It has been nearly 24 years since Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her family’s home in Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time, Smart was 14 years old and had no idea if she’d ever see her family again. The teen was taken at gunpoint in her room by street preacher Brian David Mitchell, who told her he’d be taking her as his child bride. For nine excruciatingly long months, Smart was fed garbage and held captive by Mitchell. But the girl never gave up hope that she’d be rescued — and she was. Now, Smart is a married mom of three in her late 30s. She is an advocate for survivors, and she has a new documentary coming out to share more of her story.
Smart was taken from her home at gunpoint around 1 a.m. on June 5, 2002, CNN reported at the time. The only witness to the abduction was her 9-year-old sister, Mary Katherine. According to their uncle Tom Smart, the younger girl was threatened into silence with death.
“She was paralyzed and in shock for a couple of hours until she went in and talked with her dad,” Tom Smart said.
Detective Dwayne Baird said Mitchell was carrying a small gun when he abducted Elizabeth. “He just walked out the door with her,” Baird said, per CNN at the time. “He didn’t take a vehicle; he just left on foot.”
Looking back on that night, Elizabeth “was in shock.” After abducting her, Mitchell told her that she was going to be his bride. “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,” she told People in an exclusive interview in January 2026.
Smart can still remember “trying to explain to him why it wasn’t okay” for him to take her as his bride. But he ignored her. And when she screamed, he told her that if she ever did that again, he’d kill her and her family.
Then Mitchell told the 14-year-old the most disturbing thing she could have heard — they were going to “consummate our marriage,” she said. The teen did everything she could to stall, believing that she’d be rescued, but the man didn’t fall for any of her tactics.
“I tried to do everything I could to hold off the inevitable,” she told People. Elizabeth Smart was raped up to four times a day during the time she was held captive. She described the first time as “painful,” sharing that she “sobbed” and “begged” Mitchell to stop.
She was eventually rescued, and Michell was convicted of kidnapping Smart in 2010. He was sentenced to life in prison. His wife, Wanda Barzee, also was arrested and sent to jail, but she was released in 2018. Barzee was arrested in May of 2025 after she violated her status as a sex offender by visiting two public parks.
Though Smart has spoken out many times about what she endured during her time, she is shedding more light on her abduction and its aftermath in a new Netflix documentary, Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, which releases on January 21, 2026.
“After I was rescued, when I first got home, I did not want to talk about what happened with anyone,” she told Netflix’s Tudum.
“And when the trial finally happened, I remember sitting up on the stand, giving these answers, and feeling like there was no context around them. I remember thinking that if all of this was going to be out there anyway, I wanted it to have some meaning, and for it to serve a purpose. I wanted to have some ownership over my story. That helped me decide to share it.”
The documentary features archival and never-before-seen footage, as well as interviews with her father, 70-year-old Ed Smart, and her sister Mary Katherine, now 33. Her mother, Lois Smart, declined to be interviewed.
“Some members of my family want to leave things in the past. And personally, that’s okay with me. I want to respect their wishes,” Elizabeth Smart shared.
Her biggest hope for the documentary is that “people who watch this can gain compassion and understanding for other families who are going through this.”
“I also hope it brings comfort that there are happy endings — and that even after terrible things happen, you can still have a wonderful life.”
