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Transcript

The Kidnapping Of Elizabeth Smart · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: The world is a dangerous place. Despite civilization becoming more advanced,
0:05
Speaker 1: more connected, and more evolved, evil people still walk among us,
0:09
Speaker 1: and sometimes those evil people target children. Over eight hundred
0:14
Speaker 1: and forty thousand children are reported missing every single year
0:19
Speaker 1: in the United States, and that number continues to rise,
0:23
Speaker 1: and the people responsible seem to vanish along with their victims.
0:26
Speaker 1: But the children disappearing without a trace, and they're taken
0:30
Speaker 1: off streets, snatched from public spaces, and in the most
0:34
Speaker 1: terrifying cases, stolen from the safety of their own homes.
0:39
Speaker 1: This is the story of Elizabeth Smart. Crime, conspiracy, cults,
0:43
Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder all things that I love to
0:46
Speaker 1: consume and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful,
0:49
Speaker 1: intellectually minded freak. And just to make a note, I
0:52
Speaker 1: don't have my second camera right now. I'm trying something new, Okay.
0:56
Speaker 1: Gotten more complaints than compliments on having a second care
1:00
Speaker 1: Some people think it's distracting. Let me know how you
1:01
Speaker 1: feel down below. We're just gonna have one one camera today, okay.
1:06
Speaker 1: But to talk about the case. We are talking about
1:09
Speaker 1: the case of Elizabeth Smart. This case does involve a child,
1:12
Speaker 1: So if you need to skip this one that is
1:13
Speaker 1: totally fine, but this is a very famous case and
1:17
Speaker 1: for very good reason. So if you are sticking around,
1:21
Speaker 1: let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go macknd in the highway, slam
1:23
Speaker 1: on the brakes, and bust to the spidshield into the
1:25
Speaker 1: infamous case of Elizabeth Smart Together. I want to take
1:42
Speaker 1: a pause to talk about when I first started this podcast,
1:45
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Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Shopify for sponsoring this video
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Speaker 1: as supporting the channel, and let's get back to it.
3:01
Speaker 1: The Smart family, by all appearances, was living the American dream.
3:05
Speaker 1: Ed Smart and his wife Lois had built a life
3:08
Speaker 1: together in Salt Lake City, Utah, nestled in the foothills
3:11
Speaker 1: of the Wahsach Mountains, and they lived in Federal Heights,
3:15
Speaker 1: a quiet, affluent neighborhood with sweeping views of the valley below,
3:19
Speaker 1: and their home was large and comfortable. It had to
3:22
Speaker 1: be because Ed and Lois had six children, Charles, Elizabeth, Edward, Junior, Andrew, Mary, Catherine,
3:29
Speaker 1: and William. And Ed worked as a mortgage broker and
3:33
Speaker 1: was by all accounts, a very dedicated father, and Lois
3:36
Speaker 1: stayed at home to raise those six kids full time,
3:39
Speaker 1: and the family was deeply rooted in the Church of
3:41
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints commonly known as the
3:45
Speaker 1: Mormon Church, and their children were raised with strong family
3:48
Speaker 1: values in a close knit community around them. And Elizabeth
3:51
Speaker 1: Ann Smart was born on November third, nineteen eighty seven,
3:55
Speaker 1: and she would be the second oldest of six children
3:58
Speaker 1: in this family, and she would attend Bryant Middle School,
4:02
Speaker 1: where she was, for the most part, your average middle schooler.
4:05
Speaker 1: But there was one area where Elizabeth truly stood out. Music,
4:09
Speaker 1: specifically the harp, which I think arguably that is the
4:12
Speaker 1: most beautiful instrument you could ever play. But Elizabeth would
4:16
Speaker 1: practice for hours every single day, and her dedication showed,
4:20
Speaker 1: and she was talented enough that by her early teens
4:23
Speaker 1: she was asked to perform at local weddings and funerals,
4:26
Speaker 1: and she even performed regularly at a field concert held
4:30
Speaker 1: at the Capitol Rotunda in Salt Lake City. Because for Elizabeth,
4:33
Speaker 1: the harp wasn't just a hobby, it was her greatest passion.
4:37
Speaker 1: But music wasn't her only talent. Elizabeth was also a
4:41
Speaker 1: skilled distance runner, training for cross country once she reached
4:44
Speaker 1: high school age, and she'd practice her runs throughout the neighborhood,
4:47
Speaker 1: building up her endurance, and somehow still found time to
4:51
Speaker 1: stay active in church and help look after her younger siblings.
4:54
Speaker 1: So she was, by all accounts, an optimistic kid with
4:57
Speaker 1: a very bright future ahead of her, and her family
5:00
Speaker 1: was very proud of everything she had accomplished so far.
5:03
Speaker 1: So on June fourth, two thousand and two, the Smart
5:06
Speaker 1: family attended a Bryant Middle School awards function and Elizabeth
5:10
Speaker 1: was being recognized for her academic and fitness accomplishments, and
5:13
Speaker 1: she was supposed to perform on the harp at that event,
5:16
Speaker 1: but the family arrived late, so she never got the
5:18
Speaker 1: chance to play, and after the ceremony wrapped up, the
5:21
Speaker 1: family decided to call it a night and head home
5:24
Speaker 1: so everyone would go to bed like it was any
5:26
Speaker 1: other evening, but unfortunately it wasn't. It was the very
5:30
Speaker 1: early morning of June fifth, two thousand and two, and
5:33
Speaker 1: the Smart household was silent and everyone was asleep. But
5:37
Speaker 1: in the bedroom fourteen year old Elizabeth shared with her
5:39
Speaker 1: nine year old sister Mary Catherine, something was wrong, and
5:44
Speaker 1: Mary Catherine woke up to the sound of footsteps and
5:47
Speaker 1: not the familiar shuffle of a sibling going to the bathroom.
5:50
Speaker 1: These were slow, deliberate steps, and through squinted eyes, pretending
5:55
Speaker 1: to still be sleeping, she watched as a man crept
5:58
Speaker 1: across the room to ward her sister's bed, and the
6:01
Speaker 1: man woke Elizabeth by pressing a knife to her throat,
6:05
Speaker 1: and his voice was calm but firm, saying, quote, I
6:09
Speaker 1: have a knife at your neck. Don't make a sound,
6:12
Speaker 1: get up and come with me unquote, And Elizabeth, understanding
6:16
Speaker 1: the severity of the situation, immediately quietly got up from
6:20
Speaker 1: her bed and began walking out of the room with
6:22
Speaker 1: the man, And as they moved towards the door, Elizabeth
6:25
Speaker 1: stubbed her toe on a chair and let out a
6:27
Speaker 1: small owl, and the man responded quickly saying, quote unquote,
6:31
Speaker 1: you better be quiet and I won't hurt you. And
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Speaker 1: Mary Catherine watched all of this happen through barely open eyes,
6:38
Speaker 1: just absolutely petrified, just frozen in place. She was nine
6:43
Speaker 1: years old. Well, she didn't know any better what to do,
6:46
Speaker 1: and as Elizabeth was led out of the room, she
6:49
Speaker 1: tried to make small talk with the man, asking him
6:52
Speaker 1: why are you doing this? And Mary Catherine couldn't hear
6:55
Speaker 1: his full response, but she thought she heard him saying
6:57
Speaker 1: something about a ransom. So Mary and lay still, assuming
7:01
Speaker 1: they had left the house and she would work up
7:03
Speaker 1: the courage to get out of bed and head towards
7:05
Speaker 1: her parents' room, But before she could make it out
7:08
Speaker 1: the door, she froze because the man was still standing
7:11
Speaker 1: there outside of her brother's room now which was near
7:14
Speaker 1: the stairs, and the knife was still pressed against Elizabeth's neck,
7:17
Speaker 1: so Mary Catherine ducked back into the doorway, praying she
7:20
Speaker 1: hadn't been spotted. So she retreated to her bed and waited,
7:24
Speaker 1: and the fear, I'm assuming was just paralyzing. She was
7:28
Speaker 1: terrified that if the man saw her, he'd take her too,
7:31
Speaker 1: or worse, she might hurt her sister, So she lay there,
7:34
Speaker 1: wide awake for what felt like an eternity, just waiting
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Speaker 1: for them to leave. An estimate suggests she waited roughly
7:41
Speaker 1: two hours before she finally felt safe enough to move,
7:45
Speaker 1: and at her on four a m. Mary Catherine mustered
7:47
Speaker 1: the courage to run to her parents' room and she
7:50
Speaker 1: shook them awake and told them everything, the man the
7:53
Speaker 1: knife her sister taken. At first, Ed Lois thought she
7:57
Speaker 1: was just having a nightmare, but Mary Catherine insistent this
8:01
Speaker 1: wasn't a dream, and when they got up to check,
8:04
Speaker 1: the evidence was undeniable. Elizabeth was nowhere in the house
8:08
Speaker 1: and the screen from the window had been sliced open
8:11
Speaker 1: with a knife. So ed and Lois called nine to
8:14
Speaker 1: one one immediately and police were dispatched to the Federal
8:17
Speaker 1: Heights home and began investigating the scene. And the first
8:20
Speaker 1: thing they noticed outside was a chair propped up against
8:23
Speaker 1: the exterior wall beneath the window, so someone had used
8:26
Speaker 1: it to boost themselves up to the window level, and
8:29
Speaker 1: the window screen above it had been cleanly cut, consistent
8:32
Speaker 1: with forced entry. But here's where things got strange. Elizabeth's
8:37
Speaker 1: own bedroom window was found unlocked, yet there was no
8:41
Speaker 1: evidence that anyone had entered through it, and the chair
8:43
Speaker 1: the kidnapper supposedly used to climb through the kitchen window,
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Speaker 1: there were no scuff marks on the wall or beneath it,
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Speaker 1: no muddy footprints, and no physical evidence of someone actually
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Speaker 1: climbing up, so it was as if the kidnapper knew
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Speaker 1: the layout of the house well enough to move through
8:59
Speaker 1: it like a ghost. So with almost nothing to go on,
9:02
Speaker 1: the police knew one thing for certain. Time was not
9:05
Speaker 1: on their side because in missing persons cases, especially involving children,
9:09
Speaker 1: the first forty eight to seventy two hours are the
9:11
Speaker 1: most critical, and after that window closes, the chances of
9:15
Speaker 1: finding someone alive dropped dramatically. So the search for Elizabeth
9:19
Speaker 1: Smart had begun and the clock was already ticking. So
9:22
Speaker 1: news of the abduction spread through Salt Lake City like wildfire.
9:26
Speaker 1: A fourteen year old girl taken from her bed in
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Speaker 1: the middle of the night in Federal Heights, of all places,
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Speaker 1: one of the wealthiest, safest neighborhoods in the city, because
9:35
Speaker 1: this was a community where people didn't even lock their doors,
9:38
Speaker 1: so the idea that someone could break into a home
9:40
Speaker 1: and steal a child was unthinkable. So police brought in
9:43
Speaker 1: a bloodhound to search for Elizabeth, starting inside the home
9:46
Speaker 1: to make sure there wasn't a body hidden somewhere in
9:49
Speaker 1: the house, and when the dog cleared the interior, they
9:52
Speaker 1: brought it outside where it would pick up a cent,
9:55
Speaker 1: and the bloodhound followed a trail through the neighborhood before
9:58
Speaker 1: stopping at a dead end street where the scent disappeared,
10:02
Speaker 1: so investigators took this to mean that Elizabeth had been
10:05
Speaker 1: loaded into a vehicle at that point and driven away.
10:09
Speaker 1: So a full day passed with almost no leads, and
10:12
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was still missing, and the family was growing desperate,
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Speaker 1: and Ed Smart, Elizabeth's father made the decision to go
10:19
Speaker 1: on television and plead directly with the kidnapper to return
10:22
Speaker 1: his daughter, and in front of the entire nation, Ed
10:26
Speaker 1: wept making multiple television appearances begging for Elizabeth's safe return.
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Speaker 1: It was raw, emotional and it struck a chord with
10:34
Speaker 1: the public, and the response was enormous, and thanks to
10:38
Speaker 1: the Laura Recovery Center, roughly two thousand volunteers a day
10:41
Speaker 1: were showing up to search for Elizabeth, and flyers with
10:44
Speaker 1: her face were posted all over the city and websites
10:47
Speaker 1: were set up to spread the word, and the entire
10:49
Speaker 1: community had rallied around the Smart family. But then public
10:53
Speaker 1: opinions started to shift. People watching the television interviews began
10:58
Speaker 1: pointing something out. Smart was crying, yes, but there were
11:03
Speaker 1: no tears. It was a small detail, but it was
11:06
Speaker 1: enough to plant a seat of doubt in the public's mind,
11:10
Speaker 1: and with doubt came a question the police had to confront.
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Speaker 1: Could this have been an inside job? Statistically it's not
11:17
Speaker 1: an unreasonable suspicion. In cases involving missing children, a family
11:22
Speaker 1: member is often the person responsible. So the police confiscated
11:25
Speaker 1: around twelve computers from the smart home and turned their
11:28
Speaker 1: attention to Wardet himself, and they brought him in for
11:31
Speaker 1: a polygraph test, but Ed would pass with flying colors. However,
11:35
Speaker 1: someone else didn't fare as well, and that was Ed's brother,
11:40
Speaker 1: Tom Smart, Elizabeth's uncle, because he returned an inconclusive result.
11:45
Speaker 1: Tom had also been acting erratically in interviews, saying things
11:49
Speaker 1: that came across as suspicious or just plain awkward on camera,
11:54
Speaker 1: but his alibi eventually did check out because he was
11:57
Speaker 1: nowhere near the house on the night of the abdul,
12:00
Speaker 1: and his strange behavior was later attributed to the sleepless,
12:03
Speaker 1: anxiety fueled knights that followed his niece's disappearance, which is understandable,
12:08
Speaker 1: but still, the damage was done and the media had
12:11
Speaker 1: latched onto the idea that someone in the family might
12:14
Speaker 1: be involved, and that narrative was hard to shake, which
12:17
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine if you're grieving your daughter being missing,
12:22
Speaker 1: and the public is looking at you as a person
12:24
Speaker 1: that did it when you didn't. It's just like talk
12:27
Speaker 1: about a weight on your shoulders. A public interest, which
12:30
Speaker 1: had been hot white in the first few days, was
12:32
Speaker 1: already now starting to cool, because, as we know, the
12:35
Speaker 1: internet has a short attention span and people were beginning
12:39
Speaker 1: to move on. Meanwhile, the one person who had actually
12:43
Speaker 1: witnessed the kidnapping was being kept in protective isolation. Mary
12:47
Speaker 1: Catherine wasn't in trouble. The police were quarantining her from
12:51
Speaker 1: the media to make sure that news coverage didn't contaminate
12:53
Speaker 1: her memory or cause her to create false details. Because
12:57
Speaker 1: she was only nine years old at this point, her
13:00
Speaker 1: recollection to be as pure and untainted as possible. So
13:04
Speaker 1: investigators began interviewing Mary Catherine about what she'd seen, and
13:08
Speaker 1: she told them it had been dark and she couldn't
13:10
Speaker 1: make out the man's face very well, and she described
13:13
Speaker 1: him as mid height, wearing light colored clothing, and somewhere
13:17
Speaker 1: between thirty and forty years old, and beyond that, all
13:20
Speaker 1: she really had was a silhouette. But then the police
13:24
Speaker 1: asked her a critical question, did she recognize the man's voice.
13:29
Speaker 1: Was it familiar to her at all? And Mary Catherine
13:32
Speaker 1: said yes, she couldn't place it exactly, She couldn't remember
13:36
Speaker 1: who it belonged to, but she was certain she had
13:39
Speaker 1: heard that voice before. It was someone she'd encountered in
13:43
Speaker 1: her life. So police held onto that detail, hoping it
13:46
Speaker 1: was only a matter of time before she remembered. But
13:49
Speaker 1: for now, with nothing else to go on besides a
13:51
Speaker 1: familiar voice and a vague silhouette, the investigation turned to
13:55
Speaker 1: other leads, and one of the first outside leads the
13:58
Speaker 1: police pursued was a man named Brett Michael Edmonds, a
14:01
Speaker 1: local milkman who reported seeing a suspicious individual lurking in
14:05
Speaker 1: the neighborhood around the time of the kidnapping, and that
14:08
Speaker 1: individual turned out to be Brett Edmunds. So a two
14:12
Speaker 1: week manhunt followed as police searched for this mystery man,
14:15
Speaker 1: who had been spotted parks near the smart home, and
14:18
Speaker 1: they eventually tracked down Edmunds at a hospital where he
14:21
Speaker 1: had been admitted for drug related liver damage, and after
14:24
Speaker 1: he was discharged, police arrested him and brought him in
14:26
Speaker 1: for questioning, and Edmunds was completely cooperative and agreed to
14:30
Speaker 1: let them search his vehicle, and in the end there
14:32
Speaker 1: was nothing connecting him at all to Elizabeth's disappearance, so
14:37
Speaker 1: investigators had to move on. Back at the Smart household,
14:41
Speaker 1: the family continued to brainstorm who could have taken their daughter,
14:45
Speaker 1: and then Ed Smart had a eureka moment and the
14:47
Speaker 1: family had recently done renovations on their house, which meant
14:51
Speaker 1: contractors had been going in and out of their home
14:53
Speaker 1: for weeks, and one contractor in particular stood out, a
14:57
Speaker 1: man named Richard REESI. Reese was forty eight years old
15:01
Speaker 1: and had a long troubled history, and Ed had gotten
15:05
Speaker 1: into a disagreement with Esy overpayment for work he had
15:07
Speaker 1: done on the house and it had caused some friction
15:10
Speaker 1: between them. And more importantly, Reesy had a serious criminal
15:14
Speaker 1: record aggravated robbery, felony, burglary, third degree theft, and he'd
15:19
Speaker 1: been cycling in and out of prison for roughly thirty years.
15:22
Speaker 1: You never know who's working in your freaking home, like
15:25
Speaker 1: what the And with no stronger leads, police obtained a
15:28
Speaker 1: warrant to search Reesy's home and inside and outside shed
15:32
Speaker 1: on his property, they found items belonging to the Smart family,
15:36
Speaker 1: including jewelry that belonged to Lois Smart, and in total,
15:40
Speaker 1: Reesy had stolen upwards of thirty five hundred dollars worth
15:44
Speaker 1: of the Smart's belongings, and that gave police more than
15:47
Speaker 1: enough justification to drag him in an interrogation room, and
15:50
Speaker 1: the questioning was aggressive and direct, and detectives didn't waste time.
15:55
Speaker 1: The last time House and Breesy claimed it was back
16:00
Speaker 1: in April, and they pressed him on what he knew
16:02
Speaker 1: about the kidnapping, likely to see if he'd slip up
16:05
Speaker 1: and mention, a detail that had not been released to
16:07
Speaker 1: the public yet, but weeks would go by with no confession,
16:11
Speaker 1: but Reese was publicly identified as the number one suspect
16:14
Speaker 1: at this point, and one detailed investigators kept coming back
16:18
Speaker 1: to was the mileage on Reesy's jeep, because he had
16:21
Speaker 1: put several hundred unexplained miles on his vehicle around the
16:24
Speaker 1: time of Elizabeth's disappearance, and when police asked him about it,
16:29
Speaker 1: he refused to answer, and that refusal only deepened their
16:32
Speaker 1: suspicion of him, and the theory was that he'd driven
16:35
Speaker 1: Elizabeth somewhere remote and left her or worst case, buried her,
16:40
Speaker 1: so the police were confident and publicly they stated they
16:44
Speaker 1: were almost one hundred percent certain Riese was the man responsible,
16:48
Speaker 1: and the public largely agreed, because why would they disagree.
16:51
Speaker 1: The detectives were ready to close the book on this one.
16:54
Speaker 1: But there was one person who disagreed, and honestly the
16:58
Speaker 1: most important person, and that was Mary Catherine Smart, because
17:03
Speaker 1: despite police asking her repeatedly, mary Catherine was adamant Richard
17:07
Speaker 1: Reesi was not the man she saw in the bedroom
17:10
Speaker 1: that night, and the police pushed back and they told
17:13
Speaker 1: her she was too tired to know for sure, or
17:16
Speaker 1: too traumatized, or simply just too young to understand. But
17:20
Speaker 1: Mary Catherine didn't waiver, and recy for his part, was
17:24
Speaker 1: fully cooperative about his other crimes because he did admit
17:27
Speaker 1: to stealing from the Smarts and others in the area,
17:30
Speaker 1: but he fully denied over and over again any involvement
17:33
Speaker 1: in Elizabeth's kidnapping. But the police weren't convinced, and Reesy
17:37
Speaker 1: was charged with the theft for the stolen goods and
17:40
Speaker 1: pressed once more about Elizabeth's disappearance in court, and again
17:44
Speaker 1: he denied it. And then while Reese sat behind bars
17:47
Speaker 1: awaiting his next court date, something happened that threw the
17:51
Speaker 1: entire investigation into chaos. So on July twenty fourth, two
17:56
Speaker 1: thousand and two, an attempted break in occurred at the
17:58
Speaker 1: home of Elizabeth's cousin and Jessica Wright, a fourteen year
18:03
Speaker 1: old girl as well heard a noise outside her bedroom window,
18:07
Speaker 1: and when she looked, she found that a small object
18:09
Speaker 1: had knocked over a picture on her desk and the
18:12
Speaker 1: window screen had been cut, the exact same method used
18:15
Speaker 1: in Elizabeth's subduction. Now, Jessica screamed for her father, who
18:20
Speaker 1: rushed into the room, but no one was there, and
18:22
Speaker 1: the evidence was clear someone had tried to break into
18:25
Speaker 1: the house, likely targeting one of the children inside. Thankfully,
18:30
Speaker 1: everyone was safe and the attempted kidnapping had failed. So
18:33
Speaker 1: police question the father, Stephen Wright, suspecting he may have
18:37
Speaker 1: staged the break in, Which is I have, Like, there's
18:41
Speaker 1: no motive I could think of, That makes no sense
18:44
Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form, but okay, And naturally
18:48
Speaker 1: he would angrily and emphatically deny it. But here was
18:52
Speaker 1: the problem. Richard Racy was locked up in jail when
18:56
Speaker 1: this happened. The number one suspect of Elizabeth Smart's abduction.
19:00
Speaker 1: So unless this was a completely different person using the
19:03
Speaker 1: exact same method, Racy could not have done it, and
19:07
Speaker 1: that detail should have given the police serious pause, but
19:10
Speaker 1: instead they remained focused on recy and on August twenty
19:14
Speaker 1: seventh that year, the day of Riesy's next scheduled court appearance,
19:18
Speaker 1: disaster would strike. Richard Reesy would collapse in his cell
19:22
Speaker 1: from a spontaneous brain hemorrhage, and after a six hour surgery,
19:26
Speaker 1: he would be pronounced dead. And this was a devastating
19:31
Speaker 1: blow to the investigation because the man the police believed
19:34
Speaker 1: was responsible was now gone and he'd taken whatever he
19:38
Speaker 1: knew with him, so the case hit a dead end literally.
19:42
Speaker 1: But the Smart family, however, was not crushed by this
19:45
Speaker 1: news because they had never believed it was recy because
19:49
Speaker 1: their daughter Mary Catherine had told them repeatedly that he
19:52
Speaker 1: was not the man. So with Reesy dead, the police
19:55
Speaker 1: stopped conducting regular briefings with the Smart family and the
19:58
Speaker 1: case was starting to go cold, but Ed and Lois
20:02
Speaker 1: refused to give up Elizabeth's parents. They continued to spread
20:06
Speaker 1: the word, creating a website dedicated to Elizabeth and uploading
20:09
Speaker 1: home videos of her for the world to sea but
20:12
Speaker 1: by October most of the country had given up hope.
20:15
Speaker 1: But the Smarts pressed on and every interview and every appearance,
20:19
Speaker 1: with every post, and they would not stop looking for
20:22
Speaker 1: their daughter because deep down they believed she was still
20:25
Speaker 1: alive and they would be correct because while the investigation
20:30
Speaker 1: was still unfolding back in Salt Lake City, Elizabeth was
20:33
Speaker 1: living through the kidnapping in real time because after the
20:37
Speaker 1: man led her out of the house and away from
20:40
Speaker 1: view of her sleeping family, he forced Elizabeth on a long,
20:44
Speaker 1: grueling height into the foothills above the city. At this point,
20:47
Speaker 1: it was pitch black outside and Elizabeth was wearing nothing
20:51
Speaker 1: but her red silk pajamas, no shoes, no jacket, no
20:54
Speaker 1: protection from the rough terrain, and the hike lasted roughly
20:58
Speaker 1: four miles before they reached their destination, which was a
21:02
Speaker 1: crude encampment hidden in the hills. And the camp was primitive.
21:07
Speaker 1: It was a dugout shelter covered with tarps and makeshift tent,
21:11
Speaker 1: barely visible from any trail, and as they approached, a
21:15
Speaker 1: woman in white garments emerged from inside one of the tents,
21:19
Speaker 1: and the man called out to her by name, saying
21:22
Speaker 1: Hepziba so the woman Hepziba, walked over and gave Elizabeth
21:27
Speaker 1: a hug, as if this was some kind of welcome,
21:30
Speaker 1: and she then ushered Elizabeth inside the tent and began
21:33
Speaker 1: washing the dirt off her feet, which was a disturbing
21:36
Speaker 1: mockery of the biblical act of Jesus washing the feet
21:39
Speaker 1: of his disciples. And then the woman began to undo
21:43
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's pajamas and Elizabeth pulled back, hesitant, and the woman
21:48
Speaker 1: would tell her that if she didn't cooperate, she'd call
21:50
Speaker 1: the man into the tent to rip the clothes off
21:53
Speaker 1: her himself. So Elizabeth was changed into the same white
21:56
Speaker 1: robes the woman was wearing, and what followed was a
21:59
Speaker 1: so called ceremony, a ritual the man performed to make
22:04
Speaker 1: Elizabeth his wife. Fourteen year old Elizabeth his wife, quote
22:09
Speaker 1: unquote before God and the angels, and he told her
22:13
Speaker 1: she would be one of his seven wives. And after
22:17
Speaker 1: this ceremony, he would, unfortunately ask her, and Elizabeth would
22:22
Speaker 1: later recount that she blacked out during this assault, and
22:25
Speaker 1: when she came to, she found herself tethered to a
22:28
Speaker 1: tree by a cable or a chain, and the man
22:31
Speaker 1: stood before her and declared his name, which was em
22:34
Speaker 1: Manuel David Isaiah, and he told her he had been
22:38
Speaker 1: chosen by God. But who was this man really? Who
22:43
Speaker 1: was this person claiming some fucked up divine authority to
22:47
Speaker 1: justify these unspeakable acts? Who was a Manual David Isaiah.
22:53
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Speaker 1: let's get back to it. So. Emmanuel David Isaiah was
24:14
Speaker 1: born Brian David Mitchell on October eighteenth, nineteen fifty three,
24:19
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake City, Utah, and he was a third
24:21
Speaker 1: of six children in a family that belonged to the
24:24
Speaker 1: LDS Church, which, given that it was Utah, isn't exactly surprising.
24:28
Speaker 1: It's roughly forty percent of the state's population identifies as Mormon,
24:32
Speaker 1: and Brian's mother, Irene Mitchell, was a teacher and his father, Shuryl,
24:37
Speaker 1: was a social worker. So on the surface it was
24:40
Speaker 1: a normal family, but behind closed doors things were far
24:43
Speaker 1: from it. And when Brian was only eight years old,
24:46
Speaker 1: his father decided to give him a sexual education lesson
24:51
Speaker 1: and Instead of going through the proper channels, Shurrel showed
24:54
Speaker 1: his eight year old son colored pictures of Genitalia from
24:59
Speaker 1: a medical hymn book, and the reason was that young
25:02
Speaker 1: Brian had been caught playing pretend doctor with other children.
25:07
Speaker 1: So little Brian was already bit of a freak, and
25:11
Speaker 1: his father's other parenting strategy was equally bizarre, because he
25:14
Speaker 1: would drop Brian off in unfamiliar parks of Salt Lake
25:18
Speaker 1: City and force him to find his way home to
25:20
Speaker 1: supposedly teach him independence. Just a dumb thing to do
25:24
Speaker 1: to a kid, So this kind of repeated, misguided treatment
25:28
Speaker 1: took its toll, and Brian became increasingly argumentative with his parents,
25:33
Speaker 1: which led to long stretches of isolation. By the age
25:36
Speaker 1: of sixteen, his behavior had escalated and he was sent
25:40
Speaker 1: to a juvenile detention facility after exposing himself to a man,
25:45
Speaker 1: and this incident made him a pariah naturally among his peers,
25:49
Speaker 1: and his parents, unable to handle him, eventually sent him
25:52
Speaker 1: to live with his grandmother. So, cut off from his
25:55
Speaker 1: family and any semblance of stability, Brian dropped out of
25:58
Speaker 1: school and fell into drugs and alcohol, and by nineteen
26:02
Speaker 1: he left Utah entirely and married a sixteen year old
26:05
Speaker 1: girl named Karen Minor. I know how that's it's yeah,
26:09
Speaker 1: it sounds bad and it is bad. And after not
26:11
Speaker 1: too long he would get her pregnant and together they
26:14
Speaker 1: would have a total of two children, a son named
26:17
Speaker 1: Travis and a daughter named Angela, and the marriage would
26:19
Speaker 1: only last two years before completely falling apart, spiraling into
26:23
Speaker 1: a custody battle over the kids, and some sources indicate
26:27
Speaker 1: that Brian was initially awarded custody due to Karen's drug use,
26:30
Speaker 1: but she later went back to court and regained it,
26:33
Speaker 1: and this prompted Brian to flee the state entirely, taking
26:37
Speaker 1: the children to New Hampshire. That's kidnapping, by the way,
26:41
Speaker 1: and he lived there for two years before eventually returning
26:44
Speaker 1: the kids. And during his time in New Hampshire, Brian
26:47
Speaker 1: went through a serious religious transformation and he joined a
26:51
Speaker 1: hare Krishna commune for a period of time before circling
26:54
Speaker 1: back to the LDS faith, and by nineteen eighty one
26:57
Speaker 1: he appeared to have cleaned up his act and he
27:00
Speaker 1: married his second wife, Debbie Mitchell, who had three daughters
27:03
Speaker 1: from a previous marriage, and Brian took on the role
27:06
Speaker 1: of stepfather to Debbie's girls while also raising his two
27:09
Speaker 1: biological children from his first marriage, and he and Debbie
27:13
Speaker 1: then had two more children together. But the strain of
27:16
Speaker 1: raising a large, blended family seemed to crack Brian's facade,
27:20
Speaker 1: and according to Debbie, the man she married transformed from
27:23
Speaker 1: gentle and kind into controlling and abusive, and he started
27:27
Speaker 1: dictating what she ware and what she eat, and he
27:30
Speaker 1: began studying Satan, claiming he was only learning his enemy.
27:34
Speaker 1: And during this time, some of Brian's children were sent
27:38
Speaker 1: to a foster home and Debbie filed for divorce in
27:41
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, and a year later she alleged that
27:43
Speaker 1: Brian had as their three year old son, which is
27:48
Speaker 1: so just monstrous. I will never understand. And while the
27:54
Speaker 1: allegation was never formally confirmed, all future visitations between Brian
27:59
Speaker 1: and his children and were ordered to be supervised by
28:01
Speaker 1: the Division of Child and Family Services. But I don't
28:05
Speaker 1: even need it to be confirmed, because what he does
28:09
Speaker 1: later to Elizabeth, and what he's already done to Elizabeth
28:11
Speaker 1: at this point, as we know, when the story just
28:14
Speaker 1: confirms it for me, He's a sick and even one
28:17
Speaker 1: of Debbie's daughters would later come forward to claim that
28:20
Speaker 1: Brian had as her for over four years and I'm
28:25
Speaker 1: gonna choose to believe the victim. And on the exact
28:28
Speaker 1: same day his divorce from Debbie was finalized, Brian married
28:32
Speaker 1: a woman again, and his third wife was Wanda Bartsy,
28:37
Speaker 1: a forty year old piece of shit woman with six
28:40
Speaker 1: children of her own, all of whom she had left
28:43
Speaker 1: with her ex husband following their divorce. And at first
28:46
Speaker 1: the marriage seemed stable, and some of Wanda's children even
28:50
Speaker 1: moved in with the couple, But over time Brian's true
28:53
Speaker 1: nature resurfaced, and one of Wanda's daughters, Lay, later described
28:57
Speaker 1: how Brian had seemed kind and ly, but gradually became
29:01
Speaker 1: possessive and controlling. A perfect match, she said, or her mother,
29:06
Speaker 1: whom she described as a monster. So not my words,
29:10
Speaker 1: just literally her daughter saying this, and you will see
29:13
Speaker 1: how she is also a monster. And as an example
29:15
Speaker 1: of her mother's cruelty, Lay recounted a time when Wanda
29:19
Speaker 1: killed her pet rabbit, cooked it and served it for dinner,
29:24
Speaker 1: and forced her to eat it as punishment. A monster
29:30
Speaker 1: some fatal attraction, shit like stuff made of nightmares. So
29:36
Speaker 1: you got this bitch paired with the psycho religious pervert,
29:40
Speaker 1: and it just gets worse and all. Meanwhile, Brian was
29:44
Speaker 1: becoming increasingly radical with the LDS Church. He threw himself
29:50
Speaker 1: into temple rituals, but his portrayal of Satan during these
29:53
Speaker 1: ceremonies became so extreme that church elders had to tell
29:56
Speaker 1: him to tone it down. And then one night, Bryan
30:00
Speaker 1: claimed he was receiving divine visions, and he told his
30:03
Speaker 1: family that God was speaking directly to him, giving him instructions,
30:07
Speaker 1: and the children were naturally terrified, and one by one
30:10
Speaker 1: they moved out, leaving Brian alone with Wanda. So fully
30:14
Speaker 1: consumed by his delusions, Brian changed his name to Emmanuel
30:19
Speaker 1: David Isaiah, and he began calling himself a Dividic servant,
30:24
Speaker 1: which is a Messianic figure he believed was prophesied in scripture,
30:28
Speaker 1: and the LDS Church would actually excommunicate him, but I'm deterred.
30:33
Speaker 1: Brian and Wanda, who adopted the name Hefziba Alata Isaiah,
30:37
Speaker 1: moved back to Salt Lake City and they lived on
30:40
Speaker 1: the streets, panhandling and preaching in the downtown area, presenting
30:44
Speaker 1: themselves as holy figures, and Brian walked around in white
30:48
Speaker 1: robes and a long beard, looking like a self styled prophet.
30:52
Speaker 1: But Brian needed a gospel, something to preach, so he
30:56
Speaker 1: would take it upon himself to write a twenty seven
30:59
Speaker 1: page manifest so called the Book of Emmanual David Isaiah,
31:03
Speaker 1: very clever Emmanuel David Isaiah. And this document is a
31:08
Speaker 1: disturbing fusion of existing Mormon theology and Brian's own twisted additions,
31:14
Speaker 1: just classic cult shit. And among the many unhited passages,
31:19
Speaker 1: one stands out, and Brian wrote that he and his
31:22
Speaker 1: wife would take quote unquote seven sisters as brides, and
31:27
Speaker 1: these young women would bring them great joy and eternal fulfillment.
31:32
Speaker 1: And with these seven wives he would father children and
31:35
Speaker 1: eventually expanding to seven times seven sisters forty nine precious jewels.
31:41
Speaker 1: And he claimed that God had commanded him to practice
31:45
Speaker 1: plural marriage and that these spiritual brides were divinely chosen,
31:50
Speaker 1: how convenient for Brian. But most disturbingly, he specified that
31:54
Speaker 1: these brides needed to be young, between ten and forty
32:00
Speaker 1: years old. Monster and the rest of the document can
32:05
Speaker 1: be summed up as the ramblings of a dangerous, delusional,
32:09
Speaker 1: perverted man. So, acting on this self written commandment, Brian
32:15
Speaker 1: told Wanda that they needed to begin acquiring these young
32:17
Speaker 1: brides immediately, and of course, he, being a piece of
32:21
Speaker 1: shit beast that she is, agreed, and Brian already had
32:25
Speaker 1: a target in mind, a young girl he'd seen before
32:29
Speaker 1: from a family he'd worked for, and that girl was
32:32
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Smart. So back at the camp, Elizabeth woke up
32:36
Speaker 1: each day tethered to a tree, trapped for days on end,
32:41
Speaker 1: and she was fed literal garbage and went hours without water,
32:45
Speaker 1: and the rope was long enough for her to reach
32:47
Speaker 1: a crude bathroom area, but not nearly long enough to
32:50
Speaker 1: escape or even get out of sight of the camp.
32:53
Speaker 1: And when Brian would take her to a nearby creek,
32:55
Speaker 1: he would put her on a leash and walk her
32:57
Speaker 1: like a dog. And when Brian someone might stumble across
33:01
Speaker 1: the campsite, he would hide Elizabeth in a hole dug
33:04
Speaker 1: into the ground. And the abuse was constant and relentless,
33:09
Speaker 1: and he whipped her repeatedly, and he would also force
33:12
Speaker 1: her to drink massive amounts of alcohol until she vomited,
33:16
Speaker 1: and then made her sleep in her own vomit and
33:19
Speaker 1: she was not allowed to speak out of turn, and
33:22
Speaker 1: she was forbidden from complaining, screaming, or making any noise,
33:26
Speaker 1: and Brian forced her to listen to him read aloud
33:30
Speaker 1: from his twenty seven page manifesto over and over, just
33:34
Speaker 1: drilling into her that she was the first of his
33:36
Speaker 1: seven to finely chosen wives. And one day Brian left
33:40
Speaker 1: the camp and returned with something chilling, a missing person's
33:43
Speaker 1: fire with Elizabeth's face on it, and he showed them
33:47
Speaker 1: to her and told her that all of Salt Lake
33:49
Speaker 1: City was looking for her, but it didn't matter, they
33:52
Speaker 1: would never find her because he had her. I can't
33:56
Speaker 1: even imagine how she feels like being fourteen and just oh,
34:01
Speaker 1: this man is like abusing you and trying to indoctrinate
34:04
Speaker 1: you and just giving you no ho. It's just it's
34:07
Speaker 1: absolutely heartbreaking. And then about six days after the kidnapping,
34:12
Speaker 1: something happened that nearly changed everything. Elizabeth heard a voice
34:17
Speaker 1: in the distance, faintally shouting her name from somewhere in
34:20
Speaker 1: the forest, so someone was out there searching for her.
34:23
Speaker 1: Brian acted immediately, and he dragged Elizabeth inside the tent
34:28
Speaker 1: and pressed a knife to her throat, and he told
34:30
Speaker 1: her that if anyone came into the campsite, he was
34:33
Speaker 1: going to kill them and it would be her fault.
34:36
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was too afraid to make a sound because the
34:39
Speaker 1: threats Brian had made from the very first night that
34:42
Speaker 1: he would kill her if she tried to escape or
34:44
Speaker 1: call help had done their job naturally, so she would
34:48
Speaker 1: stay silent. And after a while that voice faded away
34:52
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth's window of opportunity closed, and in the days
34:56
Speaker 1: that followed, Elizabeth would make a mistake, one that would because,
35:00
Speaker 1: in a moment for desperation for comfort, she began talking
35:04
Speaker 1: about her old life, and she told Brian about her family,
35:07
Speaker 1: and in particular about her cousin, Olivia Wright, who she
35:11
Speaker 1: described as her best friend, and she would mention that
35:14
Speaker 1: Olivia was also around her age, and that was all
35:18
Speaker 1: Brian needed to hear, because it was then that Brian
35:21
Speaker 1: declared that God was calling him to take another wife,
35:24
Speaker 1: and that wife now would be Olivia Wright, Elizabeth's cousin.
35:29
Speaker 1: And Elizabeth was devastated, blaming herself for leading her captor
35:33
Speaker 1: to his next victim. But Brian would spend several days
35:37
Speaker 1: surveilling the Right family's home, studying their routines, and when
35:41
Speaker 1: he felt ready, he executed the same plan he'd used
35:44
Speaker 1: on the Smart House. He dragged a chair up to
35:46
Speaker 1: the window, sliced through the screen, and attempted to climb inside.
35:50
Speaker 1: As we know, this time he wasn't as careful, and
35:53
Speaker 1: one of the Right sisters was jolted awake and screamed
35:56
Speaker 1: for her father, and that's when Brian fled back to
35:59
Speaker 1: the camp and Elizabeth later admitted that while she was
36:02
Speaker 1: horrified by what she believed she had caused, a small
36:06
Speaker 1: desperate part of her had wished Brian had succeeded, not
36:09
Speaker 1: because she wanted her cousin to suffer, but because she
36:12
Speaker 1: was so lonely that having someone else there would have
36:15
Speaker 1: made the nightmare slightly more bearable. And it's a heartbreaking
36:20
Speaker 1: admission that speaks to just how psychologically broken she had
36:24
Speaker 1: become and that he made her. But the failed break
36:27
Speaker 1: in at the Right Home put police back on high alert,
36:30
Speaker 1: and Brian, fearing they were no longer safe in the mountains,
36:33
Speaker 1: made a decision that was as bold as it was disturbing,
36:36
Speaker 1: and instead of fleeing further into the wilderness, he moved
36:40
Speaker 1: them into the city itself. Hiding in plain sight among
36:43
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City's homeless population. So in August of two
36:47
Speaker 1: thousand and two, Brian relocated Elizabeth and Wanda out of
36:50
Speaker 1: the foothills and into downtown Salt Lake City, and to
36:53
Speaker 1: make sure Elizabeth wouldn't be recognized, they dressed her in
36:56
Speaker 1: the same white robes they wore and covered her face
36:59
Speaker 1: with a heavy bail, and if anyone asked questions, they
37:02
Speaker 1: couldn't see her face, so they blended in seamlessly, panhandling
37:07
Speaker 1: on the streets, just as Brian and Wanda had done
37:09
Speaker 1: before the kidnapping, and on one occasion, the three of
37:12
Speaker 1: them even attended a house party, mingling with other guests,
37:16
Speaker 1: and a photograph from that night still exists, and Elizabeth
37:21
Speaker 1: hidden behind her veil, standing in a room full of
37:23
Speaker 1: strangers who had no idea they were looking at America's
37:26
Speaker 1: most famous missing girl. And as media coverage of the
37:30
Speaker 1: case continued, Brian would grow increasingly paranoid and decided they
37:34
Speaker 1: needed to leave Salt Lake City altogether. So to plan
37:38
Speaker 1: their next move, he went to the city's public library
37:40
Speaker 1: to research possible destinations, and while there, a patron noticed
37:45
Speaker 1: the group's bizarre attire and would call the police, and
37:48
Speaker 1: an officer arrived and confronted Brian, and he asked the
37:51
Speaker 1: women to remove their veils so he could see their faces,
37:54
Speaker 1: but Brian refused, claiming that as their father, it was
37:58
Speaker 1: against their religion to show their faces to anyone outside
38:01
Speaker 1: the family or future husband. And while this exchange happened,
38:05
Speaker 1: Wanda was grabbing Elizabeth's leg under the table and squeezing hard,
38:09
Speaker 1: a silent, painful signal not to move or speak, and
38:13
Speaker 1: the officer, with no legal grounds to force a religious practice,
38:17
Speaker 1: let them go, which is crazy to think about, given
38:21
Speaker 1: that a girl is missing, and like, like, I know,
38:27
Speaker 1: everything's you know, hindsight's twenty twenty, but I just I
38:29
Speaker 1: can't believe that that was not searched a little bit more.
38:36
Speaker 1: But I digress. So Elizabeth watched another chance at a
38:40
Speaker 1: rescue walk out the door, and a normal person might
38:43
Speaker 1: have screamed, might have spoken up, but Elizabeth was not
38:47
Speaker 1: in a normal state of mind because months of constant threats,
38:51
Speaker 1: repeated as and the systemic destruction of her identity had
38:55
Speaker 1: broken something inside her and she was no longer Elizabeth
38:58
Speaker 1: Smart as Brian and had given her a biblical name,
39:02
Speaker 1: Esther and had a cover name for the public, which
39:05
Speaker 1: was Augustine Marshall, so she had been conditioned at this
39:09
Speaker 1: point to believe that speaking up would get her killed.
39:12
Speaker 1: But things were about to get even worse because Brian
39:15
Speaker 1: had found his next destination and they were going to California.
39:20
Speaker 1: So Brian decided that God was calling them to San
39:23
Speaker 1: Diego and the only way to get there from Utah
39:25
Speaker 1: for them was a Greyhound bus, so roughly fourteen grueling
39:29
Speaker 1: hours of travel and Elizabeth would sit wedged between her
39:32
Speaker 1: two captors for the entire ride, unable to move, unable
39:36
Speaker 1: to speak, and unable to escape. And in September of
39:39
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, they would arrive in the San
39:41
Speaker 1: Diego area and set up camp in a dry creek
39:44
Speaker 1: bed near Lakeside, and they continued to panhandle for money,
39:47
Speaker 1: moving from place to place under the cover of darkness
39:50
Speaker 1: to avoid raising suspicion, and eventually they ended up in Alcohoone,
39:55
Speaker 1: where Brian managed to befriend a local Mormon family. Now,
39:58
Speaker 1: a family, having no idea who Brian really was, invited
40:02
Speaker 1: him and his companions over for dinner, and during this visit,
40:05
Speaker 1: Brian noticed a young girl who was part of the family,
40:08
Speaker 1: and he immediately decided she would be his next why,
40:12
Speaker 1: blaming God was calling him to rescue her, so Brian
40:16
Speaker 1: prepared what can only be described as a kidnapping kit,
40:19
Speaker 1: the same supplies he'd assembled before taking Elizabeth, and made
40:24
Speaker 1: his way to the family's home and he found an
40:26
Speaker 1: unlocked door and was about to enter when he heard
40:29
Speaker 1: a man storing inside. So spooked, he retreated back to
40:33
Speaker 1: the camp and told Elizabeth that they were not prepared
40:36
Speaker 1: enough to receive another wife. So thank god that another
40:39
Speaker 1: little girl didn't get taken. But it's just I mean,
40:42
Speaker 1: Elizabeth still stuck alone and with no hope of getting
40:47
Speaker 1: any sort of help, And during their time in California,
40:50
Speaker 1: Brian was actually arrested, but not for kidnapping. He was
40:54
Speaker 1: actually picked up in Alcohoone for breaking into a church,
40:57
Speaker 1: and he spent a few days in jail before being released.
41:01
Speaker 1: So the police never had any idea that the disheveled
41:04
Speaker 1: man they'd just processed and let go was the person
41:07
Speaker 1: responsible for one of the most high profile kidnapping cases
41:10
Speaker 1: in the country, and after he returned, the months of
41:12
Speaker 1: abuse would continue. Elizabeth was still malnourished, still exhausted, still
41:18
Speaker 1: being repeatedly, and she slept on the hard ground in
41:22
Speaker 1: terrible conditions most of the time. But through all of it,
41:25
Speaker 1: she never completely gave up. And somewhere inside the broken,
41:29
Speaker 1: terrified girl, there was a spark of hope, a belief
41:33
Speaker 1: that one day she would make it home and back
41:35
Speaker 1: in Utah. The key to bringing her home was finally
41:38
Speaker 1: falling into place because Mary Catherine, Elizabeth's little sister, had
41:43
Speaker 1: remembered something. The voice finally had a face. So on
41:47
Speaker 1: October twelfth, two thousand and two, more than four months
41:51
Speaker 1: after the kidnapping, Mary Catherine Smart finally remembered. She recalled
41:55
Speaker 1: a man who used to come to their house, someone
41:59
Speaker 1: her family had to rake leaves and do odd jobs
42:02
Speaker 1: around the property. And he was a homeless man they'd
42:04
Speaker 1: met through their church and given work to help them
42:07
Speaker 1: get back on his feet. And the man's name was
42:10
Speaker 1: a manual, the name Brian David Mitchell had been going
42:14
Speaker 1: by and the memory was triggering by something almost impossibly random,
42:18
Speaker 1: like if you don't believe miracles, I feel like this
42:21
Speaker 1: is a miracle. Because Mary Catherine was flipping through a
42:24
Speaker 1: Guinness World Records picture book when she came across the
42:27
Speaker 1: name Emmanuel and it clicked. She ran to her father
42:32
Speaker 1: and told him she knew who had taken Elizabeth. But
42:35
Speaker 1: when the Smart family brought this information to police, they
42:38
Speaker 1: were met with skepticism, and investigators had spent months building
42:41
Speaker 1: a case around Richard Reesi, who had since died in custody,
42:45
Speaker 1: and they weren't ready to accept a nine year old
42:47
Speaker 1: girl's month's old memory of a man's voice, a man
42:51
Speaker 1: who had spent no more than a handful of hours
42:53
Speaker 1: at their home, was the key to solving this case,
42:56
Speaker 1: which again drives me insane. She's the only person that
43:00
Speaker 1: saw this person, that this is the person you should
43:02
Speaker 1: be listening to. Like the police's pride, sometimes, I tell
43:07
Speaker 1: you what. And frustrated by the police's reluctance, the Smart
43:11
Speaker 1: family took matters into their own hands, and they hired
43:14
Speaker 1: their own sketch artist, and Ed provided as many details
43:17
Speaker 1: as he could remember about the man they'd known as Ammanual,
43:21
Speaker 1: and it had been over a year since he'd last
43:23
Speaker 1: seen him. But he did his best, and the family
43:26
Speaker 1: held onto that sketch for months, waiting for the right moment.
43:30
Speaker 1: So on February third, two thousand and three, the Smarts
43:33
Speaker 1: held a press conference and released the sketch to the public,
43:37
Speaker 1: asking anyone who recognized the man to come forward with information,
43:41
Speaker 1: and two weeks later, on February fifteenth, America's Most Wanted
43:44
Speaker 1: To aired a segment about Elizabeth Smart's disappearance, and the
43:47
Speaker 1: sketch was broadcasted on national television. The response was almost immediate,
43:53
Speaker 1: and just one day later, Brian's own sister or Emmanuel's
43:57
Speaker 1: own sister, came forward and identified the man in the
44:00
Speaker 1: sketch as her brother Brian. David Mitchell and his stepson,
44:04
Speaker 1: Dereck Thompson also came forward, confirming that the sketch was
44:07
Speaker 1: unmistakably his stepfather, and they provided investigators with Brian's real
44:12
Speaker 1: name and recent photographs which were released to the public.
44:15
Speaker 1: So now the whole country knew what he looked like,
44:18
Speaker 1: and if anyone spotted the bearded man in the white robes,
44:21
Speaker 1: they were urged to call the authorities, you police. The
44:25
Speaker 1: fact that the family had to take it into their
44:27
Speaker 1: own hands just makes me sick, but I'm so glad
44:31
Speaker 1: that they did. And meanwhile, something remarkable was happening with Elizabeth,
44:35
Speaker 1: because after months of captivity. She made a move that
44:39
Speaker 1: was as clever as it was brave, and she told
44:42
Speaker 1: Brian that she felt God speaking to her and that
44:46
Speaker 1: even though she wasn't a chosen one like he was,
44:50
Speaker 1: she had a feeling they were being called back to Utahs.
44:54
Speaker 1: Such a smart girl, Such a smart girl. And Brian, ever,
44:58
Speaker 1: the narcissist piece of shit that he was, was overjoyed
45:02
Speaker 1: and he took this as a sign that Elizabeth was
45:04
Speaker 1: finally coming around, that she was beginning to understand his
45:08
Speaker 1: divine mission. And on March fifth, two thousand and three,
45:11
Speaker 1: they would board that Greyhound bus and go back to Utah.
45:15
Speaker 1: So Elizabeth had manipulated her dumbass and perverted Captor into
45:20
Speaker 1: walking right back into the arms of law enforcement, and
45:24
Speaker 1: for the first time in nine months now she felt
45:27
Speaker 1: like she had some control over her fate. So on
45:30
Speaker 1: March twelfth, two thousand and three, a couple was driving
45:33
Speaker 1: down State Street in Sandy, Utah, when they spotted something unusual.
45:37
Speaker 1: Three people walking along the road. A bearded man flanked
45:41
Speaker 1: by two women, all dressed in white robes and tunics. Luckily,
45:46
Speaker 1: this guy is a thing dumbass and just sticking out
45:50
Speaker 1: like a sore thumb in plain sight fantastic and these
45:54
Speaker 1: people would recognize him from the news, and without hesitation,
45:58
Speaker 1: they called the Sandy Police Department and four officers were
46:01
Speaker 1: dispatched to the scene, and when they arrived, they approached
46:04
Speaker 1: the group and began asking questions, and the young girl
46:07
Speaker 1: seemed very uncomfortable and nervous, so the officers made the
46:12
Speaker 1: decision to separate her from the two adults, and before
46:15
Speaker 1: the officers could even get their first question out, the
46:18
Speaker 1: girl blurted out that her name was Augustine Marshall, the
46:21
Speaker 1: cover identity Brian had drilled into her for months, but
46:25
Speaker 1: the officers weren't buying it, and one of them, Sergeant
46:28
Speaker 1: Victor Kazda, looked at her carefully and he recognized her,
46:32
Speaker 1: and he asked the question directly, are you Elizabeth Smart?
46:36
Speaker 1: And her response was two words spoken through tears, thou sayest,
46:42
Speaker 1: And it was a biblical phrase, essentially meaning you said it,
46:46
Speaker 1: a reflection of the religious language Brian had forced upon
46:50
Speaker 1: her for nine months straight. But the officers understood what
46:53
Speaker 1: it meant, and Brian, David Mitchell, and Wanda Barzi were
46:57
Speaker 1: arrested on the spot and Elizabeth was placed in a
47:00
Speaker 1: separate police car and driven to the station, and she
47:04
Speaker 1: could not stop crying. And that's when Ed Smart received
47:07
Speaker 1: a phone call telling him to drop everything and get
47:09
Speaker 1: to the police station immediately. And when he walked through
47:12
Speaker 1: the doors, a row of officers stood at attention lining
47:16
Speaker 1: the hallway, and as he passed them, they blessed him
47:19
Speaker 1: and wished him well, and he turned the corner and
47:22
Speaker 1: walked into the room where a young woman was sitting
47:24
Speaker 1: on the sofa, and he almost didn't recognize her. Was
47:27
Speaker 1: the last time ed had seen his daughter. She was
47:29
Speaker 1: a fourteen year old girl, and now nine months later
47:32
Speaker 1: she had grown into a young woman, thinner, weathered and different,
47:36
Speaker 1: but it was absolutely his daughter, and he asked if
47:40
Speaker 1: it was really her, and Elizabeth looked at her father
47:43
Speaker 1: and said, yes, dad, which just so just makes me
47:49
Speaker 1: so happy. Oh, and you're trying to cry. So the
47:53
Speaker 1: family pulled the other children out of school to come
47:56
Speaker 1: see their sister, and everyone was overjoyed and everyone one
48:00
Speaker 1: was in tears. And Elizabeth spent her first day back
48:03
Speaker 1: reading emails from supportive strangers and playing her harp and
48:07
Speaker 1: watching a movie with her family. And the news exploded
48:10
Speaker 1: and Salt Lake City celebrated, and the Smarts went on
48:13
Speaker 1: every news program they could to announce that their daughter
48:16
Speaker 1: had been found alive thanks to them, thanks to them
48:20
Speaker 1: really stepping up and taking initiative. And that night, when
48:23
Speaker 1: Elizabeth went to bed, she kept waking up throughout the night,
48:27
Speaker 1: and each time she opened her eyes, her parents were
48:30
Speaker 1: standing there watching over her, making sure she was still
48:33
Speaker 1: there and making sure that she was real. Just just,
48:37
Speaker 1: oh gosh, I don't even have a kid, but like
48:39
Speaker 1: to imagine you're going missing for nine months and then
48:42
Speaker 1: the first night back, like you bet your ass, I
48:44
Speaker 1: would be sitting on that bed like it's just it
48:48
Speaker 1: just pulls at every single heartstring I have. But Elizabeth
48:51
Speaker 1: was home and she was finally safe. But for her captors,
48:55
Speaker 1: the nightmare, the deserved nightmare, was just beginning. All right, guys,
49:00
Speaker 1: I'm back to talk about my favorite blanket because it
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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for Lola Blankets for supporting the
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Speaker 1: channel and sponsoring the video. And let's get back to it. Now. Brian,
50:26
Speaker 1: David Mitchell, and Wanda Bertsey were arrested and brought into
50:29
Speaker 1: custody on March eighteenth, two thousand and three, and detectives
50:33
Speaker 1: who interrogated them would describe them as the strangest individuals
50:37
Speaker 1: they had ever encountered in their careers, and it's not
50:40
Speaker 1: hard to see why, because from the moment questioning began,
50:44
Speaker 1: Brian refused to cooperate in any conventional sense, and when
50:48
Speaker 1: detectives pressed him, he would launch into religious rants and
50:52
Speaker 1: singing hymns and screaming get the behind me, Satan, and
50:56
Speaker 1: every time investigators got close to cornering him on a detail,
50:59
Speaker 1: Brian would deflect with another religious tirade. So he was
51:03
Speaker 1: clearly unhinged, but there was something calculated about it as well,
51:07
Speaker 1: and the detectives could see that he was sharp, crafty,
51:10
Speaker 1: and fully aware of what he was doing. And one
51:13
Speaker 1: moment in particular was stomach turning, because when asked about
51:17
Speaker 1: what he'd done to Elizabeth, Brian described her experience as
51:21
Speaker 1: had a glorious experience, a glorious you. And you can
51:25
Speaker 1: practically see the detectives of the room were straining themselves
51:28
Speaker 1: from lunging at him. Which I don't blame them, and
51:30
Speaker 1: Wanda Bartsi's interrogation was no better, and she pulled the
51:34
Speaker 1: exact same religious ramblings, deflection and refusal to engage meaningfully
51:39
Speaker 1: with the questions. And the legal process that followed was
51:42
Speaker 1: agonizingly slow, and on July twenty six, two thousand and five,
51:46
Speaker 1: more than two years after their arrest, both Brian Mitchell
51:50
Speaker 1: and Wanda Bartsi were deemed unfit to stand trial and
51:53
Speaker 1: were confined to the Utah State Hospital, and it wasn't
51:56
Speaker 1: until June two thousand and six that they were forcibly
51:59
Speaker 1: medic hated to stabilize them mentally and make them competent
52:02
Speaker 1: enough for legal proceedings, and once stabilized, their case was
52:06
Speaker 1: transferred into federal court system. But the delays continued, and
52:11
Speaker 1: it wasn't until March fifth, two thousand and eight, nearly
52:14
Speaker 1: six years after the kidnapping, that Brian and Wanda were
52:18
Speaker 1: formally indicted on federal charges of interstate kidnapping and unlawful
52:23
Speaker 1: transportation of a minor across state lines. We got to
52:26
Speaker 1: fix that system. What the in the paperwork, the motions,
52:30
Speaker 1: the hearings, It just dragged on and on Then on
52:33
Speaker 1: November seventeenth, two thousand and nine, someone finally racked and
52:38
Speaker 1: Wanda Bartsey pleaded guilty to her involvement in the kidnapping,
52:41
Speaker 1: and in exchange for a reduced sentence as part of
52:44
Speaker 1: a plea deal, she agreed to testify against Brian, and
52:48
Speaker 1: she was sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison, and
52:52
Speaker 1: in court, she offered an apology to Elizabeth, who was
52:55
Speaker 1: not present, saying she was sorry for the pain and
52:58
Speaker 1: suffering she had caused, and that she hoped Elizabeth could
53:01
Speaker 1: find it in her hurt to forgive her h Wanda
53:04
Speaker 1: and Brian, on the other hand, continued to delay, and
53:07
Speaker 1: his defense team pushed for a competency trial, arguing he
53:11
Speaker 1: was too mentally ill to stand trial and this was
53:13
Speaker 1: a critical moment, as if he was found incompetent, he
53:17
Speaker 1: might never face a proper sentence. But that's when Elizabeth
53:20
Speaker 1: Smart would be as brave as ever and take the
53:23
Speaker 1: stand to testify against him. She described in detail what
53:27
Speaker 1: he had done to her, and the prosecution methodically established
53:31
Speaker 1: that Brian was articulate, quick on his feet, and capable
53:34
Speaker 1: of adapting to his surroundings, all all marks of a
53:38
Speaker 1: competent man who was putting on an act for the
53:40
Speaker 1: cameras and to get the mentally unstable plea. Smart testified,
53:45
Speaker 1: he then put the knife up to my neck. He
53:47
Speaker 1: told me to get up quietly and if I didn't
53:49
Speaker 1: then he would kill me in my family. And during
53:52
Speaker 1: the trial, Brian reportedly even had a seizure in the
53:55
Speaker 1: courtroom and was wheeled out on a gurney and loaded
53:58
Speaker 1: into an ambulance, which was behavior that many believed that
54:01
Speaker 1: was just staged. And on December tenth, twenty and ten,
54:06
Speaker 1: now Brian David Mitchell was found guilty and convicted of
54:10
Speaker 1: kidnapping Elizabeth Smart, and on May twenty fifth, twenty eleven,
54:14
Speaker 1: he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in federal
54:17
Speaker 1: prison with no possibility of parole, so Brian David Mitchell
54:20
Speaker 1: would never see the light of day again. And when
54:23
Speaker 1: asked about the verdict and interviews afterward, Elizabeth said, I
54:26
Speaker 1: was happy for the opportunity to say what I felt
54:29
Speaker 1: that I needed to say, and I thrilled it sob like,
54:34
Speaker 1: oh my imagine dragging on so long. She finally got
54:38
Speaker 1: justice years and years and years after. And as for
54:41
Speaker 1: Wanda Bartsey, She was actually released from prison on parole
54:44
Speaker 1: on September nineteenth, twenty eighteen, a decision that outraged many,
54:49
Speaker 1: rightfully so, but her freedom was short lived, and on
54:52
Speaker 1: May first, twenty twenty five, Mertsey was arrested again after
54:56
Speaker 1: wandering into a public park, which violated the terms of
54:59
Speaker 1: her offend registration, and her reported explanation was that the
55:03
Speaker 1: Lord told her too, and I guess caused her to
55:06
Speaker 1: get arrested, So good on you, Lord, I don't know.
55:10
Speaker 1: But after being reunited with her family, Elizabeth was thrust
55:13
Speaker 1: into a media frenzy and reporters wanted interviews and cameras
55:17
Speaker 1: were everywhere in the world wanted answers. But the Smart
55:21
Speaker 1: family was fiercely protective of their daughter and they shielded
55:24
Speaker 1: her from the worst of it, giving her time and
55:26
Speaker 1: space to adjust to normal life again. And her first
55:29
Speaker 1: major interview was with Katie Kuric on The Today Show,
55:32
Speaker 1: and the questions were uncomfortable because interviewers asked her why
55:36
Speaker 1: she didn't run and why she didn't scream for help,
55:39
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth just answered honestly, explaining the thoughts and fears
55:43
Speaker 1: that run through a fourteen year old's mind when a
55:45
Speaker 1: man is holding a knife to her throat and threatening
55:48
Speaker 1: to kill her and her family. So the tone deaf
55:50
Speaker 1: questions warrensane, but it was a sobering reminder that life's
55:55
Speaker 1: not a movie. There was no moment where she could
55:58
Speaker 1: have simply escaped, and eventually the interviews slowed down and
56:02
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was able to focus on something she actually cared about,
56:05
Speaker 1: making a difference. And on April thirtieth, two thousand and three,
56:09
Speaker 1: less than two months after her rescue, Elizabeth meant President
56:12
Speaker 1: George W. Bush at the White House for the signing
56:15
Speaker 1: of the Protect Act of two thousand and three. And
56:18
Speaker 1: the Act was designed to strengthen penalties for child abusers
56:22
Speaker 1: and sexual pre across the country, and Elizabeth's case had
56:26
Speaker 1: been one of the driving forces behind that legislation. And
56:29
Speaker 1: from there, Elizabeth founded the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which I
56:32
Speaker 1: will link below, which is an organization dedicated to bringing
56:35
Speaker 1: hope and empowerment to victims of sexual approvements. And she
56:38
Speaker 1: became a vocal advocate, speaking out about everything from harassment
56:43
Speaker 1: on airplanes to sexualists in the military, and her message
56:47
Speaker 1: was powerful and consistent, what happened to you does not
56:50
Speaker 1: define you. And she also went on to publish a
56:53
Speaker 1: memoir titled My Story, along with additional books about her
56:57
Speaker 1: experience and the process of healing, and she became a
57:00
Speaker 1: public speaker and best selling author and one of the
57:02
Speaker 1: most recognized voices in the fight against child exploitation, and
57:06
Speaker 1: her personal life moved forward as well, and in February
57:09
Speaker 1: of twenty twelve, Elizabeth married Matthew Gilmer, a man she
57:13
Speaker 1: met during a church mission in Paris, and together they
57:16
Speaker 1: have had three children. But Elizabeth has always been open
57:20
Speaker 1: to the fact that recovery is not a straight line,
57:23
Speaker 1: and she knew life would be difficult after her rescue,
57:26
Speaker 1: and the pain and trauma she experienced during those nine
57:28
Speaker 1: months didn't simply vanish when she was found. But she
57:31
Speaker 1: made a choice early on. She refused to let what
57:34
Speaker 1: happened to her to find who she was. And she
57:37
Speaker 1: had already been isolated and discarded during her captivity and
57:40
Speaker 1: she was not going to let that continue. And she's
57:43
Speaker 1: glad to be alive. She's glad to be an advocate,
57:46
Speaker 1: and she wants other survivors to know that life was
57:49
Speaker 1: still worth living. And that is the case of Elizabeth Smart,
57:53
Speaker 1: just an absolute perrowing, inspiring brave woman. I like, my
58:00
Speaker 1: heart breaks every time I think about this case. I'm
58:03
Speaker 1: so happy that she's living her life now and advocating
58:06
Speaker 1: and doing all these wonderful things. Like I said again,
58:09
Speaker 1: I will link her foundation down below, and if you
58:11
Speaker 1: have any other cases you want me to deep dive into,
58:14
Speaker 1: let me know down below. I always read the comments,
58:15
Speaker 1: and until then, please stay safe out there and I
58:17
Speaker 1: will see your beautiful face in the next one. All right, Bye,