.
I mean, she was terrified,
but she was certain
that the voice was familiar.
[pensive music playing]
So we had the family create a list
of everybody that had recently been
to the Smart home.
Have there been a lot of people
going through your house?
We have had some contractors in there.
And we came up with a number of people
who warranted further looks.
[anxious music playing]
One of them was Richard Ricci.
[Cordon] Richard Ricci was a contractor.
He had done work on the Smart home.
And we found out that he and Ed Smart
had some sort of a conflict
over wages owed.
So a search warrant was obtained
for Richard Ricci's house,
and some jewelry items belonging
to Lois Smart were found at his house.
And so he was dragged in and interrogated.
[menacing music playing]
[man] When was the last time
you were in that fucking house?
In April.
[speaks indistinctly]
[man] Tell me what you know
about the kidnapping.
-I don't.
-[man] Oh, shit.
You couldn't live in this valley
for the last two and a half weeks
and not know something
about the kidnapping.
I'm not playing games. I'm not saying,
"Tell me why you did the kidnapping."
Tell me what you know about it,
what you've heard on the news.
I heard somebody
broke into the Smarts' house.
-[man] Okay.
-Took Elizabeth.
-[man] Okay.
-And now I'm the number one suspect.
We'd gone for weeks with no answers.
Could this person know where Elizabeth is?
A man with a long history
of criminal behavior
leaps to the top of the list
of suspicious people in the Smart case.
[Cordon] Richard Ricci
was a violent felon.
He had actually shot one of my friends
on the police force in a pharmacy robbery.
[tense droning]
I didn't have the slightest clue
that Richard was a felon.
He had come recommended
from the church employment center.
So I was shocked.
[newsman] This 1990 white Jeep Cherokee
given to Richard Ricci by Ed Smart
for handyman work
continues to be the potential
key piece of evidence.
We were able to determine that quite a bit
of mileage had been put on the Jeep
right at the time
of Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping.
[menacing music playing]
And it was several hundred miles.
So he had taken the long drive
the night of the kidnapping
or the day after.
But he didn't have
any rational explanation
for that amount of miles.
Did Richard take her,
in that vehicle, off somewhere
and put her someplace
where she couldn't get out?
[menacing music continues]
[Cory] We had reports that someone
had seen him removing digging tools
out of the vehicle at the time.
Had he concealed the body by burying it?
If you were in there and were doing this
and she woke up, what would you do?
I'm not gonna sit here
and fucking tell you, pal!
[Tom] The police said,
"We're 99.9% sure we've got our man."
It all kind of came together.
This this makes sense.
[menacing music intensifies]
But here's the thing.
The only eyewitness said it wasn't him.
[tense music playing]
[Mary Katherine] I had been kept away
from watching the news,
but one day I saw a report on the TV
about possible suspects,
and a picture of Richard Ricci came up.
[newswoman] The man
police call a potential suspect
[Mary Katherine] He had done
a lot of work around the house.
He had always been very nice.
And, um,
I just knew it wasn't Richard Ricci
that night in my bedroom.
[unsettling music playing]
Richard Ricci was not the man,
June 2002, that took my sister.
[pensive music playing]
Mary Katherine was conclusive
that it was not Richard Ricci.
But law enforcement was convinced
Ricci was the prime suspect.
Mary Katherine had been asleep.
She would have been groggy.
Uh, the reports we have said she kept
her eyes shut during the abduction.
Maybe she didn't really realize
it had been Ricci.
[Ed] I would ask Richard
from the bottom of my heart
to please either clear himself
or tell us where Elizabeth is.
I
Our family has been through hell,
and I would like an end to this.
[music fades]
[Dave] Initially, when they told us
about Richard Ricci,
it seemed, okay,
there's progress being made here.
That was blown apart July 24th.
[wind blowing]
[tense music playing]
[distant dog barking]
Someone tried to break into the home
of Liz Smart's aunt and uncle.
In fact, a screen was cut
in the bedroom window
of Elizabeth's female cousin,
an 18-year-old.
[newsman] Detectives have been
working overtime ever since
to figure out who did it and why.
[tense music continues]
When I went out to the scene,
one of the things that I observed
was that there were two chairs
by the window,
just like they'd placed a chair
up against the wall at Elizabeth's house.
[camera clicks]
[Ed] The coincidence was outrageous.
How many people try to break into a house
and take a person?
What is the connection here?
Why our families?
It could have been the same perpetrator
doing the same MO,
or it could have been somebody
that was aware of the scene
and this chair at Elizabeth's,
and doing it as a prank
or a cruel copycat trick.
Well, we didn't look at it that way,
because the chair being propped up
against Elizabeth's house
had never been released to the public,
so it couldn't be a trick
that someone was trying to play on them.
[Ed] The fact that Richard Ricci
was in jail when this happened,
and then there's Mary Katherine
saying it wasn't Richard Ricci
It did definitely make me feel,
"I don't know that we've got
that we've got the right person."
[pensive music playing]
[Cory] Richard Ricci was
a really baffling individual.
He had lots of opportunities to
to clear himself, but he wouldn't do it.
He would not tell us
how he spent those miles.
We didn't have any direct evidence
that it was him,
and we were desperate
to try and find Elizabeth.
So we brought him and his lawyer in
and told him,
if you will tell us where you were
and what you did with the Jeep,
if it's anything
except homicide or kidnapping,
we'll offer you immunity from prosecution.
[Richard] Want me
to make up some bullshit?
[man] No, I don't want you
to make up bullshit.
Well then, fucking believe me, god dammit.
Well, there's too many things
that don't line up.
F Find out who the fuck did this shit.
[Cory] So we did the interview
to offer the immunity,
and he and his attorney
were taking that under advisement
when I get a call and they said,
"Richard just got transported up to UMED.
"He collapsed in his cell,
and it is not looking good."
In Utah, police say the leading suspect
in the disappearance
of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart has died.
[newsman 1] Suffering either a stroke
or an aneurysm in his prison cell.
[newsman 2] What secrets
does he take with him?
[anxious music playing]
[distant siren wails]
[Cory] I was sick to my stomach.
Our most likely suspect died.
Everything he knew was gone with him.
And that left us at a dead end
that was very difficult.
As law enforcement,
you do set an emotional wall,
and, uh,
that wall started to erode for me,
and I started feeling a lot of
emotional investment in Elizabeth's case.
[Ed] The call came from Cory
that Richard had had an aneurysm.
There was a period of shock.
If he did something with her,
we may never know what happened.
I always would say to Ed and Lois,
"Don't give up."
But honestly, internally
my judgment was that it was very unlikely
we were gonna get
a happy resolution in this case.
[stop button echoes]
[Ed] It seemed like
it was a losing battle,
but I had this overwhelming feeling
that Elizabeth was still out there.
-[ethereal music playing]
-[birds chirping]
I remember coming home
one Sunday from church.
Lois and I would sit down
and read letters that would come,
and then we fell asleep.
[ethereal music continues]
I had this dream that Elizabeth
came walking back into our life.
"Oh my God."
"This is this is this is over."
"She's here, and she's okay."
And the feeling inside was so euphoric
that I was just overwhelmed.
If I could have ever
asked for anything in my life,
it would be to have Elizabeth come home.
So when I thought of her being out there
and going through whatever hell
she was going through,
inside I just thought
we could not give up.
[tense music playing]
[man] The face of Salt Lake
seems to be very Mormon,
but there's a counterculture
to the Mormon culture.
Back in the day, we had lots
of underground dance parties.
And in around 2002,
every other weekend there would be
a house party at somebody's place.
There was alcohol, of course.
A lot of weed, mushroom tea.
Acid was pretty good back in the day.
[people laughing and chatting]
It was a fairly typical night,
and, um,
these three people come in.
[tense music builds]
A man and two ladies,
dressed fully in white gowns,
and the two ladies had face scarves,
so only their eyes were showing.
The younger lady had bluish-gray eyes.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Mary Katherine] After my sister
was kidnapped,
I was very frightened to go to sleep.
My dad would have to come in
and tuck me in,
and while I was waiting for him,
I would be looking at books
or rack my brain about who
who could have taken Elizabeth.
[tense music playing]
One particular night, four months
after Elizabeth had been taken,
I was flipping through
the Guinness World Records.
And for some random reason
[tense, contemplative music playing]
in that moment
the name popped into my head
and I knew immediately
that's who was in my bedroom, June 2002.
That's the man who kidnapped Elizabeth.
[anxious music playing]
[Jared] It was not unusual
to see people dressed in long robes.
It was a time of self-expression.
"Come on in. What are you doing?"
"What's your story?
Would you like a drink?"
And the guy said, "I can have a drink,
but the ladies can't."
[camera clicks]
He had an energy of authority,
delusions of grandeur.
[camera clicks]
I turned to the lady to my right,
who was younger,
"What are you doing? This guy's"
"This gentleman who you came with
seems a little a little controlling."
And the older lady said
something to the effect of,
"You you really can't talk to her."
She was pretty curt,
and that's about where I drifted off.
I'm like, "Oh my God,
we'll let these guys just"
I I thought they were kooks.
[anxious music continues]
[music swells]
[music subsides]
[ethereal vocalizing]
[tense, hopeful music playing]
[ethereal music playing]
[music fades]
-[interviewer] Shall we begin?
-Yeah.
Going into the summer of 2002,
I was 14 years old.
I was so excited
to leave junior high in the past.
Just thinking back, it's a lot of happy
happy memories, happy feelings.
[menacing music playing]
That night, I remember a man's voice.
"I have a knife at your neck.
Don't make a sound."
"Get up and come with me."
I was terrified.
Was he going to hurt me?
Was he going to kill me?
I was hoping my parents would wake up,
but nobody came.
-[menacing music continues]
-[distant dog barking]
He led me up through my backyard.
[bird squawking]
We started up this trail,
and I remember thinking,
"Where is he taking me?"
[tense, menacing music playing]
I was so worried that I was
missing my chance for escape.
I asked him if he was gonna
rape and kill me,
'cause I thought that must be
what he's going to do.
Um
Then I wanted him to do it
as close as he could to my house
so that my parents could find me.
[owl hooting]
He just had, like, this terrible smile,
and he just looked at me and he said,
"I'm not gonna rape and kill you yet."
[menacing music continues]
And then we came to this stand of trees.
[fire crackling]
And there was a woman
who walked out of the tent.
[mysterious music playing]
[bird cawing]
A man yelled out the name Hephzibah,
and she came up to me and she hugged me.
She looked different to anyone
that I had ever met before.
She had on, um, this long sort of tunic
and a headdress.
And she took my shoes off,
and then she started
washing the dirt off my feet.
And then she started
to try to undo my pajamas.
And so I remember
grabbing hold of the buttons,
and she said, "If I can't change you,
I'm gonna have him come in here,
and he's gonna
rip the clothes off of you."
-[eerie music playing]
-[owl hooting]
She passed me a robe,
just like the one she had on.
She scooped up my pajamas
and my underwear,
and she got up
and she walked out of the tent.
[birds squawking loudly]
I remember feeling like
[sighs]
like my doom was approaching.
[mysterious music playing]
I was crying.
I was scared.
These are his exact words.
He said,
"I hereby seal you to me as my wife
before God and his angels
as my witnesses."
At that point, I screamed out, "No."
And he looked at me, and he said,
"If you ever scream out like that again,
I will kill you."
"If it'll help you to not scream out,
I can duct tape your mouth shut."
I tried to explain to him
that this wasn't okay.
He couldn't just kidnap me
and then marry me.
It wasn't legal. I was just 14 years old.
And he had the same response to
to everything,
which was, "It's now time
to consummate our marriage."
[eerie music playing]
And I remember thinking,
"If I can hold him off just long enough,
someone will rescue me."
But he pushed me onto the ground.
And, like,
I had led such an innocent life.
I thought that
if I rolled onto my stomach,
that he wouldn't be able to rape me.
[music fades]
It didn't matter what I did.
Ultimately, he raped me.
And I remember being in a lot of pain.
[inhales deeply]
I remember begging him to stop.
And then, when he was finished,
he got up, and he kind of smiled,
like it wasn't a big deal to him,
and he walked out of the tent.
And I just was left on the ground.
And I
I just I just remember, like,
hurting so much physically.
Like, I remember looking down
and I could see blood
running down my thighs.
And then I must have passed out.
[chains rattling]
The next thing that I remember,
I could feel something around my ankles.
I remember actually begging him
in that moment to to not chain me up,
that I wouldn't run away.
And he's like,
"I know you're not gonna run away,
but I'm just taking temptation
out of your reach."
[uneasy music playing]
The man who kidnapped me,
he looked like Rasputin.
[uneasy music continues]
He said his name was
Emmanuel David Isaiah.
And the woman, her name was
Hephzibah Eladah Isaiah.
And he had their
their own set of scriptures.
He told me God commanded them
to kidnap seven young girls.
And I was the first of the seven.
He said my sister would probably
end up one of his wives.
Or my cousin Olivia.
I was horrified.
[bird squawking]
I wondered if my family was awake yet.
[somber music playing]
If they knew that I was gone yet.
Were the other kids in my class
graduating right now?
I was raised
in a very religious household.
I don't know how many lessons I had on
"don't have sex before marriage."
But no one had discussed with me
the difference between, like,
consensual sex, intimacy, versus rape.
[birds chirping]
I felt a lot of shame,
and I felt like I was filthy.
I thought, if my family knew
what had happened to me,
would they still want me back?
Maybe it would be better
if nobody ever found me.
[somber music continues]
[music fades]
[newswoman] Authorities have launched
a nationwide manhunt today.
[newsman] Thousands of volunteers have
been helping search for the young girl.
Debbie Norris has organized
[Elizabeth] As time passed,
Emmanuel would bring back
newspaper articles or missing posters.
And I specifically remember him saying,
"The whole of Salt Lake
is looking for you."
"Every window in Salt Lake
has a picture of your face in it."
"But they will never find you
because I have you."
[ominous music playing]
But one day,
I remember just all of a sudden
very faintly hearing my name.
[distant man shouts] Elizabeth!
And it was faint, um,
but I could still hear it.
[ominous music continues]
[Elizabeth] Emmanuel took me
inside the tent, pulled out his knife.
"If anyone comes into this camp,
this is the knife
I'm gonna use to kill them,
and it'll be your fault."
[distant shouting]
I only heard my name called a few times.
And then it faded away,
and I didn't hear it again.
[distant shouting]
-[leaves rustling]
-[birds twittering]
[bird caws]
[Elizabeth] It wouldn't be uncommon
to wake up to him raping me.
[melancholy music playing]
I had gone from
never even holding a boy's hand
to being raped every day,
multiple times a day.
After, he would be praying
for, like, 45 minutes.
He used God to justify what he did.
But more than anything, he loved power.
He loved feeling like he was in control.
Every day, he would humiliate me.
And the woman, Hephzibah,
she encouraged him.
[water trickling]
When he took me down to the spring
where we'd collect the water from,
he would hold on to the cable
and basically walk me like a dog.
[melancholy music continues]
I was forced to drink, like,
beer after beer until I finally threw up.
And he just left me there,
face down, in my own vomit.
He threatened me a lot,
saying that if I didn't do
what he wanted me to do,
then I would be killed.
And if he didn't kill me,
then he would kill my family.
[reflective music playing]
I always wondered
what my family were doing.
I could easily imagine my mom
driving the neighborhood
in her gold station wagon, looking for me.
[Lois] Good morning, Edward.
[Elizabeth] Thinking back to my dad,
he always just kind of had a little
I don't know,
like a little sparkle in his eye.
Like, it just kind of made me feel like
I was a little bit extra special.
[voices laughing]
I tried to remember everything I could.
[voices chattering]
Trying to immortalize their memory
in my mind.
[music swells]
[music subsides]
I realized that I had something
that was worth surviving for.
[reflective music continues]
[music swells]
[music fades]
[Ed] Lois and I
had gone out for the evening.
And when we got home,
Mary Katherine said,
"I think I know who it is."
[pensive music playing]
And she said, "It was Emmanuel."
And I went, "Emmanuel?"
[Tom] Ed calls me.
He says, "You won't believe this.
Mary Katherine knows who it is."
[Ed on phone] Emmanuel.
And I said, "Well, okay. Who's Emmanuel?"
You said you met him on the street.
Do you know what street that was?
The downtown. In that area
where a lot of homeless people go.
[Ed] The previous year,
Lois had taken the children downtown.
And they saw this this homeless person
who was going around
preaching the good word.
So when was the next time
that you saw this man?
Probably when he came up to our house.
[Ed] Lois had told him,
"If you need some work,
here's my husband's card."
And so this person helped me on the house.
I just thought this was an aha moment.
It was pretty joyous, frankly.
[spluttering] We've got something.
Was Emmanuel the man
who was in your bedroom?
I'm not quite sure. It might have been.
You're not quite sure,
but it might have been?
[Cordon] Mary Katherine
was reinterviewed.
But quite frankly, her her memory
of Emmanuel being the kidnapper
came under, uh, some disbelief
on the part of the investigators.
[mysterious music playing]
It was based on voice identification,
which is evidence,
but it's not really
considered to be great evidence.
Plus, Emmanuel's contact with the family
had been limited to some number of hours
months and months before.
So there's some speculation
that her memory might not be accurate.
We're not certain who Mary Katherine saw,
and we're not certain
that she knows who she saw.
He's coming up with this new idea
or this this breaking news on this case,
and it really is not.
I mean, for heaven's sake,
what more do you need?
You have this child
that is sitting in this room
watching her sister being taken,
that comes forward and says,
"This is who I think it is."
-[distant sirens wailing]
-[contemplative music playing]
I I mean, I was not convinced.
[siren wails]
Emmanuel had not appeared
on any of the lists
of people we were investigating.
He was there for about three hours one day
and then didn't even come back
to get paid.
But we began to follow it up.
Anything that would lead us to Elizabeth.
[Mary Katherine] The police
brought in a sketch artist,
and we'd talk about
what the man looked like,
and she was sketching
while we were talking.
I was really hopeful that
in going out with that picture,
we would find Emmanuel.
The importance of getting the information
out to the public was huge.
[Dave] Yes, we're making progress.
Let's find this individual.
Law enforcement, "No."
[music swells, then fades]
"You can't put this out there."
Our perception was,
if we went public with it,
we could scare the perpetrator away.
[eerie droning]
But now we knew a name,
and we had a sketch of him.
He was medium height,
thin build, dark hair, clean-shaven.
[eerie music playing]
[Elizabeth] Emmanuel and Hephzibah
got into a massive fight.
She was angry that he would go down
into Salt Lake and he'd get all this food,
and we were stuck up
hiding in the mountains, starving.
So ultimately, it was decided
we would go down to Salt Lake.
[bird cawing]
This was a chance to be recognized.
Maybe I'd get away.
[anxious music playing]
We started down, and I saw people.
Was this gonna be a chance to be rescued?
But if I was up in the mountains
and I saw three people
that looked really strange
[eerie music playing]
I don't think I'd stop
and say hi to them either.
The thought of crying out
did cross my mind.
But I was 14.
I had been extremely abused for months.
When I disobeyed, I was raped.
I did have food withheld from me.
So when I made my bid for freedom,
I wanted it to be a sure thing.
[tense music playing]
We eventually made it down
from the mountains.
I knew exactly where we were at.
I was familiar with all the places
that were around.
I knew exactly how long
it would take me to get home.
I knew I could walk it. I could run it.
[traffic blares]
[disorienting music playing]
But I had been so far away for so long.
It was like seeing everything
through a different body.
Like being in a parallel universe.
I was walking through a place
that should be very, very safe
[traffic blares]
[disorienting music continues]
but now was fraught with peril.
[tense music playing]
We went to the Salt Lake Library
to go and look at maps.
And all of a sudden,
this man started approaching us.
"I'm a homicide detective,
and I need to ask you a few questions."
"I just need to make sure that this girl
is not this girl that we're looking for."
"Can I see her face?"
[tense music continues]
Emmanuel was like, "I'm sorry, but no."
"Like, that would be against our faith.
That would be against our religion."
"The only people
that will ever see her face
are her future husband
and myself, her father."
I wanted to yell out.
But Hephzibah grasped my leg.
[music intensifies]
And finally, the detective
was convinced.
[music subsides]
I didn't feel safe enough crying out.
And that lifeline disappeared.
[tense music resumes]
After the confrontation
with the homicide detective,
Emmanuel rushed to get me
back up into the mountains.
He was very anxious.
[tense music intensifies]
And he made up his mind.
We needed to leave Salt Lake City.
As we moved away from Salt Lake,
I thought of my little sister.
What was she doing? Where was she at?
Was she still sleeping in our bed?
I realized I might not ever
see my family again.
I might not ever come back here again.
I might not ever
You know, I might not make it.
I just wanted to tell them,
"I'm still alive.
Don't stop looking for me."
-[wind whistling]
-[reflective music plays]
Both Mom and Dad
have been so wonderful to us.
So understanding and so considerate.
[Mary Katherine] Christmas 2002,
everyone's trying to put on a brave face.
My mom tried her best to make things
as normal as possible for us.
But I thought for sure, like,
we were never gonna see her again.
[pensive music playing]
[newswoman] It has been almost six months
since 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart
vanished from her home
in Salt Lake City, Utah.
I remember one day I was in the temple,
and I overheard somebody say,
"Can you believe Ed Smart?"
"You know,
he still thinks that she's alive."
[reporter] The sense is this investigation
is stalling or has stalled?
[Ed] No. No. It has not stalled.
It is not stalling.
[Cory] At the end of 2002,
I was offered a position
as a chief of police up in Ketchum, Idaho.
I talked to Ed and Lois,
told them I hated to leave the case
in the middle of it.
Up in Idaho, I would go home from work
and I would open up my computer
and I would pore over these leads,
and and just hoping that I could find
something that we'd missed.
[somber music playing]
I was obsessed.
I was haunted by it.
Afraid I might go to my grave
with this mystery haunting me.
Thank goodness the family
were going to do whatever they could do
to get Elizabeth back.
[pensive music playing]
[newswoman] With Richard Ricci's death,
the investigation
into Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping
appears to be at a standstill.
The police had spent thousands
of man-hours trying to find Elizabeth,
probably more than any single thing
in the history of Utah.
And I think that they were done,
and they believed they had their man,
Richard Ricci.
All of us were wanting
to jump out of our seats and scream,
"Well, what about Emmanuel?"
Here we have the person
that was in the room,
that said, "It's not Richard Ricci."
"It's Emmanuel."
We want to find this person.
[Tom] This is eight months, we've never
crossed the police on anything,
even though many reasons
why we could have been mad.
But we weren't gonna
just leave it to the authorities.
This is the biggest lead we have.
Now we've got breaking news
on the Elizabeth Smart abduction case.
I know in my heart, I absolutely know
that there is somebody out there
that knows something about this.
[Ed] And so we released the sketch.
Of course that fired up interest.
[phones ringing]
It just takes one person
knowing some information
that will bring everything to an end.
[distant siren wailing]
[Tom] A few days
after the press conference,
I got a call from a man who said
he thought he might know who Emmanuel was.
He had, uh, read it in the Deseret News,
he had seen the sketch.
He said that chills went down his spine.
[chilling sting]
And he thought there was a chance
that it could be his brother-in-law.
[man 1 on recording] Personally,
I would be very, very surprised
if he did have anything to do with it.
But he's just crazy enough, um,
that there's a possibility.
I do know that he does have a
uh, a teepee
that he's had up in the mountains.
But he has never ever
let any of the family know where.
[man 2 on recording] Right.
[man 1 on recording] If he does
have something to do with it,
there's a really good chance
that she's still alive.
[recording clicks off]
Wow. [chuckles]
Crazy.
We thought, this is the main suspect,
and we've got to find this son of a bitch.
[tense music playing]
[keyboard clacking]
Everything he said just fit like a glove.
Tom had them send a picture over.
[pensive music playing]
That is Emmanuel.
Brian David Mitchell.
[Cordon] My phone rings.
First thing I did is check
Brian David Mitchell on the computer
and found out that, strangely enough,
he'd been arrested for stealing beer
from the Albertsons store.
And so, thankfully, they had taken
a Polaroid photograph of him
during his shoplift arrest.
[pensive music continues]
He was dressed as some sort of
itinerant fundamentalist preacher.
He had on a long robe,
and he had a long beard.
And the striking thing
about the photograph is that
his arrest was during the time period
Elizabeth had been kidnapped.
[Dave] So the police had him,
and they let him go.
It was extremely frustrating.
[Tom] When I see this photo of him,
I realize, I know this guy.
I've encountered him many times, begging.
And he had a woman with him
who most of the time was holding a doll,
and it it was bizarre.
[tense music playing]
So I put together a flyer
that we could distribute around town.
Had three or four pictures of him,
"Wanted for questioning."
All of a sudden,
the family was totally supercharged.
It was full throttle
trying to find this guy.
[Cordon] Leads started coming in,
and we were able
to trace Brian's movements
for the last, uh,
couple of years of his life.
[disturbing music playing]
He was married to a woman
named Wanda Barzee.
They had traveled extensively together
on foot around the United States,
preaching the gospel
as they interpreted it.
He believed himself to be
a prophet of God.
In the last few years, he seemed to be
spinning into a violent state of mind.
[disturbing music continues]
[Dave] Brian Mitchell's ex-wife called.
And for two hours, we sat there
and talked about Brian.
We found out he's a dangerous individual.
She had this fear of mice,
and so he killed a bunch of mice
and put them in the stove
so when she opened the stove,
there were all these dead mice.
And there were historical allegations
of him sexually abusing children.
[disturbing music continues]
It was heartbreaking to think
what Elizabeth could be going through.
We had one purpose and one purpose only,
to find Elizabeth
and bring Elizabeth back.
[pensive music playing]
[Tom] We were going after him.
No mercy at this point.
We're gonna find this guy.
We started passing these flyers around,
and one of my daughters said her friends
had seen these rogue people with veils
at a place called Souper Salad.
And so we went there,
and we talked to one of the waitresses.
"We think that this might be
the person that took Elizabeth."
And she said,
"Oh yeah, the the Jesus people."
"They would come in,
and there were three of them."
[mysterious music playing]
"And one of them was a girl."
They kept her veiled,
but, I mean, obviously to eat,
the veil had to come down some.
And she said, "Tom,
I think that was Elizabeth."
And, um,
it felt like I was struck.
I fell to my knees.
I said, "My God, she's alive."
[hopeful, pensive music playing]
[camera clicking]
The public is the greatest resource.
We had a number of people
that sighted him.
[Dave] We found a party
that they had been at.
[camera clicks]
[Jared] It gives me chills to think,
but you never expected a kidnapping.
I felt pretty much like an idiot.
I felt blind.
[camera clicks]
[Ed] The light was getting
closer and closer.
She's out there, and she's still alive.
But there hadn't been any verifiable
reports of him since October.
[tense music swells]
[birds squawking]
[insects and birds chirping]
[Elizabeth] They had decided
on a little place outside of San Diego
called Lakeside.
And I'd been kept at this camp
for quite a while.
-[voices whispering indistinctly]
-[sinister music playing]
Being raped was horrific.
But sometimes I also had to wonder
if maybe listening to him wasn't worse.
-[voices continue whispering]
-[sinister music continues]
He talked nonstop
about how special he was,
about how difficult these things that
that in any other circumstance
would be wrong to do,
and he didn't want to do it,
but he had to
because God commanded him to.
-[fire crackling]
-[sinister music continues]
One night he started to talk about
the places that they were going to go to,
cities like New York, Boston,
far away from the West.
And, I mean, I just remember sitting there
listening to them talk about it
and thinking,
if we go to any other big city,
like, I don't think I'll ever be found.
-[fire crackling]
-[sinister music continues]
So I broke in.
"I have this feeling."
"I think we might
be supposed to return to Salt Lake."
"And I know
God wouldn't really speak to me,
but I know if you were to ask him,
he would confirm to you
whether or not that was the right path
because you truly are his servant
and you truly are his prophet."
[sinister music continues]
And he just turned to me
and was like, "Oh, well"
"God is finally
starting to work with you."
"Now that you recognize
your own nothingness"
[sighs] "we are supposed
to return to Salt Lake."
[pensive music playing]
[announcer] If you can help us find
Brian David Mitchell for questioning,
please call us now at 1-800-CRIME-TV.
[tense music playing]
[Elizabeth] We got off the bus in Sandy,
which is south of Salt Lake.
I was in disguise,
and Emmanuel said he was
taking me back up into the mountains.
I wasn't gonna be allowed
to come, uh, back down again.
[phone ringing]
[operator] 911.
[woman] Who do I call if I think I see
that Emmanuel they're looking for?
[tense music playing]
[man] 2003, I was a patrol sergeant
for the Sandy City Police Department.
I hear a dispatcher broadcast
that someone has called in
on a possible sighting of Elizabeth Smart
with three people
walking down State Street.
Course, we got numerous calls,
you know, throughout the months,
and they all turned out to be false.
So to be honest, I was very, um,
hesitant to believe it's gonna be true.
[tense, pensive music playing]
[Elizabeth] We started
walking up the sidewalk.
[police radio chatter]
A police car pulled up
and stopped next to us.
And then there were more police cars
that showed up.
[brakes squeal]
And officers started
questioning my captors.
All three parties say
they had no identification whatsoever.
They're messengers from God.
The girl, she was definitely in disguise.
She had a horrible wig on.
Her answers are not making sense.
You can tell that she's very nervous.
So we bring the younger female
over to this location,
separating everybody
probably ten yards away from each other.
[Elizabeth] This officer,
he was so persistent in his questioning.
"There's this girl.
She's been missing now for a long time."
"The family's never given up hope.
Like, don't you wanna go home?"
And of of course I wanted to.
[tense music playing]
But my captors were just right there.
I was terrified.
I needed the safest answer
I could possibly give.
And I says,
"Just for the sake of this nation,
and for your family,
just tell me you're Elizabeth."
[music grows to crescendo]
And she looked at me and said,
"Thou sayeth."
And I've never heard those words
in my life.
But I says, "I'll take that as a yes."
[ethereal music playing]
Then we put her
in the back of Officer Jones' police car.
At that time, she started to cry.
[ethereal music continues]
I had a call,
"Come out as soon as possible."
"Don't stop, don't do anything."
"Just get yourself out here."
And I finally got up there.
I walked through this door,
and there is this row of officers
at attention.
And as I'm going past them,
they're all saying,
"God bless you, Mr. Smart.
We hope everything works out,"
and all of these comments.
So I get to the end and I turn the corner,
and there is Cordon Parks.
And Cordon said to me, "Ed,
we really think
that we have found Elizabeth."
[reflective music playing]
[exhales]
I am just going
crazy inside.
And we open this yellow door,
and there is this young woman on the sofa.
It is not the young woman
that left me nine months ago.
She was a a young girl,
and yet in front of me
was this young woman.
Her face was sunburned, it was swollen,
her hair was pulled back in these braids.
My brain is just going 100 miles an hour.
And I said, "Elizabeth, is it really you?"
And then she goes, "Yes, Dad."
[emotional music playing]
And I held my miracle in my arms.
[Elizabeth] It took me a minute to respond
because, I mean,
I thought I was in trouble.
But finally, my dad was there,
and he was gonna protect me.
And no matter what happened,
he wasn't going to abandon me.
And it was gonna be okay.
-[emotional music continues]
-[birds chirping]
I remember being pulled out of school.
My oldest brother, Charles,
he said that they might have found her.
There was just this feeling
of excitement, of of happiness.
[bright music playing]
Just awe in the moment
that she was actually here.
I remember being so excited
to see my sister and my brothers.
My mom, she just, like,
was cupping my face,
and we were all crying.
[bright music continues]
[people cheering and applauding]
[Dave] I wanted to scream out loud.
I can't tell you how grateful I was
at that time
to hear that she'd been found.
It's over.
[Elizabeth] Seeing my family again
it reminded me
that everything that had happened,
it didn't take away from my value
or my worth. Like
those monsters
could never take that away.
[bright music continues]
Utah's miracle. Elizabeth Smart
is alive and well after nine months.
Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart
was found alive today.
280 days after she was kidnapped.
[newswoman 1]
As if she came back from the dead.
[newswoman 2]
A story that defies all odds.
A lot of people all across the country
bursting into tears.
Spirits are soaring
here in Salt Lake City.
-It's real.
-[happy laughter]
It's real.
[cheering and applause]
[Tom] Everybody's helped.
Everybody's prayed.
We thank God for all the searchers,
for all the people.
In the history of the world,
I don't think a little girl has been
prayed for more than Elizabeth Smart.
And we thank you
for answering those prayers.
-[Lois] Thank you.
-[cheering, applause]
Mary Katherine is our hero.
-[applause echoes]
-[bright, emotional music continues]
[Elizabeth] I just remember
being so excited to be home.
I woke up a few times during that night,
and both my parents were,
uh, standing above me,
making sure I was still there.
[Cory] My phone rang.
One of the detectives said,
"Cory, they found her."
This sense of relief was just unreal.
I caught a ride with the CBS News crew
up to the camp.
[reflective music playing]
I stood at the edge, and I was just
sick.
And I felt
like we'd let her down
by not finding her sooner
and saving her from much of that pain.
As law enforcement, we have to recognize
that we don't have all the answers,
and we can't pretend that we do.
Thank goodness her family
went contrary to recommendations
from the police department
in terms of releasing a a sketch.
This is a case that involved
the strangest people I've ever met.
[singing to herself]
I've never lied about anything.
All I've told you--
[Cordon] Then you tell me the truth.
How did Elizabeth wind up with you?
Tell me the truth, right now.
By the power of God,
she was delivered to us.
[Cordon] Every time we got close to him
making an actual admission
of criminal conduct,
he would launch into a spiel.
-I am the servant of the Lord.
-No.
And I've only done I've only done
what I've been commanded to do.
I found him very crafty.
Get thee behind me, Satan!
Get thee behind me, Satan!
[Cordon] I'm not Satan,
and I'm right here. I'm Cordon Parks.
Get thee behind me, Satan!
[Cordon] And I want
a rational explanation--
Get thee behind me, Satan!
Brian David Mitchell
is a terrible pedophile
who justifies himself through God,
and he's capable of anything.
I don't think he was mentally ill at all.
But I think he was playing for
a mental health issue, and it worked.
The district court judge delayed the trial
and delayed the trial.
[Ed] The whole case was very frustrating.
But it it did give Elizabeth time.
Time to heal.
-Hello.
-Hi.
My family was, of course, very concerned
about trying to help me move forward
and to pick up the pieces of my life.
[gentle music playing]
But when I came back, I was scared of men.
I was scared of a lot of things,
and I still didn't hear anyone
speak about,
like, being raped or being abused.
I mean, it just
it was not a common conversation,
so I felt a lot of shame and embarrassment
around what had happened,
even though I knew it wasn't my fault.
It was easy to think, "I should've ran,
should've done that, should've done this."
You know, it's it's really a shame that
we don't have both of your harps here.
[Elizabeth] Oh, well.
[Ed] How often do we get together,
you know?
[Elizabeth] Would you like me
to play folk harp?
[Mary Katherine] I think it's your turn
to play the folk harp. I always get that.
-[Ed] Is that fish and chips?
-Yeah, that's fish and chips too.
[Mary Katherine] When Elizabeth came home,
it was a joyous time,
but it was also difficult
trying to get back to a normal state.
But what is a normal state?
Certainly we did a lot of things together.
[Elizabeth] My mom, she played a huge part
in helping me process what happened.
But now, she's ready
to leave it in the past.
[Mary Katherine] Another Christmas,
when I got a whole bunch
of really nice stuffed animals,
and then you threw them all in a bag.
Yeah, but if you rewind that a little bit,
Mom said I couldn't do anything
until our room was clean.
You left me no choice.
[Ed laughing]
[Elizabeth] I feel like the things
that really helped the most
were spending time with my family.
[pensive music playing]
But the case just drug on
for years and years.
It felt like the system
was rigged against me.
And I thought, this has gone on
for almost a decade. It needs to end.
I don't care what it takes.
I don't care
if I have to sit in the courtroom
every day for months on end.
If this is gonna bring it to a close,
then that's what I'm going to do.
[newsman] Elizabeth Smart herself
gave a brave and graphic testimony
about her horrific ordeal.
[Elizabeth] I didn't want to face him.
But at the same time, if he was released,
he would definitely
go after another young girl.
So when the verdict finally came in,
um, as guilty,
I mean, it was
It was just like,
"It is about time. Thank goodness."
"It's done,
and I can leave it in the past now."
I'm so thrilled to stand
before the people of America today
and give hope to other victims.
We can speak out, and we will be heard.
[pensive music continues]
[Elizabeth] I used to sit and wonder
what my life would be like
had I not been kidnapped.
I mean, I had always dreamed of
finding someone who loved me,
finding someone who I loved.
And,
I mean, that did come true.
Like, I I did find someone.
And we did get married,
and we do have a family together.
[determined music playing]
As time passed, I began speaking publicly
about what happened.
I just felt like
it needs to serve a purpose.
It needs to
to bring some good in the world.
But we all have a choice to make.
We have the choice to stay in bed
and keep the covers pulled over us,
or we have a choice to move forward.
I can talk about the things that hurt me
and things that have been
difficult to overcome.
I wanted survivors to know
that they had nothing to be ashamed of.
I wanted them to know
they they weren't alone,
that there were other people in this world
who have experienced it
and who can understand.
As time went on, I began to realize
I'm stronger than I thought I was.
[hopeful music playing]
It took a lot of time.
I have good days. I have bad days.
But I've developed
a better relationship with myself.
My inner voice has changed from,
"You should've done this,"
or, "You could've done that,"
to, "You'll make it through this."
"You can finish this.
You're strong. Keep going."
[hopeful music continues]
You can survive anything
that comes your way.
[music fades]
[pensive music playing]