Elizabeth Smart is bravely revisiting the most harrowing experience of her life.
The kidnapping survivor, now 38 years old, is out with a new documentary on Netflix, titled Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, over 20 years after she was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City by Brian David Mitchell, when she was 14 years old.
In the documentary and adjacent press, the child safety advocate has recounted the painful details of her nine months in captivity with her kidnapper and his wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee.
Read on for what Elizabeth has said about her kidnapping, and where she, as well as her captors, are now.
When was Elizabeth kidnapped and what happened?
On June 5, 2002, Elizabeth was abducted from her bed, and shortly after, her kidnapper declared to her that he was going to make her his wife. "I was in shock," she told People earlier this month. "I thought, 'He can't be serious.' You can't just kidnap a child and then say, you're my wife now. It's not legal. It's not okay. I never said yes. I never said I do. None of this is okay."
The new documentary includes interviews with witnesses who saw Elizabeth wearing a veil with her head covered, but didn't realize she was the teen authorities had been searching for. During her nine months in captivity — she was rescued by police on March 12, 2003, in Sandy, Utah — she was raped up to four times a day, kept in a dark hole, and fed garbage.
"I mean, I tried to do everything I could to hold off the inevitable," she further recalled, knowing Brian's plans to "consummate our marriage," and suggesting they "get to know each other" in an effort to stall until a possible rescue.
What is Elizabeth doing today, over 20 years later?
After her rescue — she was found walking the street with her captors, during which bystanders recognized her from a composite sketch — Elizabeth became a child safety activist, advocating for the AMBER Alert System, supporting recovery programs, and in 2011, she founded the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which hopes to put an end to sexual assault and victimization.
Around 2009, Elizabeth met her husband, Matthew Gilmour, in Paris, where she was a missionary for the Church of Latter-Day Saints. The couple tied the knot in 2012, and have since welcomed three children, daughters Chloe and Olivia, and son James.
Who were her abductors and where are they now?
Brian and Wanda met at a group counseling session in Salt Lake City run by the Mormon church, and married in November 1985. By the mid-1990s, they had sold all of their possessions and were living off the land, distancing themselves from the Mormon church.
Once caught following Elizabeth's rescue, it took nearly eight years for Brian and Wanda to be brought to trial, but ultimately Wanda pleaded guilty to kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor in a deal with prosecutors, and filed for divorce from Brian in 2004.
Brian's trial began in 2010, and his defense tried to argue he was not guilty by reason of insanity, but he was found competent to stand trial. Ultimately, a jury found Mitchell guilty of kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in sexual activity, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
Meanwhile Wanda was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for her role in Elizabeth's abduction, and after being transferred from federal to state prison in 2016, in June 2018, her attorney requested that she receive credit toward her state sentence for her time spent in federal prison. The request was initially denied though later reversed, and she was let out of prison in 2018, and began five years of federal supervised release.