The 2002 abduction of Elizabeth Smart remains one of America's most infamous missing-persons cases. Then aged 14, Elizabeth was taken from her bedroom in Salt Lake City, Utah, at knifepoint as her younger sister watched on, pretending to be asleep. Nine months later, Elizabeth's captors were found, and she was returned to her family.
Now, almost 25 years later, Elizabeth is reclaiming her story with Netflix's new documentary Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart. 'After I was rescued, when I first got home, I did not want to talk about what happened with anyone,' she said. 'When the trial finally happened, I remember sitting up on the stand, giving these answers, and feeling like there was no context around them. I wanted to have some ownership over my story. That helped me decide to share it.'
Elizabeth Smart was 14 when a man broke into her family home and abducted her at knifepoint. The man, who called himself 'Emmanuel', was in fact Brian David Mitchell. He and his wife Wanda Barzee held Elizabeth first in a camp near Salt Lake City and later near San Diego. During her captivity, Smart claims she was chained up and subjected to daily sexual abuse by Mitchell, often facilitated by Barzee.
In March 2003, Mitchell, Barzee and Elizabeth were seen in public in Sandy, Utah. Police arrested Mitchell and Barzee and recovered Elizabeth. Mitchell was found guilty of interstate kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor in 2010 and sentenced to life in prison. He was transferred to a high-security federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, then to USP Terre Haute in Indiana in 2023. In 2025, he was reportedly moved again after several attacks from fellow prisoners and is now housed at FCI Lewisburg in Pennsylvania.
Barzee filed for divorce from Mitchell in November 2004. She accepted a plea deal in 2009 and received a 15-year prison sentence in 2010. Although scheduled for release in 2024, she was released in 2018 under terms including federal supervision for five years, being registered as a sex offender, and being banned from contacting the Smart family.
