As one of the most well-known survivors of child abduction, Elizabeth Smart has spent the 23 years since her rescue telling her story.
Now, she’s opening up like never before in the new Netflix documentary Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart. Joining Elizabeth are her father, Ed, 70, and sister Mary Katherine, 33, as well as officers who worked on her case and witnesses who spotted Elizabeth but didn’t realise she was the missing child.
Having so many fresh voices “gives the story so much more perspective”, Elizabeth, now 38, told PEOPLE magazine.
In the early hours of June 5, 2002, Elizabeth, then 14, was kidnapped at knifepoint from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her abductors were later identified as Brian David Mitchell, then 48, who went by Immanuel, and his wife Wanda Barzee, then 56, who was known as Hephzibah.
For nine months, Elizabeth was held captive – first in an encampment in the woods less than 5km from her home, then in San Diego – during which she was raped up to four times a day and shackled to a tree.
Growing up Mormon, Elizabeth and her five siblings were told sex before marriage was a sin. So when Mitchell declared he’d taken Elizabeth as his wife and they were to consummate their marriage, she screamed, “No!”
This led to the first of many threats, as Mitchell warned, “If you ever scream out like that again, I will kill you.”
“I was sobbing,” she recalled. “I begged him to stop. I remember it just being so painful.”
The pain was both physical and psychological, leaving her feeling like she was “ruined beyond repair”.
It was Elizabeth’s younger sister, Mary Katherine, who eventually provided a pivotal clue in identifying the kidnappers.
Mary Katherine was just nine when her sister was taken from the room they shared, left terrified after being warned to stay quiet or be killed.
The moment she told her family, “I think I know who it is,” is detailed in the documentary.
Around seven months prior, Mitchell had been hired to do repairs to the family’s roof and rake leaves.
“Months later, it suddenly hit her,” Elizabeth reflected to Fabulous.
Police released a sketch of Mitchell to the public.
Though it may be difficult to hear, Elizabeth doesn’t shy away from recounting her story in minute detail.
“I thought, ‘If I’m going to do this, I want to do it right,’” she told People. “I want people who have never experienced that to kind of get a taste of what it’s really like, that depth of fear, and why you might be forced to do things that you would never do.”
While she opens up in the documentary about the reasoning behind some of her decisions – such as to not try to run away – the fateful day when she was rescued didn’t come about by accident.
Too cold to survive the Utah winter in a tent, Mitchell and Barzee took Elizabeth to San Diego, where they camped in the countryside for four months. But the savvy teenager knew if she stood any chance of being found, she needed to convinced them to return to Utah, which she did.
On March 12, 2003, the trio were walking along a road. Disguised in a grey wig, sunglasses, veil and with a T-shirt wrapped around her head, it was a miracle anyone recognised her. Thankfully, two couples did, immediately calling police.
“We had just got off the bus near Salt Lake when a police car pulled up beside us after receiving a tip-off from the public,” she told Fabulous.
“Immanuel told the officers I was his daughter, but one of the officers insisted he question me alone, a few yards away. He told me, ‘There’s a girl who has been missing for a very long time. Her family has never stopped searching for her and they want her to come home more than anything in this world. Are you ready to go home?’”
What happened to Brian David Mitchell?
Mitchell was convicted of kidnapping in 2010, sentenced to life in prison without parole and remains behind bars today. Barzee was sentenced to 15 years, but released in September 2018. She was arrested in May 2025 for violating her status as a registered sex offender.
As a child safety activist who founded the Elizabeth Smart Foundation in 2011, Elizabeth hopes the documentary will help other survivors.
“I want survivors to know it’s not their fault. They don’t need to be embarrassed and they don’t need to carry this burden,” she told People.
“They shouldn’t carry it at all, but if they are going to carry it, they’re not alone.”
Where can I watch the Elizabeth Smart documentary?
Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart is available to watch on Netflix.
It premiered on the streaming platform on January 21 and tells the chilling true story behind Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapping.
