The missing person's case of Elizabeth Smart is one of the nation's most gripping abduction
and rescue stories.
On June 5, 2002, the 14-year-old was abducted at knifepoint from her bedroom.
After nine agonizing months of assault and torment, the kidnappers were located 18 miles
from the Smart family's home, and Smart was rescued on March 12, 2003, thanks to the help
of a viewer of America’s Most Wanted.
Since her rescue, Smart has grown into a strong and successful woman who refuses to let the
traumas of the past define her.
So, where is Elizabeth Smart today?
She's an activist
Smart and her father successfully lobbied Congress in 2006 to pass a law to create a
national sex-offender registry.
Smart also advocates tirelessly for the AMBER Alert system and other measures to combat
kidnapping and abuse.
In 2011, at age 24, she launched the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which teams with groups
like the Internet Crimes Against Children task force to help prevent human trafficking.
Her organization also offers educational support to students on the subjects of violent and
sexual crimes, provides resources for parents and children, and supports law enforcement
rescue efforts.
In addition to working towards the safety of children, in 2016 Smart spoke about her
captors' obsession with pornography in a public service video for Fight the New Drug,
an organization that provides information and resources about pornography addiction.
“I can’t say that he would not have gone out and kidnapped me had he not looked at
pornography.
All I know is that pornography made my living hell worse.”
She's a journalist
In 2011, Smart accepted a position with ABC News as a missing persons expert for Good
Morning America.
In addition to providing a platform for her own activism, her work as a journalist and
guest on multiple news programs has allowed her to delve deep into the cases of other
missing persons and to help raise the public profile of stories similar to hers, keeping
stories alive and people searching.
She’s an author
My Story, published in 2014, is a sober, first-person recollection of Smart's experience at the
hands of her captors.
She details the horrors of being held prisoner by Brian David Mitchell, who fancied himself
a street minister, and the constant threat of being killed if she attempted to escape.
Smart told The New Yorker that she thought carefully about the tone of her book, saying,
quote:
"It's not so gruesome that it would be unbearable to read.
That was important to me."
End quote.
Smart's aim is to make "talking about rape and abuse not such a taboo."
She’s a devout Mormon
Smart credits her resilience to the strength of her Mormon faith.
At a human trafficking forum held at Johns Hopkins University in 2013, Smart talked about
the difficulty of reconciling her religious values with the sexual torture of her captivity.
Smart told the conference that she now understands that nothing about her terrible experience
was her fault.
She holds tight to her faith and a belief that, quote, "there's nothing God will give
us that we can't handle."
End quote.
In 2009, she embarked on a mission trip to France.
In addition to providing her with a welcome degree of anonymity, she said her work overseas
bolstered her faith and redirected her career.
She told LDS Living, quote:
"I started thinking, 'The gospel is something so important to me.
I wish I could reach out to more people universally.
Then I realized, 'Wait a second, I can.
I can help a lot more people.'
When this opportunity came around, I knew it was what I wanted to do.”
End quote.
She’s a proud wife and mother
In February 2012, Smart married Matthew Gilmour in a small ceremony at a Hawaiian Mormon temple,
after meeting during Smart’s overseas mission trip.
They welcomed a daughter, Chloe, in February 2015.
Speaking at an event in Oklahoma in November 2015, Smart admitted her ordeal, quote,
"...probably made me like the most paranoid, overprotective, annoying parent ever.
I'm definitely given a whole new depth of feeling about everything."
End quote.
Even so, Smart now considers herself to be a genuinely happy person.
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