Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: Film and TV, Netflix, News, US News, True crime, Utah
Gerrard Kaonga
Topics: Film and TV, Netflix, News, US News, True crime, Utah
A new documentary recounts the haunting experience a 14-year-old experienced after being kidnapped, and how her cunning allowed her to escape.
A new Netflix documentary, Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, sheds light on the traumatic experience 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart endured when she was kidnapped from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Smart, who is now 28, was taken in the middle of the night on June 5, 2002, when an intruder came into her bedroom with a knife. Her nine-year-old sister at the time, Mary Katherine, was the only person to see the kidnapping happen and in the moment, she was threatened into silence while her sister was stolen away.
What followed were months of searches and questions, and it took a grueling nine months before Smart was found. Smart suffered both physical and mental abuse while held by her captors.
Advert
She was held in an isolated mountain camp by kidnapper Brian David Mitchell and his wife Wanda Barzee. Mitchell would eventually be sentenced to life in prison while Barzee served 15 years.
According to Smart, the pair would practice an odd religion, even taking to the streets to preach and attempt to convert people. While in captivity, Smart said Mitchell called himself Emmanuel David Isaiah and said he was told to act by God.
Through her own cunning, playing on her captors' ego, she was able to put herself in a situation to escape. Smart was able to convince Mitchell to take all three of them to Salt Lake city, despite him having plans to move to a larger city.
Playing on his religious delusions, she said: “I have this feeling. I think we might be supposed to return to Salt Lake. And I know God wouldn’t really speak to me, but I know if you were to ask him, he would confirm to you whether or not that was the right path."
She added: "Because you truly are his servant and you truly are his prophet.”
After he agreed, the trio ran into authorities who stopped the group. When they separated Smart from the pair, she was able to confirm she was the missing child.
Despite being held in a remote cabin, the couple had brought Smart into the city before they were caught, all the while wearing robes, with Barzee and Smart forced to wear white headdresses that covered their faces entirely.
During one of the trips, a detective even approached the group and asked to see Elizabeth’s face, something Mitchell refused, citing religious beliefs.
Speaking on this moment in the documentary, Smart said: “The thought of crying out did cross my mind, but I was 14. I had been extremely abused for months.
“I didn’t feel safe crying out and that lifeline disappeared.”