Elizabeth Smart's Harrowing Kidnapping Ordeal Revealed in Netflix Documentary
Elizabeth Smart has courageously opened up about her traumatic kidnapping experience in a powerful new Netflix documentary, making the shocking admission that at one point during her nine-month captivity, she believed it might be "better if nobody ever found" her.
The Night That Changed Everything
The child safety activist was just 14 years old when she was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City bedroom in June 2002 by paedophile Brian David Mitchell. In the documentary Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, she recounts how Mitchell took her from the bedroom she shared with her younger sister Mary Katherine and led her into the woods where he was camping with his wife, Wanda Barzee.
"I had lived such an innocent life, I thought that if I rolled onto my stomach, he wouldn't be able to rape me," Elizabeth reveals to the cameras. "It didn't matter what I did. Ultimately, he raped me."
Nine Months of Unimaginable Horror
For the next nine months, Elizabeth endured repeated rape, physical abuse, and psychological torment at the hands of Mitchell and Barzee. She was chained up, humiliated daily, and forced to endure what Mitchell described as their "marriage."
Having grown up in a religious Mormon household where she had been warned against premarital sex but never educated about the difference between consensual sex and rape, Elizabeth carried immense shame. "I felt a lot of shame and I felt like I was filthy," she confesses. "I thought that 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."
The Psychological Manipulation
Mitchell used religious justification for his crimes, telling Elizabeth that God had commanded him to kidnap seven young girls, with her being the first. "He used God to justify what he did but more than anything, he loved power," Elizabeth explains.
The daily abuse included being walked "like a dog" on a cable to collect water and being forced to drink beer until she vomited. "Every day, he would humiliate me," she recalls. "[Barzee] encouraged him. When he took me down to the spring where we'd collect the water from, he would hold onto the cable and basically walk me like a dog."
The Rescue and Reunion
Four months after the kidnapping, Mary Katherine identified Mitchell from his voice on the night Elizabeth was taken, leading police to circulate posters of the suspect. In March 2003, Mitchell and Barzee were identified by two witnesses in Utah, and Elizabeth was finally rescued by police officers on a street in Sandy.
Her father Ed describes the emotional reunion in the documentary: "We open this yellow door and there is a young woman on the sofa. It is not the young woman that left me nine months ago. She was a young girl and yet in front of me was this young woman."
Elizabeth adds: "It took me a minute to respond because I thought I was in trouble but finally my dad was there and he was going to protect me. No matter what happened, he wasn't going to abandon me."
From Victim to Advocate
Now married with three children of her own, Elizabeth has transformed her trauma into advocacy. She works as a TV commentator and child safety activist, dedicating her career to speaking out against abstinence-only sex education and supporting victims of child sexual abuse.
Mitchell was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines for sexual activity, while Barzee received 15 years for the latter charge and was released in 2018.
Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart arrives on Netflix, bringing this powerful story of survival and resilience to a global audience.
