14 DAY TRIAL // Elizabeth Smart describes her 9-month ordeal following her 2002 kidnapping, in a memoir. She is set to detail the abuse she went through and how she recovered from the experience.
The now 25-year-old Smart is set to collaborate on her memoir with Chris Stewart, author of many religious and patriotic-themed books, elected as Congressman in Utah in November. The Air Force veteran lists among his work such books as The Miracle of Freedom and Seven Miracles that Saved America, included in his campaign bio.
“She has taken a professional outlook on this and is able to talk in an impressive way about these things frankly. [...] She’s not shying away from this story,” the author says, according to the Inquisitr.
10 years ago, on June 5, 2002, she was kidnapped from her home in Utah, when she was just 14-years-old. She was found in 2003 in Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee's residence. They were both charged with kidnapping, and convicted. Mitchell, who repeatedly raped her, was sentenced in March 2011.
In May, Smart shared insight about what she went through in an interview with Hollywood Life:
“I’ll never forget how dirty and filthy, and how I lost all my self-worth in seconds. It would be better if he killed me now, so I don’t have to live with this. … I ended up falling asleep with those thoughts,” Elizabeth says.
“I said, 'If you are just going to rape and murder me, would you please do it here so my family can find my remains?' because I wanted them to know that I didn’t run away.” [...] He turned to me and said, 'I’m not going to do that to you yet,'” she recalls of her time held as captive.
Mitchell believed he was a missionary of God, often referring to himself as Emmanuel. The Smart family employed him, along with other homeless men and women around the neighborhood, for odd jobs, according to Wikipedia.
In one incident during Smart's nine months in captivity, he performed a “wedding ceremony,” to unite himself to the teenager in the face of God.
“He said, 'I hereby seal you to me as my wife before God and his angels as my witnesses.' [...] Then he forced me down and raped me,” Elizabeth describes.
He was discovered by the police after her sister, Mary Katherine, who was present the night of the kidnapping, recognized his voice as belonging to the man who did work around the house. A sketch artist's services were enlisted, and his portrait was featured on Larry King Live and America's Most Wanted, resulting in a lead.
Since then, Elizabeth has participated in several law enforcement and human trafficking conferences, trying to educate parents and teenagers, and speaking as an advocate of victims of rape and kidnapping.
Smart is currently a senior at Brigham Young University. In 2005, she was dubbed one of People magazine's “50 Most Beautiful People,” Info Please notes. She is a Mormon missionary, and was married this February.
“I love helping other people realize they don’t have to let their life be ruined by what’s happened to them,” she explains.