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| Utah kidnap victim?s father tells of 9-month ordeal
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| By Nicole Saidi, For the Tribune |
| Ed Smart has made child safety the focus of his life since he endured the nine-month abduction of his daughter Elizabeth from his Salt Lake City home, giving up his real estate and financial careers. |
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Smart, 49, told his story Saturday to a rapt audience at the 2005 Arizona Women?s Expo at Phoenix Civic Plaza. The presentation was one of a handful of discussions Smart has been giving each month around the country for the past year.
On June 5, 2002, Brian David Mitchell, a transient who once helped work on the family home for a few hours, broke into the Smarts? home at night and abducted Elizabeth, now 17, from her room. Mitchell claimed to be a prophet and called himself "Emmanuel."
Between then and March 12, 2003, Elizabeth Smart lived in secrecy with Mitchell and a woman named Wanda Eileen Barzee.
Smart said his other daughter, Mary Katherine, had suddenly identified the captor as "Emmanuel," leading to Mitchell?s later arrest. When he was finally reunited with his daughter, he couldn?t believe what he was seeing.
"She looked like Elizabeth, but she had grown so much over those nine months that I couldn?t believe she had changed as much as she did," Smart said. "I said to her, ?Elizabeth, is it really you?? and she said, ?Yes, dad.? "
Smart said he is surprised at how well Elizabeth is adjusting to her return home.
"We?ve had counseling available to her," Smart said. "She has been a strong young woman and has moved on with her life. To me, I?m proud of her ability to go forward."
Smart suggested parents visit the Web site of a child self- defense organization called radKIDS to get involved in helping children resist abductions, and helped hand out inkless fingerprinting and DNA collection kits to ease the process of gathering information about disappeared children. The kits are available from the National Child Identification Program, in partnership with the FBI.
"In our situation, we weren?t prepared," Smart said. "(Police) were always trying to get fingerprints. We didn?t have that information to say, ?These are Elizabeth?s fingerprints.? "
Children should be educated about abductions in an age-appropriate way and feel comfortable about communicating problems with their parents, and all people should look at local sex-offender registries to get to know who lives in their area, Smart added.
"It goes beyond abductions," Smart said. "The number of women who are assaulted every year is horrendous."
Kathy Vestal, 45, of Mesa, said she had her daughter fingerprinted many years ago.
"It?s that one in a million child that vanishes," Vestal said. "If you?ve got the fingerprint identification of them, it?s that much sooner you can get started searching for them."
Jeanne Williams, 59, of Mesa, said it was sad to hear it happened in their own home.
"And you can?t do much to help, but the more information you have, the better," Williams said. |
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| Contact Nicole Saidi by telephone at () -. |
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