HOW KIDNAP KID ELIZABETH FINALLY HEALED HER HEARTACHE
Smart’s inspiring story 20 years after crime that stunned America
KIDNAP victim Elizabeth Smart — who was snatched at age 14 and held captive and raped for nine months — credits her mom for pushing her to keep going through her torment of “shame” and “guilt.”
Now 34, married to Matthew Gilmour, dad of her kids, Chloe, 7, James, 5, and Olivia, 3, Smart says her horrific ordeal 20 years ago changed her forever. But she praises her mom, Lois, for helping her survive after her rescue.
“Whenever I had a bad day, she’d be like, ‘Elizabeth, what do you do when a horse bucks you off?’
“And I hated that so much. I was like, ‘Just let me feel sorry for myself for five minutes,’” says the brave survivor.
“She always wanted me to get back up. She always wanted me to keep going.”
Smart’s terrifying ordeal began June 5, 2002, when she was snatched at knifepoint from a bedroom in her family’s Salt Lake City, Utah, home.
Self-proclaimed prophet Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, held her captive for nine months. During her captivity, Mitchell raped the teen repeatedly — sometimes four times a day — and kept her bound at night with steel cables.
She was rescued when residents of Sandy, Utah, recognized her on the street on March 12, 2003.
Mitchell is currently serving a life sentence. Barzee got just 15 years in a plea deal and was released in 2018.
Smart’s now a speaker and author fighting against child sexual abuse with her Elizabeth Smart Foundation.
But she credits her mom, “because no matter how low I sunk, I still got back up and kept going because that’s what I had been raised to do, and that’s how I’m here.”