Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart

The Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart occurred on June 5, 2002, when 14-year-old American girl Elizabeth Ann Smart was kidnapped from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah by Brian David Mitchell.

Mitchell abducted Smart at knifepoint, from a bedroom shared with her younger sister Mary Catherine who pretended to be asleep out of fear. Mitchell, who claimed to be a religious preacher, was aquainted with the Smart family having worked for them as a handyman. Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, held Smart captive in a crude campsite on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, and later, in San Diego County, California. Mitchell repeatedly raped her and made threats against Smart and her family. Smart accompanied her captors in public on various occasions dressed head-to-toe in white robes and went largely unrecognized despite contact with the public on several occasions. Her captivity lasted about nine months before police identified her in Sandy, Utah, approximately 18 miles (29 km) from her home.

After her rescue, Smart became an advocate for missing persons and victims of sexual assault. Barzee was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in 2009 for her role in the abduction, although she was granted early release on September 19, 2018, for previously uncredited time served. Mitchell was diagnosed by forensic psychologists as having antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders. Extensive disputes over his competence to stand trial lasted several years before he was deemed mentally capable in 2010; Mitchell was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in 2011.