Elizabeth Smart
Most people have heard the story of Elizabeth Smart. She is an american girl who got abducted from her home in Salt Lake City at age 14. In this article I’m gonna tell you more about the story and her life before.
Who is Elizabeth Smart?
Elizabeth Smart was born on November 3rd 1987 in Salt Lake Utah. She has 5 siblings and is the second oldest. One of her favorite things to do was play the harp. She got abducted when she was only 14 years old in June 2002. Brian David Mitchell and his wife Wanda Bareez held her hostage until she got her freedom back in 2003. While she got held hostage she got raped, drugged, and forced to do religious rituals. Smart is now an activist and has written her own book called my story.
Her abduction
On June 4 of 2002 Elizabeth’s family attended an Award ceremony for her school. She won many prizes for academic and physical fitness. The next morning around midnight or 1a.m. she got woken up by a man holding a knife to her neck. He told her to come with him or he would kill her and her family. Meanwhile Smart’s 9 year old sister Mary saw the whole thing. Mary was awake a little bit when she saw this man in her room. She didn’t know who he was or what he was doing but she heard him tell Elizabeth to go get some shoes and then they walked out. After they walked out Mary went to the door to tell her parents but then saw the man forcing Smart down the hall, so she just went back into her bed to hide. About two hours later Mary got up and went and told her parents.
Smart’s kidnappers name is Brian David Mitchell. Once Elizabeth and Brian got out of the house he took her to a forest where they hiked to a camp that Brian’s wife, Wanda Barzee, was waiting for them.
Mitchell thought he was a prophet and so he did a ceremony for smart and then declared that she was his wife. After that he raped her. Mitchell raped her daily and sometimes more than once a day. They held Elizabeth captive for 9 months and they would live/move between Utah and California. Mitchell would tie Smart to a tree and give her drugs and alcohol. Sometimes he wouldn’t feed her for days, almost starving her and tried to convince her that he was a prophet. Mitchell tried to brainwash Smart to believe his insane religious beliefs.
Her Rescue
A couple months after Elizabeth’s kidnapping her sister Mary remembered that the man who took Smart looked like a man who had worked on her house as a handyman in the past. He had once called himself Emmanuel.
Soon after Mary figured that out her family told the police and the police then discovered that Emmanuelś real name is Brian David Mitchell. One day someone saw Mitchell walking with Elizabeth, who was wearing a veil, sunglasses, and a wig,in Salt Lake and then reported him. Apparently Brian would take Smart out places a lot but no one would recognize her. The police arrested Brian and his wife and then took Smart to be with her family again.
The prosecution for Brian went on for years but on December 10 of 2010, almost 8 years after the kidnapping, Brian was sentenced to life in prison. Brazee was sentenced 15 years locked up because she helped in the crime.
Smart is now an activist and goes and speaks to people. She has come a long way since she got kidnapped and now has a family and 3 kids. She lives in Salt Lake City and is very happy! 
