"I don't think anyone thought I was gonna come back alive": Elizabeth Smart reflects on how she survived kidnapping 20 years ago
Twenty years ago, the life of Elizabeth Smart was forever changed when she was kidnapped as she slept in her Salt Lake City home. It was in the first few hours of her abduction that Smart made what she said was the most important decision of her life.
"I decided I was gonna do whatever it took. It didn't matter what it was, I'd do whatever it took to survive," Smart told "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King.
At just 14 years old, Smart was sleeping next to her 9-year-old sister when Brian David Mitchell took her away at knifepoint. Smart said in the first moments of her kidnapping, she was in complete shock, but the dark reality of what was happening to her soon set in.
"I mean, after that, my thoughts did go to, 'He's gonna rape and kill me.' And I even asked him that," she said. "I asked him. Because, as we got farther up into the mountains, I mean, he took me off any trail that we had been on. And I turned to him and I was like, 'If you are going to rape and kill me, could you do it here?' Because it was important to me that my parents know what had happened to me. That they know that this wasn't my choice; that they know that I didn't run away. And I wanted them to find my body. So when I said that, I mean, I remember him looking at me, and smiling, and saying, 'No, I'm not gonna do that to you. Yet,'" she recalled.
Smart was taken to a hidden camp where she was chained up and raped.
"I thought, 'This is the worst. Nothing could be worse than this,'" she said.
The day after Smart said she was forced to be naked all day and watch her kidnapper have sex with his wife, Wanda Barzee. If she didn't, her kidnapper told her she would have to remain naked and would not be able to eat or drink anything.
"So, once he finished having sex with her, in front of me, then he expected me to perform in the same way," Smart said.
Smart, who was raised in a conservative Christian community, says the trauma didn't only affect her physically but emotionally and spiritually, too.
"I felt destroyed," said Smart.
Destroyed but determined to survive, Smart began to strategize. She decided that she would be nice to her kidnappers and do anything that they asked in hopes that she would make it out alive.
Some psychologists and trauma experts call this way of thinking Stockholm syndrome, which refers to a trauma-coping mechanism in which hostages develop a bond with their captors during captivity.
Smart believes that there is a misunderstanding when it comes to the term and what it means.
"I think that's a huge misunderstanding. I mean, how does a person, if you really think about, 'fall in love' with someone who is mean? With someone who is cruel? You don't. Most people have heard of 'fight or flight,' 'freeze' is becoming more accepted, but many people have not heard of 'appease,' yet," said Smart. "Appease is, it's not something you maybe necessarily consciously think about. It's something that you just automatically do and it's doing what you have to do to survive."
She remained with her kidnappers for nine months before police were tipped off by eyewitnesses who spotted Smart and her captors near a Walmart in Utah's Salt Lake Valley.
When police asked her if she was Elizabeth Smart, she recalled how hesitant she was to answer because her abductors were still nearby, so she told police "If thou sayest."
"In my mind, it was admitting who I was. And even confirming it was scary. I mean, I lived in a state of fear and terror for nine months, I was scared doing anything," she said. "I admitted I was Elizabeth Smart. And I actually remember thinking that I made a mistake."
Police handcuffed Smart and put her in back of a police car, which she says confused her.
"I thought, 'Why did I say that? I guess I said the wrong thing. Why would they handcuff me? They must think I'm lying, or I've done something wrong.' And, I mean, in their defense, I honestly don't think that anyone had ever been in that situation before. I don't think there was a 'best practices' back then. I don't think anyone thought I was gonna come back alive."
Police would reunite her with her family and arrest her kidnappers. Mitchell is serving a life sentence but Barzee was released in 2018 after serving more than 15 years in prison.
Smart, now 34, has become a child safety advocate and is married with three young children. To this day, Smart said her parents have not asked her for details about her time in captivity.
"Never, never, in the, you know, the 20 years since I was kidnapped have they ever sat there and been like, 'Tell me what happened.' As an adult and a parent myself and an advocate, and a survivor, I look back and actually, I feel a deep gratitude that they did not pressure me into telling them anything," she said.
Today, Smart is focused on educating the public about sexual assault and exploitation. She started The Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which joined forces with the Malouf Foundation earlier this year. In April, they hosted a summit to fight child exploitation and sex trafficking. While her life may not be perfect, Smart said she is grateful to have her family.
"I would say life is beautiful for Elizabeth Smart. My life's not perfect... I mean, my life's a hot mess a lot of the time. You know, my family's not perfect, but I am happy. Because, even beyond all of our imperfections, all of our 'hot messes,' I am surrounded by people who I love more than anything in the world, and who I know love me," she said.
