One of the most famous kidnappings in the United States is being revisited in a Netflix documentary, “Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart,” released this week.
The documentary features interviews with Ms. Smart, who was 14 when she was taken from her bedroom at knife point in June 2002 and held captive for nine months.
Ms. Smart, 38, has since become an activist. She said in interviews to promote the film that she participated in the documentary because she believed stories could be more effective than statistics in drawing attention to sexual violence.
Her abduction and subsequent rescue drew widespread attention. Here is what to know about the case.
Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her bedroom.
On June 5, 2002, Ms. Smart was taken from the bedroom she shared with her younger sister in their home in Salt Lake City. Her sister, Mary Katherine Smart, pretended to be asleep during the kidnapping, and later helped identify the kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, held Elizabeth captive for nine months. Ms. Smart later testified that she was sexually assaulted daily. While she was being held captive, she was seen in public with her captors on a number of occasions, usually with a veil covering her face. She was rescued on March 12, 2003.
For a time, she was held just a few miles from her home.
Mr. Mitchell and Ms. Barzee, who frequently panhandled and preached on the street in Salt Lake City, kept Ms. Smart at an encampment for most of her captivity. Ms. Smart said in court that Mr. Mitchell forced her to drink alcohol, do drugs and eat garbage.
All three went out in public on several occasions, dressed in strange outfits like long, white robes, often with Ms. Barzee’s and Ms. Smart’s faces veiled. At times, they camped a few miles from Ms. Smart’s family’s home. Mr. Mitchell was stopped several times by the police during the period when he was holding Ms. Smart captive.
The group spent part of the winter in Southern California, and Mr. Mitchell was held in San Diego County for several days after being accused of breaking into a church.
Ms. Smart convinced Mr. Mitchell to return to Utah, and she was rescued shortly after.
Her sister’s ‘random’ memory helped lead to the rescue.
In October 2002, Ms. Smart’s sister was looking at the Guinness Book of World Records and, “for some random reason,” a name popped into her head, she says in the documentary. At that moment, she says, she knew who had taken her sister.
She realized the voice she remembered hearing during the kidnapping belonged to a man who called himself Emmanuel, a handyman who worked at the Smarts’ home. This was Mr. Mitchell.
The police were skeptical that Mr. Mitchell was responsible, noting that the family had hired homeless people on many occasions, and focused much of their investigation on someone else: Richard Ricci, another handyman who had worked at the Smarts’ home. Mr. Ricci was arrested in June 2002 on unrelated charges. He died in August 2002 after he had a brain hemorrhage in his jail cell.
In February 2003, a police sketch of Mr. Mitchell was featured on the TV program “America’s Most Wanted.”
Several of Mr. Mitchell’s family members, including three stepchildren, recognized him, and contacted the authorities. On March 12, 2003, people who had seen “America’s Most Wanted,” saw Ms. Smart and her captors about 15 miles south of Salt Lake City in Sandy, Utah, and contacted the police.
The police arrived, and Ms. Smart initially hesitated to identify herself, but a police officer eventually separated Ms. Smart from her captors and she confirmed she was the missing girl.
Elizabeth Smart still lives in Utah.
She still lives in Utah with her husband and three children. She met her husband, Matthew Gilmour, who is originally from Scotland, in 2012 while she was in France as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
She advocates on behalf of sexual assault survivors and missing people, and frequently speaks in public about her experience. In 2011, she created the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, an organization that works to prevent sexual assault and provides support to survivors. She has testified before Congress and the Utah House of Representatives. She published her third book, “Detours,” in December.
Brian David Mitchell is serving a life sentence.
In December 2010, a federal jury found Mr. Mitchell guilty of kidnapping Ms. Smart. He was sentenced to life in federal prison. He has been attacked multiple times in prison, Indiana Public Media reported last year.
Ms. Barzee was sentenced to 15 years in prison for kidnapping-related charges in federal and state court. She was released in September 2018.
Ms. Barzee was arrested in May after the authorities said she visited two parks in Salt Lake City, which she was not allowed to do as a registered sex offender. Ms. Barzee, then 79, told the police that God had told her to go to the parks. She was released, according to KSL-TV.
Amanda Holpuch covers breaking news and other topics.
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