At a Glance
- Elizabeth Smart felt isolated after her 2003 rescue from nine months of captivity and daily rape
- She recounts the ordeal in Netflix’s Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, streaming Jan. 21
- The documentary includes her father, sister, police and witnesses who saw her in disguise
- Why it matters: Smart wants survivors to know they are not alone and never to blame
Elizabeth Smart hopes her new Netflix documentary ends the isolation she felt after being rescued from a pedophile who raped her up to four times a day for nine months.
“I felt a lot of shame around what had happened,” Smart, now 38, tells News Of Los Angeles. “I didn’t see or hear anyone else talking about it at the time. I didn’t know anyone who had something similar happen to them, and I ended up feeling very alone and very isolated.”
The Abduction
On June 5, 2002, street preacher Brian David Mitchell, then 48, slipped into Smart’s bedroom at knifepoint and abducted the 14-year-old while her 9-year-old sister Mary Katherine lay terrified in the same room. Mitchell warned Mary Katherine to stay quiet or he would kill her.
With help from his wife Wanda Barzee, 56, Mitchell hid Smart in a dark hole in the ground, forced her to wear disguises and walked her like a dog with a cable around her neck. He sexually assaulted her daily during the nine-month ordeal.
Breakthrough and Rescue
A viewer spotted Mitchell-who called himself “Immanuel”-on America’s Most Wanted and dialed 911 after seeing Smart on the street in disguise. Police rescued her on March 12, 2003.
Inside the Documentary
Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart streams Jan. 21 and features:
- Smart’s father, Ed Smart, who searched nonstop for nine months
- Law-enforcement officials who worked the case
- Witnesses who saw Smart in disguise but failed to recognize her
- Mary Katherine, now an adult, recounting the night of the abduction
“It shows what was going on, on my family’s side, what my family was going through, the investigation paralleling my story,” Smart explains.
Why She Shares Every Detail
Smart insists on graphic honesty, including descriptions of repeated rape, to convey the depth of fear victims endure.
“If I’m going to do this, I want to do it right,” she says. “I want people who have never experienced that to kind of get a taste of what it’s really like, that depth of fear, and why you might be forced to do things that you would never do.”
She also addresses questions about why she never fled.
“If you’re from the outside looking in, you might be like, ‘Why didn’t she do this? Why didn’t she do that?'” she says. Threats to kill her and her family kept her compliant. “I felt like it was in my best interest and my family’s best interest for me to do what they said.”
A Message to Survivors
An “overwhelming number” of survivors have since told Smart they feel the same isolation she once felt and that people disbelieved their stories. That reaction spurred her to speak out.
“I want survivors to know it’s not their fault. They don’t need to be embarrassed and they don’t need to carry this burden. They shouldn’t carry it at all, but if they are going to carry it, they’re not alone.”
Through the Elizabeth Smart Foundation she supports victims of sexual violence and vows to keep working “as long as I can.”
“When I see survivors succeeding in life, I am just so happy and proud for them because I understand the battles that they’ve fought.”
Help Is Available
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
