Elizabeth Smart
01:01:16 Share

What's something that works so well that it's basically magic? It's summertime, so how about air conditioning? Noise-canceling headphones? Meeting-free Fridays? Well, what about selling with Shopify?

Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. From the "launch your online shop" stage, to the first "real life store" stage, all the way to the "did we just hit a million orders" stage, Shopify is there to help you grow. Whether you're selling trained detective t-shirts or advocacy gear, Shopify helps you sell everywhere.

From their all-in-one e-commerce platform to their in-person POS system, wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered.

What I love about Shopify is no matter how big you grow, Shopify grows with you. And they give you everything you need to take your business to the next level. Sign up for a $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash justice, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash justice now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash justice.

This is Jessica Knoll, host of the new series Back in Crime. If you're a follower of true crime, you're probably familiar with some of the most shocking stories from our history. Horrific tragedies like the Columbine Massacre. He turned the gun straight at us and shot. Oh my God, the window went out. And the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit. Okay. Oh God. And notorious criminals like cult leader Charles Manson.

In a scene described by one investigator as reminiscent of a weird religious rite, five persons, including actress Sharon Tate, were found dead at the home of Miss Tate and her husband, screen director Roman Poliansky. But what if we were to turn back the hands of time and relive these events as they unfolded? Follow along each week as we take a fresh look at crimes from the past. Back in Crime is available now.

Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder. This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice.

Today, I am doing something a little different. I am taking a break from telling you about cases in need of justice and instead focusing on a solved case that I think will remind us all how people like us, you and me, can really help bring a resolution to cases I typically discuss on this podcast.

I obviously think it is incredibly important to discuss cases in need of justice, but I also think it's really important to remind all of you that we can really help positively impact these true crime cases. There is a reason the police go to the public and ask for help. They need the right person to see the story and come forward with the information to solve the case or to bring some type of resolution to the victim and their family.

It's like a big puzzle, and every piece counts towards figuring out what happened. Every tip and every lead matters.

Most of you probably already know this, but if you are new here, the whole idea behind Voices for Justice is taking an advocacy-based true crime approach, meaning that in addition to listening to these stories for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, or an hour plus sometimes, we also take an action step to go just a bit further to help them too.

Nine times out of ten, that is as easy as taking ten seconds to share someone's picture or video on social media, even if you literally have only two followers.

It's just about taking that one extra step to not just consume true crime, but to actively be a part in helping get a resolution for these incredibly tragic but important stories. But because most of the time on this podcast you will hear those tragic, unresolved stories in need of justice, I wanted to remind all of you of an incredible,

real-life example of how this advocacy-based true crime approach has literally solved a case and brought a child home to her family.

And no, it was not solved by a large group of armchair detectives poring over hours and hours of data and conducting their own investigation to solve this case, though if that's your style, absolutely more power to you. This case was in large part solved by efforts from the family, the media, an advocate, and multiple members of the public coming forward with information.

Of course, not only is this a story where the public submitting tips directly led to a kidnapped child being found, this is also an amazing demonstration of how families and advocates can partner with the media to move mountains in these cases. And of course, in addition to the efforts to find this child, it is an amazing tale of survival, perseverance, and hope. This is the story of Elizabeth Smart.

This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by Ibotta. Are you planning your dream vacation but dreading the cost?

With Ibotta, you get cash back on all your purchases, so you can spend more time making memories and less time dreaming about them. Ibotta is a free app that lets you earn cash back every time you shop. You can earn on hundreds of items you buy every day, from groceries to beauty supplies and even toys. The average Ibotta user earns $256 per year.

That's a plane ticket, a shopping trip, or even a fancy dinner. And they have so many brands, over 2,400. Lowe's, Macy's, Sephora, Best Buy, and more. I've been using Ibotta for a really long time. It's one way that I make every penny stretch. And right now, Ibotta is offering our listeners $5 just for trying Ibotta by using the code CRIME when you register.

Just go to the App Store or Google Play Store and download the free Ibotta app to start earning cash back and use code CRIME. That's I-B-O-T-T-A in the Google Play Store or App Store. And use code CRIME. Elizabeth Smart was born on November 3rd, 1987 in Salt Lake City, Utah to her parents Ed and Lois.

She has four brothers and one sister and is the second oldest of all of the kids. Around 2002, by the time Elizabeth was 14, it seemed like they had a pretty nice life. They lived in a nice home in a very affluent neighborhood that they presumed was safe. They were quite religious and Elizabeth was very active in her church and played the harp.

Although Elizabeth would later admit that she was pretty naive for the age of 14, she really did seem like she was a pretty happy teenager. June 4th, 2002, the day before Elizabeth's kidnapping, was pretty chaotic and somber. The family actually attended Lois' father's funeral that day, and prior to his death, Lois and Elizabeth already made plans with her school to accept some awards and play her harp at the request of her principal that night.

So in between the funeral and going to the school, Lois is cooking dinner. She's trying to feed her husband and her six kids while also trying to figure out how to get this harp into her car and get it to the school. And she ends up burning the potatoes she was making for dinner. The kitchen starts filling up with smoke, so she opens a window to air everything out. But she does eventually get everyone fed. They go see Elizabeth accept her awards and play her harp, and they finally get to end this very long day.

At this time, Elizabeth actually shared a bedroom and a bed with her nine-year-old sister Mary Catherine, and they kind of developed this bedtime routine. They would brush their teeth, put on their pajamas, say their prayers, and read a book. That night, it was Ella Enchanted, but eventually Elizabeth's voice gets dry, she gets tired, and they go to sleep.

But around 2 a.m., so now on June 5th, 2002, nine-year-old Mary Catherine wakes up to an absolute nightmare. She sees a strange man in her bedroom walk over to her side of the bed, but he doesn't do anything. He actually just walks to the other side of the bed where Elizabeth was sleeping.

He taps Elizabeth to wake her up and then holds a knife to her neck, telling her to stay quiet and come with him. Of course, both girls are absolutely terrified, but neither of them make a noise. Elizabeth specifically has stated that she stayed quiet because she didn't want to upset this man and possibly endanger her little sister's life.

So, the man instructs Elizabeth to grab a pair of shoes and begins leading her out of her room. Elizabeth, of course, asks, why are you doing this? And he tells her that the plan was to hold her hostage for a ransom. Once Elizabeth and this man are out of their bedroom, Mary Catherine jumps up to tell her parents what happened, but when she gets to the door, she sees the man still forcing Elizabeth down the hallway, and she very understandably gets scared and runs back to her bed to hide.

So this man is leading Elizabeth down the stairs and out of the house still with this knife to her neck and he again tells her to keep quiet, this time adding if she doesn't, he will kill her and her entire family. At this point, Elizabeth is thinking that it is entirely possible that this man may have already killed members of her family, so she does as she is told and stays quiet. He then leads her through the kitchen, out the back door, and away from her home.

They go through a vacant lot where they immediately see a police car. The man and Elizabeth hide in some bushes and the man pleads with God asking him to prove that what he is doing by kidnapping this girl is correct and make the police car go away. And eventually, the police car does pass without seeing Elizabeth or this man. The man then makes Elizabeth run with him up this large mountain that was next to Elizabeth's neighborhood with a knife to her back.

They are running for some time when she finally just stops and turns to him and says, listen, if you're going to rape and kill me, please just do it here. In her mind, she was thinking that she might as well die somewhere that her parents were actually going to be able to find her. But the man just smiles and tells her that he isn't going to rape and murder her just yet.

As they continue up this mountain, Elizabeth continues to try to reason with this man. She says, don't you realize what you're doing? If you get caught, you're going to go to jail for a long time. She says, please, my parents will do anything that you want. They will give you whatever you want and we won't tell the police. But he again just smiles at her and he says that he was not going to get caught.

So after reasoning with him, Elizabeth begins to pray and panic about finding a way to try to escape, thinking that there is some type of opportunity for her to make a run for it. But that opportunity never comes. Approximately two hours after Elizabeth was kidnapped, so around 4am now, Mary Catherine finally musters up enough bravery to run into her parents' room and tell them what happened.

But she leaves out the fact that this actually happened over two hours ago. So her parents start running all around the house looking for Elizabeth, while Mary Catherine keeps telling them, look, she isn't here. She was taken. And in all of this chaos, this is when Lois sees the kitchen window that was left open from when she burned the potatoes, and she sees that the screen had been cut.

And apparently at this point, Elizabeth's brothers that were still asleep were woken up by one of the worst sounds they say that they have ever heard. And that was their mother just absolutely wailing out in pain that Elizabeth was really gone.

After seeing that the screen was cut, her parents call the police, and then they call friends and family asking if they've seen Elizabeth, if they can come over to help look for Elizabeth. And within 15 minutes, the police and friends and family were walking all around and driving all around this neighborhood looking for Elizabeth.

In addition to physically searching the area, the police of course want to talk to Mary Catherine, the only witness to this kidnapping, and she does her best to describe the man that she saw, but she says that it was dark and hard to see his face, but that it was a man, he was white, maybe 30 to 40 years old, he had dark hair, he had hair on his arms and on the back of his hands, and that he was a man.

and she also said that he was wearing tan pants, dark shoes, a lighter jacket, and a Scottish-style golf hat, and that he was holding a gun. She also adds that she definitely recognized his voice from somewhere, but that she can't quite remember from where.

A lot of this description was actually wrong, like the handgun and the clothing, but I mean, who can blame her? She was literally 9 years old, and I'm sure she was absolutely terrified. But my point is that the police definitely had some type of guide for what this person looked like, because they had no idea if this was true or false at this point.

After getting this initial description, the police actually instruct the family to not ask Mary Catherine again about the suspect because they didn't want to jumble her memory, and they instead just encourage her to come forward as memories begin to surface. Of course, the police don't want to just interview Mary Catherine. Every member of the family was taken in separate police cars down to the station to be interviewed about Elizabeth, and they brought cadaver dogs into their home.

But there was no sign of Elizabeth or any huge red flags pointing towards the family. And unfortunately, collecting suspect DNA from the crime scene looked pretty improbable at this point, since the two police officers who first arrived at the scene didn't seal off anything in or around the house, and in fact, there were a ton of people walking through the house contaminating the crime scene.

They also didn't even keep a log of who was coming and going to be able to cross-reference any contamination. Detective Don Bell from the Salt Lake City Police Department said, quote, that crime scene was contaminated beyond all hope, end quote.

By 6.30am, the sun was coming up and Elizabeth and this man were still walking up this mountain. And around this time, after hours of going up the mountain with this man, it clicks and Elizabeth remembers exactly who this guy is.

This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by Quince. I can't believe that we are rolling into fall, but we are, which means it's time to refresh your wardrobe. And luckily, Quince offers timeless and high-quality pieces that will not blow your budget.

Like cashmere sweaters from $50, pants for every occasion, washable silk tops, and more. All Quince items are priced 50-80% less than similar brands. And they do that by partnering directly with top factories. That way they cut out the cost of the middleman and pass those savings on to us. At this point, I've tried a little bit of everything from Quince.

and I'm still in love with their 10-Cell Jersey Fit and Flare dresses. Especially in Arizona, it's really easy to dress them up or dress them down and add some layers if it gets colder.

Make switching seasons a breeze with Quince's high-quality closet essentials. Go to quince.com slash justice for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash justice to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash justice

She actually recognized him from a few months earlier in downtown Salt Lake City. Elizabeth was getting clothes for school with her mother and her siblings, and this man was standing on the street asking for work and for money. Elizabeth's mother actually gave him $5 and her husband's phone number, insisting that they always needed things done around their home, and she was sure that her husband would be able to find some type of job for this man to do.

So, he calls Ed Smart and says, my name is Emmanuel. He explains how he met his wife, and Ed says, sure, come on over. I need someone to help me work on my roof. Emmanuel comes over and spends some time with Ed up on that roof. He talks about how he is a born-again Christian, how he spends his days traveling and sharing the word of God, but after this first day, he didn't show up to continue working on the roof.

And this man would later admit that from the moment he saw Elizabeth downtown, he planned to kidnap her, and he even scouted out the area around her home to see how he could do it. So it seems that him coming to the house to accept that little piece of work was really just another way for him to scout out the best way to kidnap Elizabeth Smart.

So at this point, Elizabeth and Emmanuel are still walking slash hiking up this mountain. And she's just asking why he's doing this to her. And he finally says, you know, you're going to find out soon and you're also going to meet my wife. And finally, after hiking over three miles up and around this huge mountain, Emmanuel yells out, Hepzibah! And a female voice yells back, Emmanuel!

And this is when Elizabeth sees an entire camp set up. There was a tent and tarps and this very scary looking woman, Hepzibah, who gave Elizabeth a very strong and intimidating hug. And this is when Elizabeth learns that Hepzibah is Emmanuel's wife and that Elizabeth was taken specifically to be Emmanuel's second wife.

The woman starts washing Elizabeth's feet and trying to get her changed out of her pajamas into a white robe that matched her and Emmanuel's robes. Elizabeth, of course, is resistant and eventually convinces this woman to let her change out of her pajamas herself. So she puts the robe on over her pajamas and slips the pajamas off from underneath and waits.

And pretty soon, Emmanuel comes into the tent and begins doing a ceremony that he says will make him and Elizabeth husband and wife. At this point, for the first time since being captured, Elizabeth screams out that this is not what she wants. She doesn't want to get married to this guy. She doesn't want any of this. And he immediately grabs her and says that if she ever screams out like that again, that he will kill her.

And, of course, because this is the way this story goes and this terrible man is like this, Emmanuel says that they now have to consummate the marriage, and Elizabeth survives what would be the first of an unthinkable number of rapes.

I feel absolutely no need to go into any further detail about the sexual abuse that Elizabeth Smart endured, but after reading her books and listening to countless interviews and speeches that she has given, it truly sounds unbearable, and it is absolutely something that no one should ever have to endure.

But after Elizabeth finally fell asleep after what has to be the worst night of her life at this point, she woke up to Emmanuel tying a metal cord around her ankle and saw that the other end was tied to a large tree. So the possibility of Elizabeth trying to run was absolutely out of the question.

At this point, she was trapped literally just over three miles from her home with no foreseeable way to get back to her family.

And the search parties were so close to finding her. Elizabeth even says that she remembers one time being in the camp and she heard one of these search parties and what sounded like her uncle calling out her name. But she was immediately threatened to not speak or a manual would kill her and every person that entered the camp to try to find her. So again, she stayed silent and the search party just passed right over them.

There is no denying that Elizabeth Smart's case got an immense amount of media exposure almost right away. I mean, the story was absolutely everywhere. And the Salt Lake City Police Department was not shy about going to the media to ask for help to find Elizabeth.

However, it is important to note that the family actually wanted to run to the media the second she went missing, and the police actually instructed them to wait at least three hours before doing so, which I have to say feels extremely counterproductive as situations like this are kind of exactly why Amber Alerts exist. So you guys know I had to do some digging and find out why an Amber Alert wasn't immediately issued for Elizabeth.

And I found that at this time, Utah actually didn't have an Amber Alert system, but they had something very similar. Just two months before Elizabeth went missing, Utah did in fact enact something that they called the Rachel Alert after Rachel Runyon was abducted and murdered. The criteria was very similar to an Amber Alert and is as follows. One, the child must be assumed kidnapped. Okay, check.

2. The child must be 15 years or younger or have a proven mental disability. Check. 3. The child must be in imminent danger of serious injury or death. Okay, check. She was led away with someone by a gun, or at least that's what we believe at this point. And 4. There must be information provided to aid the police like a description of the abductor, the abductor's vehicle, or the last known location of the child.

Absolutely check. Mary Catherine had a more solid description of this man than a lot of people, and combined with Elizabeth's picture, I think that an immediate alert may have been extremely helpful. They did eventually put out the alert three and a half hours after Elizabeth was reported missing.

And this was actually the first time that the system was ever used. And unfortunately, it seemed like it wasn't really set up right to get this alert to the media properly because some of Utah's radio stations didn't even get the alert.

The police would later tell the media that there were some obvious bugs in the system that they needed to work out. But I will truly never understand the significance of waiting three hours, the literal three hours that usually mean life or death when children are kidnapped, but...

Anyway, the day after she was kidnapped, the police came to Ed and Lois Smart and said someone from the family needs to go on TV and make a statement. Someone needs to start going to the media. And with Lois still absolutely beside herself, Ed decided he would do it and goes on television in tears, begging for his daughter back.

Pretty quickly, they both start doing as much media as possible, and honestly, it's pretty heart-wrenching to see and hear them speak out during those first few days. And as Ed and Lois were doing as much media as possible, there were literally lines of people volunteering to help find Elizabeth.

There was this huge command center set up, and volunteers were shown a pair of pajamas that looked similar to the pair Elizabeth was wearing when she was kidnapped. They were given flyers and told to look everywhere.

According to a 2002 special for the Arizona Republic, reporter Bruce Smith and his wife Karen joined the search efforts for Elizabeth and were instructed to knock on doors and ask about suspicious activity in the area, stating that they, quote, not only knocked on doors, but did some other sleuthing usually reserved for detectives or police. We were told to look in dumpsters, under cars, in the bushes, in vacant sheds, for other

anything that might help the police find Elizabeth or the person who kidnapped her. End quote. But in addition to this pretty intense volunteer force of people going door to door collecting information, there were also people who came out and grilled hamburgers, there were people who dropped off pizzas. It seemed like the community really just wanted to help in whatever way they could.

But no matter how hard they looked, the days continued to pass and there was no sign of Elizabeth. Within two weeks, the police actually received almost 10,000 tips, and 1,300 of those tips were flagged to be followed up on, and two weeks in, 900 had already been cleared.

But in addition to just accepting leads, they were of course trying to generate them as well. So the police go back to Ed and Lois and ask them who was working around your home when Elizabeth went missing? Who was around you guys? And they come back with a list of about 60 people that were coming in and out of their home around the time that Elizabeth went missing.

The police also call in a pretty famous FBI sketch artist named Jean Boylan, who is known for her sketches of the Unabomber and Oklahoma City Bomber, to work with Mary Catherine and develop a sketch of the person who took Elizabeth, but they decide not to release this sketch to the public. However, there was something that the police were very willing to release, and that was their suspicions of Richard Recy.

This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by CB Distillery. If you're anything like me, my medicine cabinet was filled with things that just didn't help me. I still couldn't sleep, I was still in pain, and I was still stressed out. So I gave CB Distillery a try, and it has been a real change. And in two non-clinical surveys, 81% of customers experienced more calm.

and 90% said that they slept better with CBD, and I'm a part of that 90%. I've had trouble sleeping for most of my life, and after trying every tea, every pill that I could get my hands on, CBD distilleries' deep sleep gummies have actually worked for me. It not only helps me fall asleep, but it helps me stay asleep, which has been my big problem in the past.

So if you struggle with a health concern and haven't found relief, make the change like I did to CB Distillery. And with over 2 million customers and a solid 100% money-back guarantee, CB Distillery is the source to trust. I have a 20% discount to get you started. Visit cbdistillery.com and use code JUSTICE for 20% off. That's cbdistillery.com, code JUSTICE. cbdistillery.com.

I'm not going to lead you on. Richard Riese is not the man that kidnapped Elizabeth Smart, and in my opinion, the police focus on Riese almost derailed the entire case, so I'd rather you know that up front. But Richard Riese is another man that did odd jobs for the Smart family around their home. He had a history of theft,

and after he was found stealing a perfume bottle and some jewelry from the Smart home around June 6, 2001, an entire year before Elizabeth was kidnapped, he was fired by Ed Smart, so I can see there being a possible motive of revenge. But the Smart family didn't even press charges on Richard Recy at the time. However, on June 4, 2001,

2002, Richard Recy was conveniently arrested for this crime after speaking with the police about where he was the night Elizabeth was kidnapped. According to Recy and his wife, he was at home sleeping all night, but the police weren't buying it. And during his interrogation, they were pretty rough with him, to the point where he begins crying and pleading with them, insisting that he was innocent.

But they pretty much just lock the door and throw away the key with these theft charges and a violation of probation charge so that they can continue to question him. And by June 24th, the police went to the media to announce that Recy had been interviewed several times and given a polygraph test, but that he was not an official suspect. They obtained a search warrant for his home, and by the 26th, the police were in front of a grand jury discussing the case.

And while the police were building their case against Recy, the media was going absolutely crazy with every detail of this story. Elizabeth's case really had everything needed to make for a huge media storm. The seemingly perfect-looking family, a beautiful young girl who was taken at gunpoint, and

an entire community on the lookout for her. There was an anonymous letter sent to the family. The media began talking about members of the family failing polygraph tests and looking suspicious. Ed Smart literally collapses and is hospitalized at one point. They are pointing fingers at people that were seen driving in their neighborhood. This is just one of those cases that the media could not get enough of as everything was unfolding.

But as the weeks go by, leads begin drying up, and most of what was going around the media was just speculation about what people thought could have happened to Elizabeth.

And as time went by, Elizabeth was still being abused every single day. But she was afforded some freedoms and was eventually able to walk around camp freely. And to be honest, it seemed like she was given so little food and water that her being able to hike back the three miles home while she was dehydrated and starving didn't seem very plausible anyway.

One huge issue with this camp being in the mountains was literally just getting enough food and water to keep everyone alive. And in the first few weeks that Elizabeth was being held captive, Emmanuel was the only person that would leave camp and go to town to get this food and water. He would beg for money, but also just steal what they needed. Sometimes he would be gone for days while Elizabeth and Hepzibah stayed at the camp literally dehydrated and starving.

He would come back with some food and water and some alcohol that he would force Elizabeth to drink, and a few days later, he would repeat this process. But about six weeks after Elizabeth was kidnapped, so around the beginning of August, Hepzibah becomes pretty irritated with this process, and she insists that they all be allowed to go into the city. And surprisingly, Emmanuel agrees.

So they make Elizabeth wear a white veil over her face to disguise her, and they all start making trips into the city to beg for money. And one day, they were all in a grocery store when a cashier invites them to a house party that night. And again, surprisingly, Emmanuel says, why not? So all three of them go to this huge house party filled with performance artists, there were fire spinners in the backyard, people were passing around homemade alcohol, and there were just a ton of people there.

But of course, right away, Emmanuel starts making a scene. He's bumming beers, he's drinking a jar of homemade absinthe, and a man actually pulls Elizabeth aside, thinking that she's just in some type of terrible romantic relationship with this man. And he tells her, listen, you've got to get away from this guy. He's bad news.

But Elizabeth doesn't really respond. She was just kind of standing there lost. I don't think anyone really knew that this poor 14-year-old girl who had never been to a house party was not only there for the first time, extremely scared, but also being held captive by these crazy people. But pretty soon, the people at the party have had enough of Emmanuel's behavior and they all get kicked out.

When I reached this part about the party and about them going into town, how Elizabeth was literally just standing on the corner of a city with about 1 million people at that time, I was stunned. How could Elizabeth interact with so many people, from begging to money to going to the grocery store, and now this party without anyone noticing her?

As everything Emmanuel said about not being caught no matter what he did began coming true, Elizabeth began thinking that she might never be rescued.

So I want to take a moment and address something about that here. Over the years, Elizabeth has received a lot of criticism about not running away and not speaking up when she was around other people. So I think it's important to note that according to Elizabeth, Emmanuel told her every single day that if she ran away or disobeyed him in any way, that he would go and kill her entire family that was just miles from where they were.

She never knew that if she actually did speak up, that she would really be able to get away, that anyone would believe her. She was terrified that if she did say something, she would just be sent right back with her captors. And again, everything Emmanuel was telling her would happen was happening. They were making all of these risky trips. They were seeing the police. All of these things were happening where Elizabeth should have been found, and she wasn't.

But the bottom line is that she was 14, petrified and doing what she needed to do to stay alive and in her mind, keep her family alive.

Not too long after this party, on July 23rd, 2002, Emmanuel begins discussing his mother and the Utah neighborhood that she lived in, and without thinking, Elizabeth chimes in that her female teenage cousin lives right near there. And for the first time since she was taken, Emmanuel isn't upset with her for talking about this life she had before him, but he actually smiles, and a bit later says to Elizabeth, listen.

I've had this revelation from God. He's told me that I need to go get your cousin and make her my next wife. Elizabeth, of course, pleads with him and asks him not to, but he was set on his mission.

So he actually grabs the same knife that he took Elizabeth with and starts heading down the mountain towards her cousin's home. Around 3am, now on the morning of July 24th, he somehow finds Elizabeth's cousin's house and tries to get in the same way he did at Elizabeth's house. He goes to a window, he cuts the screen, and he tries to creep through.

However, the family actually had a bunch of picture frames set up along the windowsill, so when he was trying to get into the house, he ends up knocking a bunch of them down and making a ton of noise. So Elizabeth's aunt wakes up to investigate and sees this object sticking through the metal blinds, and she screams and Emmanuel runs.

The family releases their dog, who is a very good boy, and goes right to the cousin's window and to the back fence, barking like crazy. Of course, the parents call the police and say, listen, we are related to Elizabeth Smart. Someone just tried to break in, cutting the screen, going through the window in the same way. We think this could be related.

But the police say they don't think so, that it was probably just a prank. But they do set up a $3,000 reward for information, but nothing really comes of it, and Emmanuel just gets away again.

Near the end of August, Emmanuel realizes that they won't survive a winter in the Utah mountains with the gear that they have, and he begins making plans to move the camp to California. But the issue is, he doesn't have a map or the internet to actually guide him to California. So on August 27th, he takes everyone to a library in Salt Lake City to look at some maps and plan their route to San Diego.

But while they were at the library, someone recognizes them and calls the Salt Lake City Police Department, and the police jump on this and immediately send out a detective.

And this detective actually gets there in time to approach Elizabeth and her captors. He says he is a homicide detective and needs to ask them a few questions. He also says specifically that he is looking for a missing girl, but he never says Elizabeth's name. But obviously, everyone is freaking out, and at this time, Hepzibah actually puts her hand on Elizabeth's leg and squeezes it hard, as a reminder that she better stay quiet.

They all give this story about Elizabeth being Emmanuel's daughter, but the detective outright asks if he can see Elizabeth's face without her veil just to confirm. But Emmanuel refuses, saying that it's against his religion and that only he and his daughter's husband will ever see her face. And the detective apparently takes this at face value and leaves. He doesn't call for backup, he doesn't try to separate Elizabeth from them, he doesn't try to follow them, he just walks away.

At this point in the investigation, both the Smart family and the police were publicly begging for people to come forward with tips and to call these in. And someone literally sees Elizabeth, calls it in, and without truly knowing if this is Elizabeth or not, this detective just leaves it alone.

Now, I understand not infringing on someone's religious rights by making Elizabeth remove her veil, but I truly do not understand how that detective left that library unsure if that was Elizabeth or not, and didn't at least follow them back home to, you know, maybe make sure she wasn't being chained up at some strange camp in the middle of the mountains.

And after this incident, Emmanuel was cockier than ever, and Elizabeth's worst fears that he could literally get away with almost anything were becoming a reality. This man was all but flaunting the fact that he was holding Elizabeth Smart captive. Now, this was a pretty eventful day, because on that same day, the police's number one investigative lead, Richard Recy, actually suffers a brain hemorrhage and goes into a coma.

The police and family go to the media to say that they need Richard Recy to live, that he is a vital part of this investigation. But three days later, Recy passes away.

And the police investigation just kind of stalls at this point. They have pretty much eliminated the family and the other workers from inside of their home, and the police are just convinced that Richard Recy was the man that took Elizabeth. So now that he was dead, they really just kind of wanted to close the case and accept that Elizabeth probably would not be recovered alive. And at this point, the family is pretty stuck as well.

On September 27, 2002, Emmanuel again has another close call with the police. He is actually arrested for shoplifting about $50 worth of groceries from an Albertsons in Salt Lake City, but he convinces the police to let him go.

But again, as winter is approaching and all of these close calls are happening, Emmanuel has had enough, and by October 7th, he is able to save enough money to buy bus tickets for all of them to get to San Diego, California. Once they get to San Diego, they hop on a city bus to the end of the line in Lakeside, California, and they end up walking to another area out in nature to set up camp.

And Elizabeth would describe this camp as looking like the fire swamp from Princess Bride. It was kind of dusty and dirty, and it just wasn't a nice place to be. At this point, Elizabeth actually begins voluntarily drinking more alcohol with them to numb the pain, and she begins using sleep as a coping mechanism. She has stated that she was really just trying to pass the time until she could get away or be rescued.

But then one of the largest breaks in this case happens on October 12th, when Elizabeth's sister Mary Catherine talks to her dad and says, "'I remember who took Elizabeth. It was that man we saw downtown, that man that mom gave money to and that came to work on the roof with you.'" She says, "'Dad, Emmanuel took Elizabeth.'"

This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by June's Journey. June's Journey is a hidden object mystery game, and you step into the role of June Parker and search for hidden clues to uncover the mystery of her sister's murder. Basically, you engage your observation skills to quickly uncover key pieces of information that lead to chapters of mystery, danger, and romance.

Throughout your investigation, you also customize your very own luxurious estate island. You collect scraps of information to fill your photo album and learn more about each character. But my favorite part is chatting and playing with or against other players by joining a detective club and putting my skills to the test in a detective league.

So, there's kind of two times that I find myself playing June's Journey. One is kind of throughout the day when I just need like a little decompression break, I play a few scenes and get back to work. Or more often than not, when I'm laying down for the night, I tend to play then too. For me, it's a nice way to unwind, decompress, and get lost in a mystery. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

So of course, Elizabeth's parents are super excited about this breakthrough, and they go to the police and tell them what Mary Catherine said.

But the police are still stuck on Richard Recy. They say, listen, Mary Catherine was wrong about a lot of things in the past. The likelihood that she's correct now is pretty low. This guy isn't even on our list, and we are pretty sure we have our guy. We are pretty sure that Richard Recy killed your daughter and probably buried her in the desert. We really think that it's time that you hold a memorial and accept this probability.

Despite being pretty frank with the family that they didn't think this was the guy, they do look into a manual and create another composite sketch, but they urge the Smart family to not go public with this new revelation stating that they didn't want to scare this guy away.

But more time goes by, and nothing is happening with this new information. At one point, the police tell the family that the chief of police won't believe that Richard Recy didn't commit this crime until Elizabeth walks up and tells him that. One advocate that was really there for the Smart family during all of this was John Walsh.

If you don't know who John Walsh is, he has a really long history in the true crime space, but to keep it short, his son was kidnapped and he later went on to be one of the founders of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He hosted America's Most Wanted and continues to advocate in this space today. But needless to say, John Walsh was an amazing advocate to have on their side, and in my opinion, he changed this case forever.

So Ed Smart reaches out to John Walsh and says, listen, the police seem really stuck on this Richard Recy guy, and they refuse to go public with this new information from Mary Catherine. Even my wife Lois is considering just letting them close the case with Recy's death. What should I do? And John Walsh admits the stats are against you. But if you want me to speak out about this to the media, I need some type of new information to present.

So on December 23, 2002, John Walsh goes on Larry King to discuss this new information. Their young daughter has now said that she believes that Reese wasn't the guy in there that night, that it may have been another guy that did some work on their room. And about a month later, on February 3, 2003, the family does a press conference against the wishes of the Salt Lake City Police Department to further push this information forward.

And they decide to release the composite sketch of the man that they believe took Elizabeth. And this risk paid off big time because two weeks after this press conference, a couple named Tom and Lisa Holbrook were having breakfast and Tom is reading a newspaper article about this press conference and his jaw drops.

He reads this description of Emmanuel and he turns to his wife and says, you have to see this. And Lisa says, oh my gosh, do you think this could be my brother Brian? And thank goodness, Lisa calls this tip into the police and says, listen, I just read this article and I think Emmanuel is actually my brother, Brian David Mitchell, who is in his late 40s. And he's probably with his wife, Wanda Barzee, who is in her late 50s.

They provide pictures and video for the police to review, and they seem to cooperate fully. So at this point, Detective Corden Parks of the Salt Lake City Police Department runs Brian David Mitchell's name and finds that he was arrested for shoplifting at an Albertsons in Salt Lake City back in August.

He goes down to the store and they actually have a picture of him from the arrest. Kind of one of those things where the store takes a picture and posts it for the employees to be aware that he isn't allowed back in the store.

And thank goodness that they took this picture of Brian David Mitchell, because this gave Detective Parks the most recent picture of him. So he takes this photo, along with photos from their family, and creates this flyer for Brian and Wanda with the word WANTED across the top.

He puts this flyer right where everyone at the police station can see it, but his superiors kind of freak out and say take it down and move it to where only detectives can see this, and you need to change the heading of that flyer from wanted to wanted for questioning.

So about a week later, back at the camp near Lakeside, California, Emmanuel, or Brian David Mitchell as we now know him, goes to town to get food and water. But this time, he's gone longer than ever. So Elizabeth and Hepzibah, or Wanda Barzee as we now know her, are left out in the middle of nowhere with no food and no water for days. And Elizabeth is certain that she is going to die.

She said that at this point, she actually made peace with everything. She was grateful for the life that she had before, and she was ready to go to heaven. But then, miraculously, it starts to rain, and they were able to collect some rainwater and survive. Elizabeth has stated that she took this rain as a sign that she was meant to live, that she was meant to survive through this situation.

Pretty soon after this incident, Brian does eventually come back to camp. He walks in with half a bucket of KFC, laughing about how he was arrested on February 12th. This time, it was for breaking into a church, but because the Salt Lake City Police Department didn't feel like putting any type of alert on Brian David Mitchell's name that he was wanted for questioning, after a few days, he appears in front of a judge and is released back into the public once again.

But of course, without this cooperation from the police, John Walsh and Elizabeth's family continue to press on with getting this information out to the public. And a few days later, on February 16th, John Walsh presents the information about Brian David Mitchell on the television show America's Most Wanted. And the leads start pouring in.

Brian David Mitchell's ex-wife actually calls into the show and says, Hey, that's my ex-husband. He goes by the name Emmanuel and literally kidnapped our two children at one point. He molested his stepdaughter, and he and his wife Wanda are very dangerous. Even Wanda's kids start to come out and say, That is Brian David Mitchell, and we believe that he could have taken Elizabeth smart.

In addition to these people coming forward with information, they start getting more credible sightings of Brian, Wanda, and Elizabeth. It seems like the entire world believed that this man could be involved. And Elizabeth's family had so much hope that she was out there alive somewhere. But the police were still hesitant and insistent that the case closed with the death of Richard Reesey.

It's around this time that the media storm really started taking off about Brian David Mitchell that he starts discussing moving them very far away, to a large city on the east coast like Boston or New York. But Elizabeth realizes immediately that the further away from Utah she gets, the less likely it is that she will be found.

So, she uses some reverse psychology on Mitchell and says, listen, I know this might sound crazy, but I actually got a revelation from God myself, and he's telling me that we need to go back to Salt Lake City to get your third wife. I really think if you ask God, he'll tell you the same thing. And Mitchell actually listens to her, goes along with it, and they start making a plan to get back to Salt Lake City.

But bus tickets were expensive, so this time they planned on hitchhiking. And they didn't really want to do that in their white robes, that they felt kind of stuck out and might deter people from wanting to pick them up. And after Elizabeth's experience at the party and with the detective at the library, they actually kind of

trusted her to not say anything when they were around other people. So they get rid of their white robes and the veil over Elizabeth's face and they put her in clothes that blended in a bit more and got her a pair of cheap sunglasses and a terrible gray curly very fake looking wig to disguise her.

On March 12, 2003, the Salt Lake City Tribune ran a news story with the headline, quote, Smarts Frustrated with Police Progress, end quote. That same day, after hitchhiking for several days, Elizabeth, Wanda, and Brian scraped together the money to take a bus the rest of the way to Salt Lake City, and they end up hanging around Sandy, a city about 10 miles south of Salt Lake.

But once they get there, the police immediately start getting calls from people saying that they recognize them. One call came from Trevelyn Colliani, a man who saw them eating at a Burger King. He told CNN that she looked frightened and nervous, and he just couldn't shake the look he saw on Elizabeth's face, so that's why he made this call to police. And two other calls came from women who just saw the trio walking down the street.

One woman called the police directly, and one woman said that her husband actually told her to not get involved, that it really wasn't their business. But thank goodness she didn't listen to him, and she called in the tip to America's Most Wanted anyway. Because not too long after these tips were submitted, the police actually surround Elizabeth, Brian, and Wanda as they are leaving a Walmart.

And thank goodness this time they actually separate Elizabeth from Brian and Wanda to speak with her alone. But Elizabeth is still terrified that Brian might hear her. I mean, this has happened before, and every single time she leaves with her captors. So she sticks to her story. She says that Brian is her father, that Wanda is her stepmother, and that she came here from Florida to be with them.

But this time, again, thank goodness, the police are insistent and they say outright, listen, we know that you are Elizabeth Smart. They even grab a flyer with Elizabeth's picture on it, put it up to her face and say, we know you are this girl. But Brian was still in earshot, so she continues to deny it. At this point, the police are kind of over it and they're like, okay, we're arresting everyone, you're all being handcuffed, we're putting everyone in separate cars and taking you all down to the station.

And right before they put Elizabeth into the car, an officer turns to her and says, this is your last chance to tell us that you're Elizabeth Smart to end all of this. And they ask again, are you Elizabeth Smart? And Elizabeth racks her brain for a way to communicate with the police without Brian suspecting her. So she tries to stay in this character that she's expected to play and just says the words, quote, thou sayest, end quote.

This is kind of an old time way of saying, yes, exactly what you said. So the police are like, okay, this is good enough for us. This is absolutely Elizabeth Smart.

In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that

Everyone has a different version of events. Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

They are all taken to the station. Brian and Wanda are booked, and after some time, Elizabeth is sitting alone in an interrogation room, I'm sure absolutely terrified. And suddenly, the door busts open, and her father just runs to her, hugging her and asking her if it's really Elizabeth, and they just continue to hug and to cry, and it's at this point that Elizabeth finally felt safe for the first time in nine months.

After this, Elizabeth is reunited with her entire family, and John Walsh flies out the same night to meet her. Of course, Elizabeth goes through a set of interviews with the police, and Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee are held on these charges for their crimes against Elizabeth. Her parents go to the media to thank everyone for their efforts, but they decide to keep Elizabeth out of the public eye to give her time to heal.

Elizabeth now commends her parents for not forcing her into a hospital or therapy, and just allowing her to take time to process this terrible thing that happened to her. After she was returned to her family, and before the trial against her captors began, Elizabeth actually went back to a relatively normal life. She slept in her old room literally that night, began going to school, and engaging in social activities.

Although there were bumps along the way, by all accounts, it seemed like she had a pretty smooth transition back to being a normal teenager. But unfortunately, justice wasn't exactly swift in this case. This was largely due to Brian David Mitchell acting insane in interviews and going back to prison acting completely normal, so the courts had to evaluate and re-evaluate his competency to stand trial several times.

And it wouldn't be until 2010, literally eight years after Elizabeth was first taken by Brian and Wanda, that they would finally go to trial for their horrific crimes against Elizabeth.

Ultimately, Brian David Mitchell pled not guilty, but was convicted of interstate kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor with the intent to engage in sexual activity, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and is currently being held in Arizona.

Wanda Barzee pled guilty to kidnapping and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. She was actually released in 2016, but then promptly re-arrested for her involvement in the attempted kidnapping of Elizabeth's cousin. But after a mix-up of how many years of her time served was applicable to her sentence, she was ultimately released in September of 2018, much to the dismay of Elizabeth.

After researching this case, I truly feel that a large combination of efforts resulted in Elizabeth being found. Of course, I cannot and will not downplay how Elizabeth handled the situation so well. She was incredibly smart to do what she needed to do to stay alive, but also to get them all back to Salt Lake City.

Had Brian and Wanda taken her to the East Coast as was planned, I truly don't think that she would have been found. And of course, the reason people knew to be on the lookout for Brian and Elizabeth in the first place was because of the immense bravery and persistence shown by her parents. They literally defied the police and partnered with John Walsh to release this new information on major media outlets like Larry King and America's Most Wanted.

If it weren't for that combination of efforts, again, I don't think Elizabeth would have been found.

And I cannot discount Detective Corden Parks from the Salt Lake City Police Department, who made that flyer of Brian and Wanda and was a pain in the butt to his superiors. It seems like he was doing everything he could to make the people with the power to further this theory listen. But ultimately, they never really did, which is why I find this story of survival, this story of hope, so powerful.

All odds were against Elizabeth and her family. Every statistic, and even the police were telling them that there is no way this kid is still alive. But they had hope, and they kept pushing the information they believed would ultimately lead to Elizabeth coming home. And it worked.

But overall, this case was very much solved by people coming forward with information. Mary Catherine not being afraid to say what she remembered, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee's family coming forward to say what they knew, and of course, just those three regular people who thought they recognized a missing child and her captor and took the extra step to call it in. That is why I wanted to tell you the story of Elizabeth Smart.

Because I wanted to remind you that you can all make a difference in these cases. So I hope that in addition to telling Elizabeth's incredible story, I have also instilled some hope in you that your one share of one picture of Alicia Navarro of Dulce Oliva's Missy Beavers police video, just your one share could lead to the right person coming forward with the exact information the police need to finally get a break in that case.

And I'm not the only person that believes in this crazy theory that we can go beyond listening to these stories and actually help them. John Walsh and his son Callahan Walsh continue to work in the true crime advocacy space, and Elizabeth Smart now has an amazing career as a speaker and a victim's advocate.

And I do want to take a moment and send so much love and gratitude to Elizabeth Smart. Honestly, I was really torn over covering this story because I don't feel like it's mine to tell, and she has done an amazing job telling it herself. So I do highly recommend reading her books, My Story and Where There's Hope.

which will be linked in the show notes. And I also encourage you to check out her podcast called Smart Talks, where she features other stories of survival and hope.

But ultimately, I hope that by telling you this story, it has inspired you like it has inspired me to take that one extra step to help these true crime cases that we discuss on this podcast. And if you guys would like to see me cover more inspiring solved cases in between our cases in need of justice, please head over to my social media and let me know.

I, for one, really enjoyed this reminder that true crime can be so much more than just listening to these tragic stories. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

Voices for Justice is hosted, produced, and edited by me, Sarah Turney. For more information about the podcast, to see my resources, or to check out these cases in need of your help to share their photo to share this media, check out VoicesForJusticePodcast.com. If you did enjoy this episode, if you do enjoy my podcast in general, please leave a rating and review in your podcast player. It really helps more people find these cases.

And for even more content, you can join the Voices for Justice Patreon family for just $5 a month at patreon.com slash voices for justice.