Netflix’s new documentary Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart unpacks the nine-month search for the Salt Lake City teen after she was abducted from her home by Brian David Mitchell in the middle of the night.
When Elizabeth Smart was found on March 12, 2003, nine months after she was abducted from her bedroom in the middle of the night by Brian David Mitchell, her rescue was hailed as nothing short of divine intervention.
“My brain was just going 100 miles an hour, and I just said, ‘Elizabeth, is it really you?'” her father Ed Smart said, recalling the moment he was reunited with his eldest daughter in the new Netflix documentary Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, premiering Jan. 21. “And then she goes, ‘Yes, Dad.’ And I held my miracle in my arms.”
The details of what happened to Elizabeth are well-known, not least because the now-38-year-old mother of three has been sharing her story for years as part of her advocacy for fellow victims of sexual violence. Mitchell, meanwhile, is serving a life sentence in federal prison for kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines for sexual activity.
But as the harrowing tale unfolds in the doc—as recounted by Elizabeth, Ed, uncles Dave Smart and Tom Smart, sister Mary Katherine Smart (who at 9 years old was the only witness to her sibling’s abduction) and cops who worked the case—Kidnapped is a chilling reminder of how it all could have gone another way.
“After I was rescued, when I first got home, I did not want to talk about what happened with anyone,” Elizabeth 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.”
In addition to Elizabeth’s firsthand account, Kidnapped revisits the fraught days after she was taken, including the suspicion directed at the 14-year-old’s family, why investigators lost hope of finding her, and the clash between the Smarts and law enforcement that prompted the missing girl’s parents to take matters into their own hands.
Noticeably missing from the documentary, however, is Elizabeth’s mother Lois Smart, who divorced Ed in 2019.
“My mom, she played a huge part in helping me process what happened,” Elizabeth explained in the film. “But now she’s ready to leave it in the past.”
Which is understandable, considering how tense and upsetting those nine months were during which her daughter was missing—and seemingly everyone both wanted to find the teen and point fingers at the same time. Here are the biggest revelations from Netflix’s Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart:
Investigators Looked Closely at Elizabeth Smart’s FamilyAfter Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her family’s Salt Lake City home on June 5, 2002, police had to consider the possibility of a domestic incident.”They looked like a happy, normal family,” police captain CoryLyman, a lead investigator on the case, said in the 2026 Netflix documentary Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart. “But statistically, more often than not, the perpetrator of this type of crime is a parent or a family member. So we started looking very hard at them.”They conducted “in-depth interviews,” he recalled, and investigators seized 12 computers from the sprawling Smart family.Noting that the alarm wasn’t on and he didn’t see scuff marks where a chair was propped outside under an open kitchen window, Lyman remembered thinking “maybe this wasn’t the point of entry, maybe it was a staged one. Somebody cut the screen after the fact and maybe didn’t come and go through the window.”Police said they found nothing suspicious on the family’s devices or in their emails, father Ed Smart passed a polygraph test, and ultimately all of Elizabeth’s relatives were cleared.Elizabeth Smart’s Dad Was Committed to a Psychiatric Ward After Her Abduction”To have your daughter go missing is horrendous,” Ed said in Kidnapped. “And then to be a possible suspect, I was beyond words.”When his then-wife Lois Smart—with whom he shares six children—told him that the police thought he was hiding something, Ed continued, “I was overwhelmed to the point that I was shaking, and I couldn’t stop shaking.”Ed recalled his father telling him, “‘If you don’t calm down, I’m going to commit you.’ He took me over to the hospital and put me in the psychiatric ward. And I cried that whole night.”How Elizabeth Smart’s Uncle Tom Smart Became a Distraction in the CaseEd’s brother Tom Smart was one of the public faces of the investigation early on, frequently speaking to the media and demanding action from the cops.After it was reported that his polygraph results were inconclusive, coupled with his “really jittery” behavior, brother Dave Smart recalled in Kidnapped, people started asking if Tom was hiding something.Looking back at an interview in which he seemingly expressed sympathy for whomever had taken Elizabeth, saying “we understand everyone has issues,” and called the case “a wonderful story in a lot of ways, because it’s about, foremost, a beautiful little angelic girl,” Tom acknowledged in the Netflix doc that he didn’t come off great.”Anybody who watches that interview will think, ‘Tom Smart is a crazy son of a b–ch, and maybe he did do it,'” he said. “We came out of that interview and my wife turns to me and says, ‘You f–ked the family.'”At the time, Tom explained, he was exhausted and didn’t care how he sounded.”Finding Elizabeth was the only important thing,” he said. “We were never waiting for them to tell us we were cleared. I mean, who gives a s–t? We knew we were clear.”Police Found a Girl’s Remains During the Search for Elizabeth SmartAt one point, remains of a female victim were found and Lyman had to alert Ed and Lois that there was a possibility they belonged to Elizabeth.”A girl’s body, burnt beyond description, so she could not be recognized,” Ed said, remembering the call. “I tried to shield myself from the raw emotion till it was confirmed.”While the body turned out to be “another poor victim,” Lyman said, “it hurt to watch [the Smarts] suffer.”Ed recalled, “I felt such a relief, but your mind was just constantly going, ‘Where is she? What’s happening to her?'”Elizabeth Smart’s Sister Mary Katherine Was Isolated While Assisting the InvestigationMary Katherine Smart was sharing a bedroom with Elizabeth when her sister was kidnapped and, as the only witness to the crime, the 9-year-old was interviewed repeatedly by authorities.And because they wanted her memories to remain uninfluenced by outside information, she was closed off from what was consuming her family at the time.”I was on my own lonely island, if you will, wanting to know, trying to sneak and hear tidbits of things that happened, but people shutting me out,” Mary Katherine said in the Netflix doc. “I tried to remember who it was who’d taken Elizabeth. I knew I’d heard the voice, I just couldn’t remember where I’d heard it from. I wanted to help in any way that I could…They even tried to hypnotize me at one point. But there was pressure from everyone…It was a lot for a 9-year-old.” Police Thought They’d Never Find Elizabeth Smart After Suspect Died in CustodyRichard Ricci, a contractor who’d done some work at the Smart home, was arrested for an unrelated parole violation on June 14, 2002.After police found some of Lois’ jewelry in Ricci’s possession, he was charged with burglary and became the prime suspect in Elizabeth’s abduction.As seen in police interview footage, Ricci denied knowing anything about the kidnapping. Yet he also refused to explain how he’d put several hundred miles on his Jeep within a day of her being taken.Meanwhile, after seeing him on the news, Mary Katherine maintained that the man who’d been in their bedroom that night was not Ricci.Then, on July 24, 2002, an attempted break-in was reported at the home of Elizabeth’s aunt and uncle. Police found a hole in the window screen and two chairs outside their 18-year-old daughter’s room.Still, police thought they were close to cracking thecase. “Desperate” for answers, Lyman recalled in the doc, they offered Ricci immunity if he could help find Elizabeth—on condition that he wasn’t guilty of kidnapping or homicide. But Ricci suffered a brain aneurysm in jail and died on Aug. 27, 2002.”I was sick to my stomach,” Lyman said. “Our most likely suspect died. Everything he knew was gone with him. And it left us at a dead end that was very difficult. As law enforcement, you do set an emotional wall, and that wall started to erode for me.”Mary Katherine Smart Recalled the Exact Moment She Figured Out Who Kidnapped ElizabethFrightened to go to sleep after her sister was kidnapped, Mary Katherine would wait for her father to tuck her in at night. “One particular night, four months after she was taken,” Mary Katherine said in the doc, “I was flipping through the [book of] Guinness World Records, and for some random reason, in that moment, the name popped into my head.”She suddenly remembered the name Emmanuel—which was what drifter and self-anointed prophet Brian David Mitchell called himself while doing odd jobs around town, including for the Smart family.Elizabeth Smart Heard a Search Party Looking for HerMitchell abducted Elizabeth at knife point and brought her to an encampment in the mountains, where he lived with his wife Wanda Barzee. For awhile, hundreds of people searched for Elizabeth every day, scouring the terrain near her family’s home. And one day, they came close to finding her.”I remember faintly hearing my name,” Elizabeth said in Kidnapped. “It was faint but I could still hear it. Emmanuel took me inside the tent, pulled out his knife [and said] ‘If anyone comes into this camp, this is the knife I’m going to use to kill them, and it’ll be your fault.'””I only heard my name called a few times, and then it faded away,” she continued, “and I didn’t hear it again.”Elizabeth Smart’s Worst Memories From Her Kidnapping OrdealElizabeth said she was sexually assaulted countless times, as well as psychologically abused, by Mitchell while in captivity.”Being raped was horrific,” she said in Kidnapped, “but sometimes I also had to wonder if maybe listening to him wasn’t worse. He talked nonstop about how special he was, about how difficult these things that in any other circumstance would be wrong to do, and he didn’t want to do it, but he had to because God commanded him to.”In September 2002, Mitchell and Barzee brought Elizabeth to Lakeside, in San Diego County, and were talking about going all the way to New York or Boston.”I just remember sitting there listening, thinking if we go to any other big city, I don’t think I’ll ever be found,” Elizabeth recalled. She felt she had to speak up or all was lost, so she told Mitchell that she felt they were supposed to go back to Salt Lake City. Elizabeth said she was sure that, if Mitchell asked God, “he would confirm to you whether that was the right path and you truly are his prophet.””He turned to me and was like, ‘Oh, well, God is finally starting to work with you,'” Elizabeth recalled. “‘Now that you recognize your own nothingness, we are supposed to return to Salt Lake.'”Police Clashed With the Smart Family Over the Investigation Into EmmanuelWhile the Smart family thought Mary Katherine’s recollection about Emmanuel was the ultimate breakthrough, police were skeptical. “Her memory came under some disbelief on the part of investigators,” now-retired Salt Lake City Police Detective Cordon Parks said in the Netflix doc. “It was based on voice identification, which is evidence, but not considered great evidence.”Lyman concurred at the time, recalling, “I was not convinced. Emmanuel had not appeared on any of the lists of people we were investigating.”And law enforcement instructed the Smarts to not circulate a sketch of Emmanuel. “Our perception was,” Lyman explained, “if we went public with it, we could scare the perpetrator away. We knew a name, had a sketch.”But the Smarts held their own press conference and shared the information they had. That led to a tip about his real name from Mitchell’s own family, who provided more photos to circulate.And when Mitchell got off a bus in Sandy, Utah, with Elizabeth and Barzee, he was recognized upon arrival on March 12, 2003.”Thank goodness her family went contrary to the recommendations of the police department in terms of releasing a sketch,” Lyman said.Why Elizabeth Smart Didn’t Reveal Who She Was at First When She Was RescuedSandy City Police Sgt. Victor Quezada heard the dispatch about a sighting of Mitchell in his patrol car and then saw the man in question with two women, one of them noticeably younger than the other.”I was hesitant to believe it would turn out to be true,” he said in the doc.”He was so persistent,” Elizabeth said, describing how the cop kept asking her if she wanted to go home. “But my captors were just right there. I was terrified. I needed the safest answer I could possibly give.”Quezada said he finally told the girl, “For the sake of this nation and for your family, just tell me you’re Elizabeth. And she looked at me and said, ‘Thou sayeth.’ I’d never heard those words in my life. I said, ‘I’ll take that as a yes.'”Even when she was reunited with her dad at the police station, Elizabeth remembered not speaking right away.”It took me a minute to respond,” she said, “because I thought I was in trouble. But finally my dad was there and he was going to protect me, and no matter what happened, he wasn’t going to abandon me.”Where Is Brian David Mitchell Now?Mitchell pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but on Dec. 11, 2010, a jury found him guilty of kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines for sexual activity.He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In October 2025, the now-72-year-old was transferred from U.S. Penitentiary, Terre Haute to Federal Correctional Institution-Lewisburg, a medium-security facility in Pennsylvania, after being attacked several times behind bars, according to Indiana Public Media.Barzee, 79, pleaded guilty in 2009 to kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor in federal court, as well as one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping in state court. She was sentenced to 15 concurrent years in state and federal prison.”I am so sorry, Elizabeth, for all the pain and suffering I have caused you and your family,” she said in court upon entering her plea. “It is my hope that you will be able to find it in your heart to forgive me.”Despite objections from the Smart family, Barzee was released in September 2018.She was arrested in May 2025 after visiting public parks in Utah and charged with two counts of entering a protected area as a sex offender. In the meantime, per People, she was released on judicial orders and required to check in weekly with Salt Lake City Police. Where Is Elizabeth Smart Now?Elizabeth, an accomplished harp player, earned her bachelor’s degree in music from Brigham Young University.While on her Mormon mission in Paris, she met her future husband Matthew Gilmour, who’s originally from Scotland. They married on Feb. 18, 2012, in Hawaii and share three children.”As time passed,” Elizabeth said in Kidnapped, “I began speaking publicly about what happened. I just felt like it needs to serve a purpose, it needs to bring some good in the world.”In addition to public speaking, she has authored several books and produced films about her own and other kidnapping victims’ experiences.”I have good days, I have bad days,” she reflected. “But I developed a better relationship with myself. My inner voice has changed from, ‘You should’ve done this’ or ‘You could’ve done that,’ to ‘You’ll make it through this, you can finish this, you’re strong, keep going.'”
