Episode 81 - Elizabeth Smart

0:15 Welcome back to Crime Besties to another really big episode today

0:20 it's a. Big 1 today I know, but I have

0:22 enjoyed researching it so me too.

0:24 Yeah, it's, it's a fascinating case in so many aspects.

0:29 And definitely, yeah, we were just talking before we hit

0:33 record that both of us have more notes than we've probably had in

0:36 a long time for an episode. So strap in.

0:38 Yeah. But this is one that I didn't

0:40 know about when it happened, which weirdly enough, I feel

0:42 like I must really go on to rock again sometimes that.

0:46 But I know I've, I've always known about this case, but I

0:50 didn't know all the details until I've done this research

0:52 this week. Really.

0:53 So this has all been a bit like, oh, now there's so many things

0:56 that'll make sense of like what I've known about it.

0:58 If, all right, dots have connected this week that I'm

1:00 like, wow, amazing. Everything together.

1:02 Yeah, it's amazing. It is.

1:04 Absolutely. It's a It's a crazy story.

1:07 Yes. Yeah, it's interesting.

1:09 But before we get into today's episode, let me know how your

1:12 week has been. What have you been up to?

1:14 Well, I know as. You said I'm like, Oh my God,

1:16 there is something I need to like say to everyone I need to

1:19 thank and I'm gonna I'm gonna have to find out who it was.

1:21 Now this is really gonna bug me because I need to thank the

1:24 amazing listener who gave me the best advice last week in our is

1:28 this. Cricket related advice.

1:30 Cricket related advice. I did see that.

1:32 I think I where was. It on Spotify itself I think

1:37 because I. Remember replying to it going

1:40 this is actual genius. Well, I read it going.

1:44 I've never heard this before and if this works well, but like I'm

1:49 I was still trepidatious going into it.

1:51 Kind of going really really. So tell me.

1:55 Oh my God. So Wednesday night, I didn't

1:57 have my kids at home. And I'm like, perfect time for

1:59 me to just give it a try calmly and, you know, see what happens.

2:03 So the thing was that I was advised was to stick the

2:05 freaking crickets in the fridge because they in the cold going

2:09 to like a dormant stage of, like, sleep.

2:12 Just love this. So I was like, how long do I

2:15 leave them in? And like, so she'd said, like,

2:17 like an hour or something like that.

2:18 Oh, wow. Yeah.

2:19 Which I was like, So we'll see. Half an hour.

2:22 Like, that's enough. You have enough patience to wait

2:26 an hour. I know.

2:26 So it was Jenkins, dot, AJ. OK.

2:30 Thank you. Thank you.

2:30 Thank you. So yeah.

2:32 So they, they do they, they, they I pull them out of the

2:34 fridge and I'm like, Oh my God. Opening the lid.

2:36 Go. Hold on, you put the entire

2:38 container? Yeah, in the fridge.

2:40 So they're all dopey as fuck when they when you get them out,

2:42 Yeah. So I open it kind of going, I

2:44 don't know, are they gonna leap out at me?

2:45 You know, and I'm carefully opening a lid, you know, going

2:47 I'm like, Oh my, no, you can just open the lid.

2:49 And they all look dead. Like they're, it's so weird.

2:52 And they're like laying there. I can have to go and get more

2:54 crickets now. I know a few of them are like,

2:56 you know, the legs are kind of twitching.

2:57 And so I'm like, OK, so they're not dead, but I was able to just

3:02 like pluck them out with my tweezer things and the tongs

3:04 that you use and like pluck them out to the other container and

3:06 shake that and give it a bit of a whip around and get the dust

3:08 on them. And then I just sat the

3:10 container for like 5-10 minutes and they all started waking up

3:14 and like jumping back around which I then just let them loose

3:16 in the in the enclosure and that's.

3:18 Amazing. My boys watched me do it last

3:21 night. I said some you watch me do this

3:22 tonight and then it then it is all on you.

3:25 Yeah, you can do this now. Won't be picking.

3:27 Crickets out of your lounge room for the next however long my

3:30 huh? For how long do Marshall?

3:32 I don't know, I feel like a long time.

3:36 Especially when they're really well cared for you.

3:38 Well, I said to the boys last night, this has actually made

3:40 made me like the frogs more. Like I can actually deal with

3:44 them now. Yeah, because it's, it was

3:46 always the crickets. I said that to Mason because

3:47 Mason's so obsessed with frogs. They are life to him.

3:51 And so when he said to me that's what he wanted for his birthday,

3:54 the only real thing that was really making me hesitate was

3:57 the fact that fucking dealing with crickets.

3:59 And but this has actually made it OK this.

4:02 Is a non issue. Yeah.

4:03 Oh, thank you, Jenkins. Thank you, Jenkins.

4:07 Oh, my God. I know they were blown away last

4:09 night. The boys.

4:10 They were just. They found it the best thing

4:11 ever. That's so.

4:12 Good. Yeah, So thank you.

4:14 Put him in the fridge. Put him in the fridge.

4:15 How good is that? I love, I love that our

4:17 community is coming together and helping us out with some life

4:20 and fun. So.

4:21 Many tips, but no, she saved my sanity.

4:25 I swear to God because I was so sick I was actually getting the

4:27 itches like throughout the day kind of going.

4:28 I feel like this cricket's on me bad so thank you so.

4:32 When you hear about, like, people having lice, yes, please

4:36 or something, and it just makes us yeah, yeah, yeah.

4:40 It had been like I was sitting watching TV because that's when

4:42 we were, we'd done it one night and the creates had jumped out

4:44 everywhere and I jumped on four or more of them.

4:48 I collected them and I'm like, I was sitting there watching TV

4:50 the other night on my own kind of going.

4:51 Did I certainly move something? Move.

4:54 Oh, you're seeing things. Which I I was certain I'd got

4:56 them all. Somewhat certain.

4:59 Somewhat. Somewhat.

5:00 Not 100%. Certain.

5:02 No, it's still in the back of my eye.

5:03 Like, you know, are they, are they still here?

5:04 Are they still around? Oh, I love it.

5:09 I love it so good. Thank you.

5:11 I really. Appreciate that.

5:13 Yeah. It's good because these stories

5:14 are good. Because it's not me chasing

5:16 crickets around my house. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

5:19 So let's leave it at that. Yeah, yeah.

5:22 I went to school assembly this morning because my youngest is

5:27 their student voice team captain for his class.

5:30 He was so excited this morning. He woke up early.

5:34 He was dressed by like 10 past, not even dressed fully ready to

5:38 go to school by 7:10. It's like, mom, what jobs do you

5:41 want me to do? Because Oh my God, that's what

5:43 SVT captains do. They do all the jobs.

5:45 Oh, they do the cooking and the. Cooking.

5:48 And taking all. The bins out, so empty all the

5:51 bins. Yeah.

5:51 So he did that. I don't think he quite got to

5:54 the recycling. I don't know if anyway I will be

5:59 chatting to him about that later, but then at this morning

6:03 when he got his badge, he was like a mum.

6:04 It's so much bigger than I thought it was and I just love

6:07 it. Oh my God.

6:08 I love it. Oh, Brody was very excited for

6:11 him getting that today. So gorgeous.

6:13 I really love love it. Just beautiful.

6:16 So cute. I love the school assemblies and

6:20 just the kids 'cause out, like the students run them for the

6:23 most part at our school and God, I just love it.

6:25 It was great. Along to the school song, did

6:28 you did? Of course, do all the moves.

6:30 Yeah, of course. Yeah.

6:33 So that was that was a highlight of my week because he was just

6:36 so excited. That's the best.

6:38 Love it. Yep, looks very good, so good.

6:41 And we've got like an exciting weekend coming up, don't we?

6:44 We do. We've got we're celebrating a

6:46 friend's birthday tomorrow night, which will be amazing,

6:49 which will be so good. Very nice, we have to go out for

6:51 a nice nice bit of food and wine.

6:54 Yeah, cocktails, wine, whatever. Float.

6:57 Oh, can't wait. God, that just that sentence.

6:59 Whatever. Like what I whatever we want to

7:01 do, it's gonna be lovely. We've been given strict

7:04 instructions at the on Sunday morning that our friend is being

7:07 taken care of, that she can be as drunk as she likes.

7:10 Love. That Watch out, I.

7:13 Don't know if you really meant those words, yeah.

7:17 If you're in that area Saturday night and you see us out and

7:21 about. You'll hear us, yeah.

7:23 Oh absolutely. I've got the voices that carry.

7:25 We're so loud. Yes, the other, sorry, was

7:27 actually in the car and you know, does your podcast play a

7:32 like on your phone if you plug your phone in?

7:33 Yeah, it just plays the next. Episode plays as soon as I get

7:36 in the car, yeah. So the other day, get in the car

7:38 and the first thing that came on was one of our episodes and it

7:43 was. And obviously we'd been

7:45 listening to music or something in the previous time we were in

7:47 the car because it was so loud. And I'm like, Oh my God, that's

7:51 horrible. Like that grating sound.

7:53 I'm like, oh, turn it off, turn it off.

7:56 Oh God. Anyway, well, it always like,

7:57 'cause it throws me, 'cause I only ever listen to podcasts at

8:00 minimum 1.5. Yeah.

8:01 And so it makes us sound even worse.

8:05 Yeah, so. It does, it really does.

8:07 I I listen usually on 1.2. I can't listen at one to

8:13 anything, no. I now can't.

8:14 I cannot listen to anything else it.

8:15 Doesn't Nope it. Doesn't get there.

8:17 I need it fast. Yeah, yeah.

8:18 And I'm, I'm usually A2, to be really honest, I usually listen

8:22 to things on A2, but 1.5 is my standard.

8:25 I leave it and then I'm like, oh, how much, how long can I

8:27 stand this? And then I and then I usually up

8:29 it. Yeah, like I just, I don't know

8:31 what it is, but yeah. So I, but I get in the car and

8:34 that same thing will happen. And it's like, Oh my God.

8:37 Like it's our voices. And I have to turn it onto

8:39 something else. Like I can't.

8:40 Yeah, I can't. Tell.

8:42 You how you guys do it? Best comment we've ever had.

8:50 Yeah. Anyway, should we get into

8:51 today's episode? Oh.

8:53 My gosh, yeah, we have got a lot to get through.

8:54 So a. Lot to get through.

8:55 Let's jump right in. I think this will be.

8:57 Peter will be so happy he'll barely lift the station.

8:59 Really quickly, actually, Speaking of Peter.

9:01 I can't help it. No, he so during the week he's

9:04 like, can you do me a favour and can you do an episode that's

9:09 like not bad, not horrible. As in like not.

9:16 Not about murder and children and.

9:19 Not like I think that we're bad at doing this.

9:21 No, no. No, no, no, he he thinks we're

9:23 really good at doing good. He's not wrong, but he he's

9:28 like, can you do like another Ashley Madison or something?

9:31 Oh yeah. Yeah, it's like I think you need

9:33 a light one, but I was like, OK, well tell us what case to do

9:36 because I actually don't know so.

9:38 If anyone has any. Lighter suggest.

9:40 This one is awful. I'm not like the one I'm about

9:42 to. Do I don't feel like this is

9:43 gonna get Peter because of the things that happened while.

9:46 But at least there is A at the ending is, you know, relatively

9:50 positive, so. Yeah, maybe.

9:53 Peter, let's let us know if this is enough.

9:55 If not people, can you come up with your suggestions of like a

9:58 slightly lighter case or a little more tongue in cheek

10:01 maybe? Maybe he just needs to be a

10:03 Patreon because we don't get quite so gruesome there.

10:07 That's. Actually very true.

10:09 Don't I Pete? Maybe you need to be a Patreon.

10:11 Put your money where your mouth is.

10:16 All right, let's get into today's case.

10:17 So today we are discussing the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart.

10:22 She is, you know, I mean, she's come out the other end.

10:27 There's a Netflix documentary that came out this year, in

10:29 2026. And it kind of goes back and

10:33 explores exactly what happened to her, but then gives a lot

10:37 more context around what her life has been since the

10:40 kidnapping. Because there was a period of

10:44 time there where I guess she did stay silent in that.

10:47 She wasn't doing as many press things.

10:48 She was really focusing on her foundation and all of those

10:51 kinds of things. And she's also became a mum, so

10:54 she obviously had a lot going on.

10:56 I found watching that documentary really engaging.

11:01 Like, I thought it was very well done.

11:03 I love the fact that it was an hour and a half.

11:06 It didn't go for fucking 15 episodes that it didn't need.

11:09 It didn't go for three hours like some movies and stuff,

11:12 which drives me fatty when something that is 3 hours could

11:16 have been done in an hour and a half.

11:17 I just felt like it was very well done.

11:19 There's not no need for a three-part series sometimes like

11:22 you know, yeah, that's it. In some ways I kind of this

11:25 could. As we've said, this is a big

11:26 one. There's so much in it, but they

11:29 told the story really well in that in that time frame with

11:34 lots of detail. But at the same time, yeah, it

11:37 was, it was concise, Yeah. Yeah.

11:39 And all the relevant stuff was said in there.

11:41 Yes. So Elizabeth was part of the

11:46 Smart family, obviously. So she had her mom, Lois and her

11:49 dad, Ed or Edward Smart, and they lived in Salt Lake City in

11:54 Utah. Now, we've spoken about Salt

11:57 Lake City a lot on this, on this, on this podcast, because

12:00 we bloody love The Real Housewives and of Salt Lake

12:04 City, Yes, and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

12:07 But also just Salt Lake City. I am intrigued by Salt Lake City

12:10 for so many reasons. Yeah, Utah probably in general,

12:13 I guess maybe. But it's just so picturesque and

12:15 beautiful and that beautiful. The life, I don't know it's.

12:18 Incredibly affluent, yes. I mean, I think there are parts

12:21 of Salt Lake City that are slightly less so, but in

12:23 general, it's a very affluent area.

12:26 Yeah, more than 50% of people who live in Salt Lake City,

12:31 members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, and they're Mormons.

12:34 And that, I guess, really puts instead the tone and the vibe of

12:40 the city. And the smart family were

12:43 Mormons. They were members of the church

12:45 and they were devout. Yes, when I say that they adhere

12:50 to all of the Mormon traditions. And like when you watch Secret

12:54 Lives of Mormon wives, not necessarily they're not

12:57 necessarily adhering to all these things, but I'm talking

12:59 about, you know, they don't drink coffee, There's no

13:02 caffeine, there's no drugs. There's no, they go no alcohol,

13:06 they go to church. They're they're really committed

13:10 to their faith and to the and to the teachings of the Church.

13:13 And I think when I think a lot of what comes through this case

13:22 can be explained by the fact that the family was so devout.

13:27 Yeah. So basically, Ed was a real

13:30 estate broker. He had two businesses of which

13:33 he was the only employee of both of these businesses that he

13:38 owned. So one was a real estate

13:39 brokerage and the other one was a mortgage broker, I believe.

13:42 Right. And they were very, very well

13:45 off. Ed's businesses were doing very

13:47 well. However, he had made a very poor

13:51 real estate investment, and he'd lost a significant amount of

13:54 money about a year before Elizabeth was kidnapped.

13:58 Yeah. And what that meant was that the

14:00 family was. They weren't destitute by any

14:03 stretch of the imagination, but they did.

14:07 They did decide to sell their house.

14:09 Yeah. In order to repay some of that

14:12 debt and also because, well, Lois says she actually wanted a

14:16 much simpler life. The house they lived in was a 7

14:18 bedroom. Absolutely.

14:21 It had a racket ball court inside.

14:23 Oh, wow. Oh, I didn't realize that.

14:25 Yeah. Wow.

14:25 Like I'm telling you, massive, massive home.

14:29 Yeah, it's beautiful. Like, I mean, they had five

14:31 kids, but 6655 she was. Yeah, no, she they had Charles,

14:36 Andrew, William, Edward, and then Mary, Catherine and

14:39 Elizabeth. Oh, OK, yeah.

14:41 So they had six kids, four boys and two girls.

14:43 Oh. Gosh, yeah, I know.

14:44 Maybe maybe she was one and maybe she had five siblings.

14:46 That's. More.

14:47 Yeah, Yep, that's. Yeah, maybe would have.

14:48 Yeah, so basically, and Lois was a stay at home mum and did, I

14:55 mean, I, you know, did everything that needed to be

14:57 done with her six children. Yeah.

14:59 Yeah, she was. She was a really, really

15:01 dedicated mum. Sorry.

15:03 I was talking about the real estate investment.

15:05 So Lois says that she also wanted to downsize because the

15:09 house was really huge. It was a lot to maintain and

15:13 they actually wanted to move to a cabin in the woods somewhere.

15:16 When I say cabin, I think it was very nice.

15:20 Yeah, right. But it was a much simpler way to

15:22 live, I think. Yeah.

15:23 OK. Their kids were growing up, and

15:26 I think they just wanted a little more like close family

15:30 time. OK.

15:31 And that was sort of the impetus for them to get their house

15:34 ready to be put on the market. Right.

15:37 So Ed and Lois were hiring contractors.

15:41 They would hire people. This was something that was

15:45 fairly common, I believe, but there was a spot that you could

15:48 go to where people who are kind of looking for work, I'm

15:51 thinking of it as a 1990s air Tasker, but not online, not

15:56 online, You know, people wanting work for the day would go to

15:58 this particular street or particular spot and and anyone

16:03 who needed a job would go be like, hey, I'll pay you 40 bucks

16:06 today if you come and rake up all my leaves and I don't know,

16:09 do whatever needed to be done around the house.

16:11 Yes. And so at that, they had done

16:14 that and those had actually done that.

16:16 Where they did it, like a lot. That was something they, yeah,

16:18 they were charitable people in that way.

16:20 I guess in that they were, they preferred to give someone a leg

16:23 up, you know, and give someone a bit of a job like that rather

16:25 than go and find someone who's got plenty of work on already or

16:28 yeah. Yeah.

16:29 And I mean, I guess that plays into their.

16:31 Faith as well. Yeah, they.

16:33 Wanted to help other people. That's right.

16:35 There so they were getting their house essentially ready for

16:39 sale, but even in doing so they still the house was on the

16:43 market and they did have potential buyers coming through

16:46 throughout this time as well. Even though there were you know

16:49 small renovations still taking place to get the house really

16:52 ready. The real estate agents if they

16:54 had anyone who was kind of interested in a seven bedroom

16:57 home they could actually be brought them through.

17:00 So when you're thinking about the house in this context, there

17:04 was, there were a lot of people unknown to the family

17:09 potentially, yeah, engaging within the home.

17:12 Yeah, coming through that home. Yeah, yeah.

17:15 With legitimate reason to be there.

17:17 So we come to the the 5th of June in 2002, and Elizabeth was

17:24 14 years old at the time. She was lying in bed.

17:28 So she and her sister, Mary Catherine, shared a bed and a

17:32 bedroom and and an actual bed as well, a double bed.

17:36 And they were asleep. Apparently, according to

17:39 Elizabeth, she'd been reading a story to Mary Catherine that

17:43 night. Mary Catherine, I think, was six

17:45 years or five years her junior. She's 9.

17:47 Yeah, OK. And so Elizabeth had been

17:51 reading her story. They just seemed like such

17:53 lovely siblings. Yes.

17:55 Beautiful. Yeah, I imagine if I ever had a

17:58 sister, that's exactly how I would want my relationship with

18:01 my sister to be. But basically in the middle of

18:05 the night, we know it was probably somewhere around 2:00

18:09 in the morning, a man presses a knife to Elizabeth's throat and

18:15 basically says to her, if you make a sound, I will kill you.

18:20 Now Mary Catherine pretends to be asleep.

18:24 I think she was. Well, she says she was paralyzed

18:27 in terror. And apparently this man allows

18:33 Elizabeth to put some shoes on. Elizabeth went to put slippers

18:37 on, but he's like, no, no, those shoes meaning like her runners,

18:40 basically. So I mean that.

18:44 Interesting. Something doesn't it, about

18:46 what's then to come. Elizabeth.

18:50 Sorry. Mary.

18:50 Catherine is, as I said, is paralyzed with fear, but also

18:57 this. She doesn't know what to do.

19:00 She's nine years of age. She almost thinks it's she's

19:04 dreaming or it's a nightmare. She waits.

19:08 So there's a grandfather clock upstairs where all of the

19:10 bedrooms are, and she remembers hearing it chimed twice.

19:14 Yeah. So at least two hours, if not

19:17 longer, have passed, and she finally plucks up the courage to

19:20 run down the hallway and go to her mum and dad's room.

19:23 Yeah, Ed says that when Mary Catherine wakes them up, it is

19:28 3:58 AM on his clock, on his digital clock next to his bed.

19:33 Yes. And they are immediately.

19:35 He's like, Oh no, she's had a bad dream.

19:37 They go to the girls bedroom and of course Elizabeth isn't there.

19:43 They then rush around to have a look in the house.

19:46 And with that, Ed rings 911 at 4 O 1:00 AM.

19:51 Now, I can't even imagine the panic that we've set in to wake

19:56 up and not have one of your children there.

19:58 Absolutely immediately the police are on this.

20:02 They arrive as like very, very quickly.

20:05 Detectives are called in very, very quickly.

20:08 Yes. And even the children, the what

20:12 is it? What are they called?

20:13 Like the children's crime people are calling and they're all at

20:16 the house before 5:00 AM. Yeah, right.

20:19 Yeah. So it's it's a very quickly

20:21 enacted thing. Things like this don't happen in

20:24 Salt Lake City. It's, as we said, because it's a

20:28 predominantly Mormon community. People are nice, it's safe.

20:33 There are, you know, it's a very family oriented community.

20:37 And just the night before Elizabeth went missing, she and

20:41 Mary Catherine had gone for a run like down to the local park,

20:46 the local running track. And Lois and Ed felt more than

20:52 comfortable to let them do that. They did that all the time with

20:55 a nine and AI mean a 14 year old I can understand but even have.

20:58 The 9 year old. So it wasn't even an issue.

21:00 No. So when when they did come step,

21:03 when they're looking for Elizabeth, what they did find

21:05 was that and what triggered them to go and go, yeah, this is not

21:07 good. Was it?

21:08 When they walked into the kitchen, they saw that the wire

21:12 window, the fly wire of the window in the kitchen had been

21:16 slashed open, Slashed. So that was able to be moved

21:19 open that window. Lois had been at the kitchen.

21:22 She'd cooked dinner that night and had burnt some of it, so had

21:25 opened that kitchen window to let some of the smell out kind

21:29 of thing. So she knew that she'd left that

21:31 window open. But then to then see it slashed

21:35 was like the trigger of like, whoa, when someone's taking it,

21:38 which on the other side of that, which she wouldn't have been

21:40 able to see from where she was. But like, there was a chair that

21:42 was put up against that window as well, sort of indicating

21:45 someone being able to climb up and climb in through that window

21:47 and maybe out again by that way. Yeah.

21:50 So that was sort of when they realized that she was gone and

21:54 gone. Gone.

21:54 Oh. My God, I can't even imagine.

21:57 Yeah. No.

21:59 Instant panic would set in now because they are such a close

22:03 knit family unit. And so I'm talking like extended

22:08 family as well, like Ed's family in particular are very, very

22:11 close. Yeah.

22:12 And so family were notified pretty much straight away as

22:15 well. So there were actually quite a

22:17 lot of people who came onto the scene very early on now.

22:21 Yeah, again, these are people who had nothing but the best

22:24 intentions. They wanted to help the family,

22:27 be there to support the family. But it was a crime scene, and it

22:32 did impede on certain things happening quickly.

22:37 And because the police are trying to, like, figure out

22:40 who's here, what's going on. Yeah.

22:42 And set up, like, and establish some boundaries within the house

22:46 and. Yeah.

22:47 And then like discovering the window that happened when there

22:51 were other people still in the house.

22:53 No, she, they saw that when they saw what that morning when they

22:56 were looking for her, they saw that, right?

22:57 That was what triggered them to call the police, right?

22:59 OK. Yeah, no, they didn't know.

23:00 I don't think they knew about the chair on the other side,

23:02 right? But internally they could.

23:04 They saw that from inside then. OK, Yeah.

23:07 So I mean, yeah, the police straight away do get get onto

23:13 things and they they get a Bloodhound to come very, very

23:16 quickly as well, because they want to be able to track

23:18 Elizabeth scent and what the Bloodhound does.

23:22 Apparently they really value his this this bloodhound's work.

23:26 Like he's amazing stock apparently.

23:28 Yeah, he's able to track so back up behind the their house at the

23:33 time. It's very different now because

23:35 it's all very developed now, but it was just basically a mountain

23:39 they're. Literally backed onto a

23:40 mountain. Like, yeah, it was like,

23:41 incredible. The Bloodhound tracked her

23:43 Elizabeth scent over the back fence and up through to where

23:47 there was a road or a clearing where cars would drive.

23:49 I don't know that it was a road. I think it was more a dirt

23:51 track. Yeah, yeah.

23:53 And at that point, the dog loses the scent.

23:56 So the police assume at that point that she's either being

23:59 taken in a car from that, from that area or something like

24:03 that's happened. They also then the dog does pick

24:06 up Elizabeth's scent from where they were running around that

24:09 running track the night before. Yeah, obviously they were able

24:12 to sort of explain that. Away and figure out why no.

24:15 Scent was there. The one towards the hill was the

24:17 more accurate one of their path that evening, yeah.

24:21 So because they think that Elizabeth's been placed into a

24:23 car, the FBI become involved. Yeah.

24:26 Now, I, I remember I heard something on a podcast I was

24:29 listening to about this, where they said when a child is

24:33 abducted and they get in a car, you've got to assume they're

24:37 traveling about a mile a minute. And so with that, the police are

24:42 like, OK, well, it's very likely then, because Salt Lake City is

24:45 actually really close to, I think it's Wyoming.

24:47 And oh, what's the other state? But not far, like by car less

24:54 than an hour away to Illinois, I think to two different states.

24:58 So the police, the FBI called in because the police like very

25:01 likely she's been over. State lines.

25:04 Now, when the FBI get involved, obviously they do all of the

25:08 things that they need to do. But there's a police officer in

25:15 Salt Lake City who kind of takes more upon himself to then look

25:20 more locally and to really focus his energy on seeing what's

25:25 actually happened close to home. Yes.

25:29 And with that, they get helicopters heat.

25:32 Well, so that heat seeking radars.

25:34 Yeah. They get aeroplanes in the air,

25:37 apparently by this stage. So this is now into the early

25:42 hours of the morning. I think this is about four hours

25:44 after she was reported missing. Words started to get around.

25:48 And there were people, this community of people who had ATVs

25:51 who I think there were like 55 of them in the end.

25:54 Wow. Yeah, who convened and were

25:57 going along these mountain tracks to try and call out for

26:00 her, see if they can find her. Now, Elizabeth reports that on

26:07 that first day, she heard people calling out her name in the

26:10 woods. Yeah.

26:12 She was threatened with a knife to her throat to not respond and

26:17 that if anyone came into the camp that they would be killed.

26:20 Yes. So she couldn't draw any

26:22 attention to the fact that she was there, because then she'd be

26:25 responsible for the death of whoever came looking for her.

26:28 Yeah, they can't. They haven't worked out who,

26:31 whose voice it was. It was calling out to her.

26:33 But they're fairly convinced it was her uncle.

26:35 Yeah. Which is just.

26:37 Oh, God, Can you imagine? You were that close to finding

26:39 her? And I mean, oh God, she.

26:41 Says that the voice seemed far away, but if if she could hear

26:45 him then he could have heard her.

26:47 Yeah, it's so close. It's terrifying.

26:50 I mean, in all of these, you know, these so far, even in this

26:53 of like the moments of like her sister and her in the in the

26:57 house or at that moment where she you could call out to

27:00 someone. But I can completely understand

27:02 why you wouldn't, because that fear of what that person could

27:05 do with that knife within a millisecond is absolutely enough

27:11 to make sure that you know, you're safer to not have called

27:14 out, you know, like, so completely understand that.

27:16 If an adult with a knife says you don't do something, you

27:19 don't do. Something yeah, yeah,

27:20 absolutely. And I it's so hard to know like

27:22 in these moments of like, you know, what ifs of like if she

27:25 had of either way, what would have happened, But so.

27:28 Many what ifs. So many what ifs with this.

27:30 Absolutely. But in that particular moment, I

27:33 always take myself back to the thought of like, I think she did

27:36 the right thing. I absolutely will back her.

27:38 That little girl was amazing. Oh, she she's amazing in this

27:41 whole story. But in that little moment, to

27:44 not have screamed or whatever in protection of her sister and

27:48 her, the rest of her family, you know, your instincts would kick

27:51 in to me to think that you would scream.

27:53 But she had the forethought to go, no, don't.

27:56 And I really think it was the right decision at the time, you

27:59 know, in all of this, because I think the outcome could have

28:01 been way worse. I think it I think it would have

28:04 changed the outcome. Definitely, absolutely right.

28:06 Yeah. And maybe not for the better,

28:08 like. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly

28:10 right. It's just absolutely.

28:15 You can't imagine as a nine, you can't imagine as an adult going

28:19 through no, let alone as a nine year old little girl.

28:23 And this is the thing. So obviously we get to this

28:24 point in there, like to the police, you got to start

28:26 thinking out who could do this. And one of so obviously you've

28:29 got to start internally first. You know that who who would want

28:33 to do this? That could it be someone who's

28:34 known to Elizabeth? So the family are coming out to

28:38 the media and like obviously putting out please to the

28:41 community, you know, to look for Elizabeth.

28:44 So I guess on that perspective, they're doing all the right

28:47 things that, you know, no one's like glaringly obviously that's

28:51 the person who's done this because they're hiding away or

28:52 have disappeared. There's no one glaringly obvious

28:54 to that point what they do look at obviously her father, you

28:58 know, did he, you know, is this a cover up of a murder and all

29:00 those sorts of things. They were able to clear him

29:05 relatively with took ties, but they did do that.

29:08 He ended up, I believe it was. So Elizabeth was kidnapped at

29:12 say, you know, he found out at 4:00 AM, Yeah, I believe that

29:15 night, by that night at about 9:00 PM, his father actually.

29:19 So Ed's father, yeah, took him to hospital because he was

29:24 beside, beside himself, yes. And had him committed, Yep.

29:28 On a 24 hour hold or something like that, because he was, he,

29:32 he was not coping, No. So that did delay the police

29:37 being able to fully interview him.

29:38 Obviously they've done their preliminary chats with members

29:42 of the family during that day, but in the immediate instance,

29:45 they were actually more worried about finding Elizabeth because

29:47 the more time that goes past, the further she's potentially

29:50 gone. Yes so, and also the other

29:53 horrific statistic yes, is that in most kidnapping cases, people

29:58 are killed within the first 3 hours after being kidnapped.

30:01 So they obviously had that on their mind as well.

30:03 There was an absolute sense of urgency when, you know, the day

30:08 had unfolded and still everyone's looking for

30:11 Elizabeth, obviously then they're like, right.

30:13 We need to start from the middle.

30:15 Yeah. And work, start from the centre,

30:16 work our way out. Yeah.

30:18 Who's the first person? Of course it's Ed.

30:19 Of course it has to be. It has to be your dad and then

30:22 her uncles and then, you know, going out from there.

30:26 But I found it really interesting, like when they

30:27 looked at because they actually ended up doing like polygraphs

30:29 on the uncles and one of them in particular failed it.

30:32 Now this is TomTom. Oh my God.

30:35 Everyone's got an uncle like Tom.

30:38 So when I mean, and when I, I saw it on the, on the

30:40 documentary, what he said to the media, I, I, I looked at that

30:46 and went, I know he's not the perpetrator of this, like, you

30:48 know, like we know that now, but at the time, holy fuck, he was

30:52 guilty as shit like. You look at him like, Oh my God,

30:55 something like he's like, everyone's got their secrets,

30:57 everyone's got their issues. I don't think this person's a

31:00 bad person. Yeah.

31:02 Everyone just really loves Elizabeth because, you know,

31:04 she's so beautiful. Yeah.

31:05 And there was so many things that you were like, dude.

31:08 Apparently at the end of that interview, his wife said to him,

31:12 you fucked the family. Yeah.

31:16 And. Yes he did.

31:17 He did because it made them look guilty as fuck.

31:19 And the problem with that was at the time they needed the

31:23 community, they needed the search parties.

31:25 Need to be looking elsewhere. That's it.

31:27 And what that interview did was it really dwindled the number of

31:31 people who were like, we don't feel guilty.

31:33 We don't feel, we don't feel like we need to support this

31:35 family almost because you know, we've got him like.

31:38 It's what a fucking idiot. Like well.

31:40 Seriously, I really understand where he came from when he

31:42 explained it right? And I feel for him desperately

31:46 now. Now I feel like I need to take

31:48 my little judgy hat off of like a couple of different cases as

31:51 well. Like he said explained how he

31:53 was he had not slept in days at that point.

31:56 He so then taking a polygraph at that point, he was he did.

31:58 He loved Elizabeth. He was his niece who's so

32:01 special to him, which you know, we can all I'm sure I've got

32:04 nieces and children that we love as our own that aren't

32:07 necessarily our own child kind of thing that you like feeling

32:10 for this for everyone and yourself and your love for that

32:12 child. How desperate would you feel and

32:15 how exhausted you would be with no sleep worrying about all of

32:17 this? He was not in a good way when

32:21 they polygraphed him, let alone speaking to the media.

32:23 And when when you see him now? Yeah.

32:27 And you go, right, you can string a sentence together that

32:29 is not an absolute shit show. You kind of, yeah, that is not

32:33 who you are at the core. But so he's just spoken off the

32:36 cuff and really fucked the thing.

32:38 The thing though, I think as well that people, members of

32:41 Salt Lake City community thought as well because he was actually

32:44 very active in the church and very well known in the church.

32:47 So he worked for the Latter Day Saints newspaper.

32:51 He was a reporter. He was really well known.

32:54 He was on TV. He was, Yeah, you know, he was

32:58 in everything. He wrote opinion pieces about

33:00 things. He was really well regarded.

33:02 He actually was very well regarded by the community, yes.

33:05 And so. There's an expectation of what

33:07 he could do in front of the media and then and I think.

33:10 That's almost why the family almost chose him to be a bit of

33:13 a spokesperson, because he was used to it and he was the one

33:16 who fronted the media a lot. Yeah, he got a lot of stories

33:19 out about he's the one who, really, he gave all the photos

33:23 to people he knew so that they'd be published everywhere and on

33:27 the news that night and all of that stuff.

33:29 Like, he did a lot of positive things, yes.

33:31 Then this one interview just completely undid all of it.

33:35 Oh, God. Also, like you watch it and

33:37 you're like just shut the fuck up.

33:38 I know just. Shut up.

33:39 Stop talking. Stop.

33:41 Absolutely. Can you imagine his wife at the

33:43 time? What the hell is he saying?

33:45 Sure, sure. The other Uncle Dave, I think

33:49 his name is. John, Dave, Dave, I think.

33:51 There is a John and a Dave so because I think Ed had three

33:54 brothers. The Mormon families, there's a

33:56 lot big. Families.

33:57 Well, actually, just Speaking of big families, about a week

34:00 before Elizabeth disappeared, Lois's father had passed away

34:03 and they'd had his funeral. Yes.

34:05 And yeah, that's why she burnt the dinner.

34:07 That's right. Yeah, and, and apparently the

34:13 grandfather, so Elizabeth's grandfather, Lois's father had

34:16 51 grandchildren. And I'm not talking great

34:20 grandchildren, just just first grandchildren.

34:23 Wow, that's a. Lot of grandkids so that just

34:25 goes to show how many kids he had and how many kids they had.

34:27 Well, how do you even keep track of that as a grandparent?

34:30 You couldn't? No.

34:32 Now you're. Not buying each one of them a

34:33 Christmas gift. Oh God, no.

34:35 You'd have to do KK for sure. Elizabeth and her sister Mary

34:41 Catherine were prolific harp players.

34:43 They played the harp, the beautiful, absolutely gorgeous.

34:46 And they actually played at their grandfather's funeral like

34:49 the day before and and played his favorite song, which was

34:53 apparently Silent Night. Now, I think again, this sort of

34:59 plays into the type of person that Elizabeth was.

35:02 She was very dedicated to her music and very dedicated to her

35:06 faith, and being able to do that for a grandfather I think was a

35:10 was a really big thing. Absolutely.

35:12 So we're still searching. Still searching still.

35:15 Trying to find some suspects. The next suspect that they look

35:19 at then is Reesey. Yeah.

35:22 Reesey. Yeah.

35:23 Oh, OK, let's get to Reesey. So he is an interesting

35:26 character. The reason Richard Reesey, the

35:28 reason he gets looked at is because they basically look at

35:31 all these contractors that have been through the house over that

35:34 period is sort of recent period of time.

35:36 And I believe there was like 6 on their list of people they

35:39 needed to look at. There were, so this was not only

35:42 contractors and people who'd been through the house to view

35:44 it, but this was also other people that Elizabeth had known

35:48 interactions with. So there was, there were a few

35:50 people from the harp school she attended.

35:53 She was also a member of some community club.

35:56 So there were men that were being investigated from that

36:00 respect as well, because very early on the police determined

36:03 that there was likely a sexual motive to this crime.

36:06 And also though someone that knew the layout of the house,

36:08 yes, because of the way the fact that they were they knew to move

36:11 through the kitchen and where her bedroom would be and to move

36:14 out through that they. Do say that they don't know how

36:18 long the perpetrator had been in the house for, yes.

36:21 So it's possible that they happen to stumble upon, you

36:25 know, Elizabeth's room. They do believe it was targeted.

36:28 So they're sort of gathering a picture of what they think

36:31 they're looking for at this point.

36:32 Absolutely. So they so they have this list

36:35 and they narrow it down and basically looking first at those

36:38 people who have got prior convictions.

36:39 Yep. And so a person that really

36:41 comes to the forefront of that is Richard Reesey.

36:44 Now, the reason that being is that he, yeah, he does have

36:47 prior convictions. And when they do go and have a

36:50 chat with him, they do find in his possession some jewelry that

36:54 belong to Lois. So they immediately are able to

36:57 arrest him because of that alone and bring him in for questioning

37:01 further in terms of. Elizabeth, do you know what he

37:03 had of Lois's? What was?

37:05 The jewelry. He had jewelry, which, OK, I

37:07 don't know specifically what jewelry, but he'd also stole her

37:10 golf clubs. Oh.

37:11 Wow. God, oh.

37:13 My God. Interesting.

37:14 Did they not notice that and then report it as stolen?

37:17 Like what? I don't.

37:18 I never really got that information.

37:20 Believe so but but there was an issue with payment with him.

37:25 Yeah, that's right. So that's right.

37:27 There was a bit of that was one of the other reasons he came to

37:28 the top of the list was there was a bit of, you know, conflict

37:31 between him and Ed around payments, so.

37:35 So basically what Racy alleges is that he'd done however many

37:41 hours of work, Ed had agreed him to pay X amount, and he didn't

37:45 pay him, yeah, that full amount or something.

37:48 And then Ed had actually also offered him a car.

37:51 They had an old Jeep. That's right, That he offered

37:55 his partial payment. What I'm I sort of gather from

37:59 all of this is that Ed had a bit of a cash flow problem at this

38:03 point. That's what I was, yeah, yes.

38:05 So he was trying to figure out how to pay.

38:09 Him. And so my guess is that the

38:12 motivation for him stealing that shit.

38:15 Was for payment. Payment.

38:17 Yeah. OK yeah, yeah, that's that's

38:19 yeah. OK anyway, sorry, no yeah.

38:21 So anyway, they pull him in for questioning on this, obviously,

38:25 and it's a pretty intense interview.

38:27 You can see a lot of it. And they really do go at him and

38:31 he stands by the he really does. To me, he avoids the questions a

38:36 little and doesn't answer them directly, which does not do him

38:39 any favours. He denies having any.

38:42 Yes, he denies having anything to do with Elizabeth's

38:46 abduction. But at the same time, he

38:47 actually never answers that directly.

38:50 I find it frustrating, the interview.

38:52 And I think that's why the cop gets so agitated with him as

38:55 well, that he's really not getting the responses.

38:58 I think the response he wants is, yeah, I kidnapped her and

39:00 this is where he where she is. But he's not even getting a

39:03 response that's definitive from him.

39:06 He's basically like, I don't know, I don't know how to word

39:10 it that he he just avoids. Answering directly, Yeah.

39:12 He he doesn't directly answer any question.

39:14 No. The police also seized his car.

39:18 So this white Jeep that had been given to him, and I believe it

39:20 was only like a week or two before Elizabeth's kidnapping

39:24 and it had over 1000 miles more than what it had on it when Ed

39:28 had given it to yes. He won't explain.

39:30 He won't. Explain it that he's the police

39:32 are like where have you been? What's 1000 miles away?

39:35 In which direction did you drive these 500?

39:37 Miles, of course, the police are putting together with that,

39:39 going OK, where, where's, where's he?

39:41 Dumped her body? Yeah, that's what they're

39:43 thinking exactly. And which is fair, but he

39:45 doesn't give them anything. No, in which if he had just

39:48 said, oh, look, I've got a girlfriend in Wyoming.

39:51 I've driven, Yeah, Yeah, I've driven there and and, and and

39:54 driven there three times in the last four days.

39:56 Yeah. Would have solved the problem,

39:58 you know, like kind of thing. But he wouldn't answer it.

40:00 And that's where it became an issue.

40:02 Yeah. But the weird thing with this

40:04 one is that they guys basically they put him in a holding cell

40:07 or in like in jail because he is arrested for the jewelry and for

40:10 the golf clubs. So he is in jail.

40:14 Whilst there though he unfortunately suffers a a heart

40:19 attack, no brain aneurysm, brain aneurysm and well it's awful

40:24 because he experiences that and they rush him to hospital.

40:26 The cops are like, we don't have any answers yet from this guy.

40:29 We haven't cleared him. We need to keep him alive.

40:32 Just before this, though, they did administer A polygraph to

40:35 him, yes. And he did not pass the

40:39 polygraph. Yeah.

40:40 Now there were certain questions that yes, but it wasn't because

40:44 he failed by. It's showing that he was being

40:47 deceptive. It failed because he didn't

40:49 fucking answer the questions. Yes, yeah, this is.

40:53 And that was if he just directly answered, maybe you'd have a

40:55 little bit more of an answer at that point for sure.

40:57 But no. Yeah.

40:58 So he's he gets rushed to hospital.

41:01 The cops are definitely like going up.

41:02 We need to keep him live. Do whatever you can keep him

41:04 live. We need answers from this guy

41:06 but unfortunately he passes away so the police at this point are

41:09 like holy shit like this is the worst thing could happen 'cause

41:12 we don't know anything about Elizabeth.

41:14 They're still assuming in some ways that he is the.

41:17 Perpetrator, they said somewhere in an interview I heard with one

41:20 of the cops that he said we were 99.9% sure this was our guy.

41:24 Yeah, Yep. To then go holy shit.

41:28 And the thought, I guess at this point they're thinking like one,

41:31 it'd be great, you know, if if he's killed her, we don't know

41:33 where her body is. But what if she's somewhere now

41:36 alive and we can't even find her and get to her.

41:39 And the one person who has that information is is dead.

41:42 So this is not good. Yeah.

41:45 But it turns out it wasn't him. Now the thing the whole time

41:48 we're looking at racy that we go back to is Mary Catherine, who

41:52 this little amazing 9 year old, she heard this person's voice

41:56 speaking to Elizabeth that night and she knew that she knew that

42:00 voice. She also did see a silhouette.

42:03 She. Saw the shape of the person and

42:04 she she knew that, she knew the voice that, but couldn't put a

42:07 name to it and so. I find it so amazing that in

42:11 that first, so she's interviewed like so many times by the

42:15 police. Yeah, but she's kept away from

42:17 media and stuff, which I think is really great.

42:19 They did a great job with that. Definitely.

42:21 And in the interview, the first interview that she does and for

42:24 every subsequent interview, but this, this I think is amazing.

42:27 They say to her, the police officer interviewing her says

42:31 did you recognise the voice? And immediately she says, yes,

42:34 and but I don't know where from. And you just think to yourself,

42:38 Oh my God, she's 9. And look, I think this is such

42:42 an important lesson from this case is to not dismiss the word

42:47 of a nine year old. And I think in a lot of ways,

42:51 certain things and certain aspects of Mary Catherine's

42:55 story were explained away and and dismissed because she's 9.

42:59 With Reecey, it was in that, you know, because she, she happened

43:02 to just see a shot of him on the news.

43:06 Yeah. Because as I say, they kept her

43:07 away from majority of the media. But she did one day see him on

43:10 the TV screen and she immediately said it's not him.

43:13 I I, you know, she was obviously in her brain going, I know that

43:17 man's voice. I remember him around the house.

43:20 And that's not the voice I'm hearing.

43:21 I know I can't tell you the name of the person, who it was, but I

43:24 know that's not it. But they didn't listen to

43:27 Elizabeth and her family. Backed her.

43:28 I was gonna say Ed and Lois listened to her.

43:31 They. Really believed yes, Reesey

43:33 wasn't the perpetrator. Yeah, which I mean, I can

43:36 understand why he was so in this in the limelight for this,

43:39 absolutely by the cops and definitely got a clear room and

43:41 everything. But you do have to take into

43:43 account what this 9 year old was saying.

43:44 She doesn't think it's him and she's, I think she's, she was

43:47 very reliable witness, very reliable witness.

43:49 More reliable than a lot of adults?

43:51 Absolutely. Yeah, so that was incredibly

43:54 interesting that she so she was very confident that with the

43:57 fact that he had died, not that she was like Privy to all these

44:00 sorts of things, but the fact that he had died, it didn't mean

44:02 that this case was over and that it was done and dusted for, for

44:05 Elizabeth. They she was I I love that, you

44:08 know, her dad and and Mary Kate, Catherine always and have said

44:11 at the time they were always like, I just know she is still

44:14 alive. And I know you'd have that in

44:15 your heart if you're looking for your child anyway, but you have

44:19 to use that to keep yourself going, Ed.

44:22 Ed says it's it was an instinct for him, like he just knew.

44:25 Yeah, but I think you, I mean, I don't know as a parent you'd

44:28 want to keep that hope there and like, but I'm so glad they

44:31 listened as a family, if not, you know, as well as the police,

44:34 but they. Literally the family literally

44:36 never gave. Up.

44:37 No, no, never gave up. Amazing.

44:41 A couple of just other things of note.

44:42 When Mary Catherine was interviewed, she described that

44:46 the man also had a small black gun as well as the knife and

44:50 that he was carrying a duffel bag, like a tan colored duffel

44:53 bag over his shoulder. And these these elements were

44:58 never really released to the media.

45:00 There were things that only, you know, that were sort of kept,

45:04 kept to themselves. Yeah.

45:09 She also described that there was like a metallic kind of

45:12 sound. And what the police think that

45:15 was, was possibly when Elizabeth and the perpetrator were

45:21 climbing back out the window, the the chair that was next to

45:24 the the house that sort of allowed him to climb in and then

45:28 potentially climb out if they ended up going out that way,

45:30 which I believe they did. It was metallic.

45:34 And it's they think that was the sound of, you know, the chair

45:37 hitting the house again. Yeah.

45:38 Yeah. So she remembered some really

45:41 pertinent information. For sure.

45:44 So I guess now we get to a point where we're going getting months

45:48 into this, where she's disappeared.

45:49 It's crazy. So should we go to sort of

45:52 what's going on for Elizabeth at this point before we?

45:55 Or do we want to talk about? No, I think that's.

45:56 Who the perpetrator? Is no, I think that's a really

45:58 good. Idea so poor Elizabeth I mean so

46:01 this night where she's taken and where we thought the police were

46:05 kind of assumed where their a car had arrived and she

46:08 disappeared in a car. In actual fact she they hadn't

46:11 they had headed her and her abductor had continued up that

46:15 mountain. Now he had taken her to where he

46:18 had a campsite where him and his wife lived.

46:22 And the whole time as they're going up this mountain towards

46:24 that, poor Elizabeth is being told like by this guy that my

46:27 wife is waiting for us at this campsite.

46:31 In Elizabeth's mind, she was like, oh, thank God.

46:33 Like there's a woman there. That means I'm, I might be safe.

46:36 This might be, you know, just some people who have always

46:38 wanted a child and they've taken me to be their child and I might

46:41 be able to, you know, work this situation out.

46:43 I think as a 14 year old, she had a little bit enough of, you

46:47 know, image of her mind of what you know, people can do that is

46:51 bad. You know that I think she was

46:53 kind of, I think, thinking positively about how bad this

46:56 could be. Yeah, she did say to him,

46:58 apparently, Are you going to rape me and kill me yet?

47:01 Yeah, not yet. Not yet, I guess.

47:06 And then she's thinking of this woman there, might be able to

47:07 protect me then. She's fucking awful.

47:10 Fucking. Awful.

47:11 Now she has realized as she's heading up this mountain that

47:15 she recognizes this person. So the cops are onto the right

47:20 kind of train of thought in terms of contractors and things

47:23 that have been throughout the house, because she does

47:24 recognize him. So they're walking up this

47:27 mountain, they get to the campsite and there's the woman

47:31 who she thinks is going to be her help.

47:33 No, So they immediately put her take her into this tent.

47:37 There's like tops out on the ground, etcetera in this tent

47:40 that she gets taken into. And the woman starts cleaning

47:43 her feet and doing all these sorts of things there.

47:45 And she's dressed in like these robes, quite unusual.

47:49 And and then she wants to strip off Elizabeth, and Elizabeth

47:53 refuses, but she threatens her and says if you don't do that,

47:58 I'm going to have Emmanuel, as she calls him, come in and strip

48:03 you himself, which she's terrified of.

48:05 Of course, Elizabeth's feeling like just absolutely terrified

48:08 at this moment. So she does.

48:10 She undresses and they bathe her.

48:12 She bathes her and gets her into these same sort of robes.

48:16 And then this Emmanuel comes into the tent and speaks to his

48:19 wife, who he calls Hepzibah, and he performs this odd ritual that

48:27 he calls making Elizabeth his wife, of which she protests that

48:31 because she's like, I'm only 14. I, you know, or that you can't

48:35 do that. And she says to him, I'm, you

48:38 know, I'm in my faith. I, you know, I don't, I, you

48:41 know, I need to stay a virgin until I'm married and all these

48:43 sorts of things. And but then he finishes the

48:46 ceremony that he's that she is now his wife.

48:50 And he says, And now we will consummate the the marriage.

48:53 This bit I find really sad when Elizabeth I'm in the whole

48:56 thing. The whole thing's fucked, yeah.

48:59 But when in that documentary that just came out this year,

49:03 Elizabeth said I was so I didn't know a lot about life.

49:08 And so she thought that if she rolled onto her stomach that she

49:12 wouldn't be able to be raped. She's like, I learnt that night

49:15 that that could still happen. I think that in itself says a

49:20 lot about the brutality of all of this.

49:24 He didn't care. No, no.

49:26 He was going to do what he wanted to do.

49:28 And he did, many, many, many times.

49:30 He raped her every day. Like, up to four times a day.

49:33 There was a sex schedule, so Hepzibah, who was his wife,

49:40 yeah, as well, was on the night shift and Elizabeth was on the

49:45 day shift. And he would rape them.

49:49 Or at least Elizabeth. Yeah, whenever he wanted.

49:53 When the. Schedule came about because

49:55 Hepzibah vocalized that she felt like Emmanuel was giving too

49:59 much attention to Elizabeth and wasn't getting enough herself.

50:04 So then he put them on the schedule.

50:06 Jesus Christ. Which is just fucked up.

50:08 It's. So fucked up.

50:10 So this. So oh, sorry, this is.

50:12 Emmanuel believed that he was a prophet.

50:17 He wrote the book of Emmanuel David Asiah.

50:21 The 27 page manuscript. Yeah.

50:24 Manifesto. Manifesto.

50:26 Essentially, yeah, he tells Elizabeth that God commanded

50:29 him. Yes.

50:30 To take her as his wife. And that he needed to take 7

50:35 wives for him to become the the future Jesus.

50:39 Basically like the reincarnation of Jesus.

50:41 He also says that Mary Catherine will become one of his wives.

50:45 Yeah, and also Elizabeth's cousin.

50:48 Now how many? That was a couple of months

50:54 after Elizabeth was kidnapped. He.

50:58 Yeah, he tempted to take he. Tempted to take Elizabeth's

51:00 cousin and the exact same MO he there was a garden chair that

51:06 was put up against the kitchen window.

51:08 But thankfully Elizabeth's auntie, so this this girl's mum,

51:13 so she was 18 years of age. The cousin was able to disturb

51:18 the perpetrator and scared him off and nothing kind of ever

51:22 came of that. They weren't able to get any

51:24 real extra description. They don't know where he went.

51:28 They actually dismissed it a bit as being something that maybe

51:30 someone had like, done a copycat.

51:32 That's right. And the thing was that the fact

51:34 of the window and the chair, the way it was put up against the

51:37 wall to get in, none of that information had been released to

51:40 the public. However, the police sort of did.

51:43 Yeah, with this second one kind of go, oh, someone's.

51:45 Because they pinned it on Reecey.

51:46 They thought it was him and he couldn't have been him.

51:48 Because he. Was in jail jail at the time.

51:50 He wasn't dead yet, but he was in jail at the time.

51:52 Yeah, so. You know, that's it didn't fit

51:56 their story, so they just kind of dismissed it.

51:58 Yeah, they really did. I, I agree.

52:01 I think in in there were good cops in this who were really

52:04 gung ho on it for sure. But in a general sense, they

52:07 didn't do all the things they needed to.

52:08 And I think there were certain cops who agreed with that kind

52:11 of sentiment, wanted things to be done, done slightly

52:13 differently, but it wasn't. Yeah, yeah.

52:16 Well, up in the camp, Elizabeth was drugged and forced to wear a

52:22 veil. And so they actually, I watched

52:24 a YouTube video where Elizabeth and her older brother and his

52:29 wife, they did the hike from where they were upping to up to

52:35 where Elizabeth was held. Yeah.

52:36 It was gruelling. Yeah, absolutely grueling.

52:40 There wasn't really a path, so they're literally hiking through

52:44 really dense mountainous terrain with lots of trees and shrubs.

52:50 And so to walk up and down that mountain was really, really hard

52:54 work. Add to that the fact that they

52:57 starved Elizabeth, they withheld water.

53:01 She was obviously very frail, but they he would so Emmanuel

53:07 would actually go down to Salt Lake, beg for money, beg for.

53:12 Food he would plunder what he would call like go out and yeah,

53:14 get supplies I guess, but you know, minimal for those for her,

53:18 for Hips bar and for Augustine as they called her for

53:22 Elizabeth. But yeah, so he would go down

53:25 and do that and bring it back, but not that he would bring back

53:27 the greatest of things or March. Well, I think he brought back a

53:30 lot of processed food. There was a very real alcohol, a

53:34 lot of alcohol. Yeah.

53:35 Yeah. So poor Elizabeth would be

53:37 forced to drink alcohol. And she was kind of, at the

53:41 time, very young. And I was said not drunk alcohol

53:44 before, but she would be because it would kind of numb her a

53:48 little bit. She almost liked it in that

53:51 sense that it kind of made it a little bit easier to get

53:53 through. Yeah.

53:53 She can totally get. But.

53:55 But also she would vomit, you know, and he should be left to,

53:59 you know, left to lay in that so really unpleasant how she was

54:03 being treated and just disgusting really entirely.

54:06 And then you've got more brazen over time and would then start

54:09 to take Elizabeth and Hepsba down.

54:11 Yeah, well, Hepsba kind of got, she got I think itchy feet sort

54:14 of being stuck up in the mountain kind of going.

54:15 I want to be a part of like these what's going on down in in

54:18 Salt Lake City, etcetera and be a bit more human, I guess.

54:22 So yeah, he eventually caved and said fine, you can come with me.

54:25 And on one particular outing down there, they were in a

54:28 library, I think. Yeah.

54:29 And a police officer actually approached them.

54:32 Now, they would have looked weird because the women were in

54:34 robes. Yeah.

54:35 And veils with face covering so all you could see with their

54:38 eyes. Yeah, and this police officer

54:41 approached Emmanuel, who didn't have a face covering.

54:43 He. Before.

54:44 That as. Well, before that, even someone

54:45 in the library had actually called the police.

54:47 Yeah, because they believed that they were, they this person was

54:51 like, that's Elizabeth. Because even though she had this

54:53 robe on that covered her face, she had quite has quite

54:55 distinctive eyes and the colouring of her eyes and things

54:58 like that. Blue, grey eyes.

55:00 Yeah, they are. And they're quite, you know,

55:02 quite, Yeah, quite distinctive. So somebody did call the police

55:05 saying we, I believe this could be Elizabeth Smart because it's

55:07 so it's this is massive in Salt Lake City.

55:10 This information of this girl who's gone missing.

55:12 Yeah, there's. Billboards.

55:13 It's not every newspaper. Still, like, absolutely.

55:17 It's really widespread. So this person calls the cops

55:19 rock up with. So they're actually like

55:21 arriving to be like we need to check this person out.

55:23 We believe we've got indications that this could be Elizabeth

55:26 Smart. The cop specifically says are

55:30 you Elizabeth Smart to Elizabeth, to which she.

55:34 He didn't respond. She.

55:35 She was unable to respond. I mean, she's paralyzed by the

55:39 manipulation of Emmanuel entirely.

55:42 It's awful. And so she doesn't feel the

55:45 confidence to be able to speak up at this moment.

55:47 Emmanuel had actually gone to the bathroom.

55:49 They approached them whilst it was just Hepsibah and Elizabeth

55:53 at first, but as they're started asking her this question,

55:56 Emmanuel came over and intervened as well.

55:59 And he did stop immediately and say you can't lift her veil

56:03 because I did ask if I could see her face.

56:05 You can't do that. It's against our religion, which

56:08 I just find that as well. It's such a convenient in this

56:11 moment, using that as his ploy to not give someone access to

56:17 who she was. And I, I mean, God, I have such

56:19 respect for people who want to cover their faces in religion.

56:23 But but this was kind of like, I don't know, there's got to be

56:26 some way of being able. To I just think I think, you

56:30 know, if you think of other religions that have face

56:33 coverings, there's ways that if you needed to identify those

56:35 people, you could. And when I said that, like

56:37 another female, they could have taken her to a private place

56:40 where no one else was around. Yeah.

56:41 Have a female police officer lift her veil.

56:44 Yeah. You know, there's a respectful

56:46 way to do. That yes.

56:48 I don't know, but it was just not, it was, it was basically

56:51 like they went, oh, OK, well, we can't lift her veil.

56:53 So yeah, yeah. The police officer who who was

56:57 there does say, I assume that if it was Elizabeth, she'd be like,

57:01 yes, yes, it's me, it's me, Please help me.

57:03 Yes, but but PTSD, it's a treadle's not like, I mean, it

57:07 doesn't work like that, Yeah. No, it doesn't.

57:09 Yeah, she said. Elizabeth says now, she said

57:12 unless I was 100% sure I was gonna be able to get out of

57:16 there safely, I wasn't gonna do it.

57:18 What if they, you know, she lifted her veil and they went,

57:20 Oh no, I don't think it is you and send her away because she

57:23 knew the consequences then of like, oh, she would have could

57:25 have occurred. She probably.

57:26 Would have been killed. Yeah, so that playing in the

57:28 back of her mind going if this, if you don't, then take me away

57:32 from this man, I am just fucked. Like it's so it's awful.

57:36 The actual manipulation and the threat over her as to why she

57:40 wouldn't do that. I completely ungrasp.

57:42 But it's such a missed moment. Yeah.

57:44 Unfortunately, it really scared the shit out of Emmanuel,

57:46 though. Yeah, and he decided that God

57:50 wanted him to move them. Yeah, he begged and begged for

57:55 enough money to get 3 bus tickets to San Diego.

57:58 They decided to go. And Elizabeth, I mean, I

58:02 remember from watching Oprah when I was homesick at school,

58:05 when I was at school. Don't ever let somebody move

58:09 you. Yeah, if you're kidnapped, try

58:12 and stay in the one spot because that's your best hope of being.

58:15 Found. And Elizabeth knew that too.

58:16 She was like, at least. Instinctively, she knew that.

58:19 Well, they, they weren't this. I mean, the library incident

58:21 isn't the only exposure she had. There were other places that

58:24 he'd taken her where in hindsight, people were like, Oh

58:27 my God, it was Elizabeth Smart. It was that.

58:29 Photo when he took them. To a bar, a bar or a party of

58:32 some sort. Wasn't it that?

58:33 And somebody just took a photo and it's literally Elizabeth in

58:38 the foreground and you can you can tell it's her.

58:40 Yeah, yeah. But nobody recognized that in

58:43 the moment. And what Elizabeth says is she

58:46 could see when she would go out that there's a billboard with

58:49 her face on it. There's.

58:50 Yeah, she knew people were looking.

58:51 For her face on it, she knew in Salt Lake City, people were

58:54 looking. For it, although we should, I

58:55 guess mention too something that for her that was really hard was

58:59 that in the Mormon teachings, if you've had sex before marriage,

59:04 you have no worth. You know that you there are

59:06 consequences divinely kind of in terms of their religion.

59:11 So she was questioning whether or not her family would want her

59:15 back because of the fact of what had happened to her.

59:18 She had no differentiation between premarital sex and rape

59:23 like she was in her mind. She had never been taught the

59:27 difference and therefore hadn't had an understanding that, well,

59:31 I have had sex. So they, they might, they will

59:35 disown me now, which we can get into as we get to the end of

59:38 this, of like the consequences of that.

59:39 But that is also a layer of all this manipulation with her that

59:43 she is feeling. Do they even want me back?

59:45 Do I even speak up? Do I, you know, yeah, OK, people

59:49 looking for me, but do they want me?

59:51 Do they because they don't know what's?

59:53 Happening. What happens to me if they do

59:54 find out what's happened? Which is awful.

59:57 I mean, she was 14. I can kind of God, you know,

59:59 understand. That Yeah, but there was a

1:00:01 guide, a party, that a party or the pub that that same night

1:00:04 we're talking about that he remembers now the conversation

1:00:07 he had with her. He believed that she was like 18

1:00:10 or something and with this weird ass bloke, right.

1:00:12 And so he actually started up to her and said, hey, you know,

1:00:15 like you should get away from this guy.

1:00:17 And she didn't really respond or anything, but he remembers kind

1:00:20 of just trying to stand up for her a little bit and knowing

1:00:23 that she was in this controlling relationship.

1:00:24 But all he saw it as is she looked older than 14 with a

1:00:29 weird ass dude. It's like, yeah, it's so hard.

1:00:32 It's so hard. Yeah.

1:00:33 That that guy was quite funny because he's like, I'm pretty

1:00:37 sure they were at a bar, at a bar.

1:00:38 And he's like, oh, look, we're at a weird bar.

1:00:40 People wear weird shit. It wasn't that unusual that

1:00:42 someone would come wearing something like that.

1:00:44 So yeah, that's not necessarily the thing.

1:00:46 But it was after he'd had a conversation with Emmanuel, he's

1:00:48 like, oh, I need to tell these women to get away from this.

1:00:51 Yeah. You know, it was just so awful.

1:00:53 Yeah. Yeah.

1:00:54 But obviously Elizabeth was so worried or scared of doing

1:01:01 anything wrong, she just did not speak.

1:01:02 No. So basically they've moved to

1:01:05 San Diego. They were there for about a

1:01:07 month, I think it was. And Elizabeth's like, I need to

1:01:11 get back to Salt Lake City like this.

1:01:13 I'm not going to get recognized. To get recognized here so with

1:01:16 that she's she was able to manipulate a manual and she said

1:01:21 I I feel God talking to me and and he's telling me I think we

1:01:26 need to go back to Salt Lake and apparently thankfully and then

1:01:29 he was like oh finally God is talking to you God is letting

1:01:32 you in yeah so and yes no, I think you're right.

1:01:36 We do need to go back to Salt Lake.

1:01:38 So with that, they they make their way back back to that camp

1:01:41 and. Unbeknownst to him, back in Salt

1:01:43 Lake, things are shifting. Yep.

1:01:45 So they're on to who he might be.

1:01:47 That's right. So in amongst all of this, so

1:01:50 we're kind of now back from the family's point of view.

1:01:52 Yes, there Mary Catherine is one night reading a Guinness World

1:01:59 Records book, and apparently she was looking at some female

1:02:03 bodybuilders or something like that, something.

1:02:06 And not that that necessarily is what prompted her, but something

1:02:09 just. Triggered.

1:02:10 Something just triggered. She's like, it's Emmanuel.

1:02:12 She knew the name. It just came to her.

1:02:15 Yeah, that's who the voice. Is who the voice is.

1:02:17 And with that she's told Ed and Lois, Yep.

1:02:21 And they have gone of of course, they've gone straight to the

1:02:25 police. Because they knew there's a

1:02:26 manual, that's all. They knew him as well.

1:02:29 That's it. They knew.

1:02:29 Nothing they knew that they had had an A manual a contractor

1:02:33 again like working at the house. And what Elizabeth remembers

1:02:37 this as well as as Mary Catherine that they were in in

1:02:40 the in Salt Lake City one day with their mother and there was

1:02:43 a homeless man who they they were talking to and her mum,

1:02:47 Lois had offered for him to get in touch with Ed to potentially

1:02:52 have some work at the house. As we said, this is what would

1:02:54 happen. And there was they, they need

1:02:57 some trees chopped down. So he had reached out to Ed and

1:03:00 they'd organized this and he, he had did do some work at the

1:03:03 house. So Mary Catherine and Elizabeth

1:03:05 hadn't had massive interactions with him.

1:03:07 He. Literally worked at the house

1:03:08 for one day for like 8 hours. Yeah, it was that was also was

1:03:11 the interaction of in the city where they'd met him there with

1:03:14 with mom and then the day at the house and that's it.

1:03:17 But yeah, this Emmanuel meant something to them.

1:03:19 Like, as in like they the name, they were like, oh, OK, we know

1:03:22 who you mean. But we, we all just don't really

1:03:25 like he didn't have that much of interactions with us.

1:03:27 But OK, let's follow this. She did a sketch.

1:03:31 We sat with a sketch artist and they did a drawing of him.

1:03:35 Yeah. So they all they all were like,

1:03:38 right, we know who that is. But but Emmanuel, it wasn't even

1:03:41 his real name. No.

1:03:42 So they had to they they actually, unfortunately at this

1:03:45 point, I think personally, the police were though we're not

1:03:48 going to release this sketch to the public.

1:03:51 And I can understand from the perspective of if Elizabeth is

1:03:54 still alive and we put this sketch out and this guy gets

1:03:59 scared, maybe he does then kill her.

1:04:03 Yep, and gets rid of the the evidence of like what he's done.

1:04:06 So I understand that. But this point, how long this

1:04:10 has been going on for, it's. Months and months and months

1:04:12 and. Months.

1:04:13 Why don't you just put that sketch out?

1:04:14 I don't know they. Don't they hold on to it for

1:04:17 another couple of months? At which point Ed said he was

1:04:21 just so frustrated and he actually used Tom's connections

1:04:25 within the media to get that photo to America's Most Wanted

1:04:30 and onto that TV show. And they did.

1:04:33 And the cops? The cops were shitty at the.

1:04:36 Cops were shitty at the time but they now say thank God he did

1:04:38 that because that show aired that week.

1:04:42 And Emmanuel and Emmanuel's sister, well, actually her.

1:04:46 Brother's brother-in-law. brother-in-law.

1:04:48 Yeah, it. Was like, oh, your brother is

1:04:52 just on like there's a sketch that looks a lot like him on

1:04:55 America's Most Wanted, and they knew he had a he.

1:04:57 Knew he was a weird guy and. That he was in and around Salt

1:05:01 Lake City even though they lived over the other side of the

1:05:04 country, I think. Yeah, that yeah, yeah.

1:05:06 And so anyway, they got in contact with the Salt Lake City

1:05:10 police and they're like, we think we know who that sketch

1:05:12 is. And they say that it is her

1:05:15 brother named Brian David Mitchell, saying that, you know,

1:05:19 this is her brother. She looks a lot like her

1:05:22 brother. The last time she saw him, he

1:05:24 was clean shaven, but something about the eyes and the nose

1:05:27 definitely looked like him. So they now have a name and they

1:05:34 start to look into things they don't find a lot.

1:05:38 They know. They know he's had some issues

1:05:40 in the past with the law. They know that he's got some

1:05:44 mental health issues. Well, does he?

1:05:48 Well, does he? Well, no, I think he'd been.

1:05:50 I think he'd been. Well, he'd been arrested before.

1:05:54 He'd been cleared as having any mental.

1:05:57 He'd been cleared. How do you.

1:05:58 OK, so they know they now they've got another suspect,

1:06:03 essentially. Yeah.

1:06:04 For the first time, really, they've got a solid suspect for

1:06:07 the first time, really, since Reecey passed away.

1:06:09 Yes. So they start, they put out a,

1:06:12 what do you call it, like a bowl of a bee on the lookout for this

1:06:16 particular person. He's been known to walk in and

1:06:18 around in and around Salt Lake City.

1:06:22 He's known to wear robes and a white, like, white robes.

1:06:26 So they they've put this information out into the

1:06:30 community as well. Now they come back from San

1:06:33 Diego, as in Elizabeth Emanuel and Hephzibah come back from San

1:06:40 Diego and they're walking down the street, the main one of the

1:06:42 main streets in Salt Lake City. And these two people, in fact, I

1:06:48 believe there were multiple people who.

1:06:50 Yeah, well, the thing was they weren't in robes.

1:06:52 Sorry Elizabeth. They put her in this weird ass

1:06:54 wig and glasses and stuff. So she did look.

1:06:57 I mean, you can see photos of her.

1:06:58 Well, you know. It's like a grey curly wig.

1:07:01 Yeah. And then a headscarf over the

1:07:03 top. Yeah, and these big glasses, she

1:07:05 looked quite unusual, like she it would draw attention, like,

1:07:09 because it didn't look right at all.

1:07:11 Yeah, she looked like she was trying to not look like herself,

1:07:14 like. Yeah, Yeah.

1:07:15 That's very fair. Yeah, yeah.

1:07:17 So they, yeah, definitely rocked up in this.

1:07:20 They were all a little bit in camouflage like kind of thing.

1:07:23 So they didn't look right. But yeah.

1:07:25 So the police were called and said people were like, that's

1:07:29 that guy from that, that image, you know, and there's two women

1:07:32 with him. This looks stuff as yeah, yeah.

1:07:36 And the police do come to to visit them as they're getting

1:07:40 off this bus, I believe. Yeah, yeah.

1:07:43 I think they've just gotten off the.

1:07:44 Bus yeah, just got off the bus yeah but again Elizabeth is

1:07:48 terrified and and doesn't speak immediately, but she was like, I

1:07:53 think that in this point she was getting a bit more confident,

1:07:57 but it took a fair bit the cop did have to do a lot of like and

1:08:00 they. He she said he separated her

1:08:02 from Emmanuel as well and got her in a police car.

1:08:04 And she was as to, you know, it's enough away from him to

1:08:08 maybe then give her the confidence to kind of go.

1:08:10 If I quietly kind of indicate here who I am, this might be my

1:08:14 moment. And she eventually does admit to

1:08:17 being Elizabeth Smart the. Cop says to her, are you

1:08:21 Elizabeth Smart? And she says to him, if thou

1:08:23 sayeth yes, she doesn't even give him a really direct she

1:08:28 she's still kind of almost in character.

1:08:30 Yeah. Because.

1:08:32 Well, that's how she's been for nine months condition.

1:08:35 She was conditioned to do that, yes, nine months.

1:08:38 This is. This is.

1:08:40 It was. I think it was exactly 9 months

1:08:42 to the day that she from when she was kidnapped to when she

1:08:45 was found crazy. Apparently the police then put

1:08:48 her in the back of their police car and she just broke down and

1:08:51 she was in tears. Ed and Lois are notified to meet

1:08:56 the meet the police. They basically rang him and said

1:08:58 don't stop, don't go anywhere, come directly to the police

1:09:01 station. And with that, I find this, I

1:09:04 actually found this really sad. I mean, but the police have her

1:09:14 in a room on her own waiting for her mum and dad to come.

1:09:18 Do you think that's bizarre? She's just absolutely traumatic.

1:09:22 Nine months. Yep.

1:09:24 And then you can tell she's really unsure because Ed comes

1:09:29 into the room at Lois. Must have been elsewhere.

1:09:31 She yeah, Ed comes into the room and he's like Elizabeth.

1:09:35 Isn't that really you? Is that?

1:09:36 Really. You And she's like, yes, Dad.

1:09:38 Oh. My God.

1:09:41 Oh, I know. I watched that.

1:09:42 That was the first time I've seen that.

1:09:43 In that documentary, you can see the footage of it like, and it's

1:09:46 like, oh, it's, I literally broke down because it's just Oh

1:09:49 my God. Can you imagine?

1:09:51 After nine months, I mean. You wouldn't believe it.

1:09:54 You wouldn't believe. It no, no.

1:09:57 Even, I think, I mean Elizabeth obviously so extremely

1:10:00 traumatised that she's still not.

1:10:03 Not. I don't know.

1:10:06 Yeah, She's not able to process probably what's actually

1:10:10 happening to her. But to, I mean, the credit of

1:10:13 that family, she's able to, I mean, with a lot of support,

1:10:18 obviously, I'm sure over time, but you know, she is able to

1:10:23 come through this, which I really think that that, you

1:10:26 know, her dad and her mom and the love that they had for her

1:10:29 and, you know, really helped her through that, obviously, because

1:10:32 she had to return to school and to normal life after this, which

1:10:36 you I just can't even fathom how you do that.

1:10:39 No. I mean, she is amazing.

1:10:41 She went on a Mormon mission. Yes to Paris.

1:10:44 To Paris, like the next a few months after she got back, Like

1:10:48 after she was discovered, yeah. I mean, I guess that's the only

1:10:52 way to do it is like to RIP the bandit off and just do it can.

1:10:55 You imagine her mum and dad letting her go off to Paris on

1:10:57 her. Own Oh no, I'm sorry, as a

1:10:59 parent, I couldn't actually, I actually couldn't.

1:11:01 Same. I I mean as much as I I know it

1:11:03 would be the right thing for I'm like Nope, not OK with me.

1:11:06 To stay here. I'm sorry you need to stay

1:11:08 within visual stay like I need to better see you at.

1:11:12 All time tag on you. Oh my God.

1:11:14 Oh, God, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but she did.

1:11:17 She ended up having to come home from the mission in order to

1:11:22 give some testimony in pretrial hearings for Emmanuel.

1:11:26 Because this is what's. And Tiba, whose real name is

1:11:28 Wanda Barzi? Yes.

1:11:30 Now fuck me. Fuck them.

1:11:33 Oh Oh my God, fuck them. Should we get into who they are?

1:11:36 Let's get into who they are. Sorry, Emmanuel.

1:11:39 Oh my God. So this guy, David, Brian David

1:11:42 Mitchell, he was born in 1953 and he was the third of six

1:11:48 children. His parents were Irene Mitchell

1:11:50 and Cheryl Mitchell. Now, his father was a alcoholic,

1:11:57 all those sorts of things, but also a he well, his father

1:12:00 thought he was a divine prophet and that he was also known as

1:12:05 being a peeping Tom. And he consumed an incredibly

1:12:09 amount, a high amount of pornography in front of Brian.

1:12:15 Now, the other person, all of his children.

1:12:16 Yeah. Well, I think by the time of

1:12:18 four, Emmanuel had a manual. I mean, we'll call him Brian

1:12:22 Mitchell. Now, Brian Mitchell was shipped

1:12:24 off from his parents to his grandfather.

1:12:26 And if you think his dad was bad, where do you think he

1:12:28 learned it from? So the grandfather was a

1:12:30 paranoid schizophrenic. Now he would bring home random

1:12:36 people and have sex with them in front of Brian Mitchell.

1:12:42 So he was exposed to this high level of pornography, sexual

1:12:48 interaction and everything as a very young child.

1:12:52 By the time he was 13, he people were really like, he's odd and

1:12:58 he's weird and he was sort of flagged as having some mental

1:13:01 health issues at that point. However, by 15 he was arrested

1:13:05 for soliciting sexual activity from a four year old neighbor.

1:13:11 Like just next level. Holy fuck this guy is got

1:13:16 serious issues. I mean as we say, you know, like

1:13:20 with most of these cases, there's always a start for this

1:13:26 issue to become. And yes, there are other people

1:13:28 at fault for creating him as The Who he became, absolutely.

1:13:32 But an adult? I was going to say there's

1:13:33 something at the core of his being though, that that allowed

1:13:37 that to happen because his siblings and not all

1:13:41 perpetrators of horrific. This is it so.

1:13:43 Yeah, but it certainly stuck with him.

1:13:46 Yes. So he married a woman by the

1:13:50 name of Karen 1st and he's. And he was only a teenager

1:13:53 himself at the time. When they were very young, when

1:13:54 they got married and they had two children.

1:13:58 Now, he was assaulted. Oh, I'm sorry.

1:14:00 Arrested for assaulting her in 1974.

1:14:03 And they divorced in 1975. OK, so that's wife #1?

1:14:08 Did he go to prison for that? No, no, they ended up when the

1:14:14 with the divorce though, so they did not treat those children

1:14:19 very well at all. No, they were very much a

1:14:21 problem having these kids that kind of stopped them from doing

1:14:23 what they wanted to do, like the pair of them.

1:14:25 No, I'm not saying just him. It was both.

1:14:26 They were both not great parents at all.

1:14:29 But when it came to divorcing her, obviously he wanted to use

1:14:32 them as pawns at that point. And he actually kidnapped them

1:14:35 for two years. Just just insane.

1:14:39 But anyway, he he did keep those children with him, though I

1:14:42 don't know how that came about because then he married his

1:14:46 second wife, Debbie. Debbie also already had, I

1:14:51 think, a couple of children. 2 I think.

1:14:53 Yeah, so then that gave them 4. But then she then they had two

1:14:56 children together now to keep that marriage going.

1:15:00 At one point he figured that it was his two children that were

1:15:03 the problem and he put them out to foster care and got rid of

1:15:08 them. It didn't save the marriage.

1:15:11 Shock, horror, he molested his own children in that marriage.

1:15:18 So his actual biological children he molested, Yes, I

1:15:21 mean, I believe, I believe. His stepchildren as well as.

1:15:23 Well, but his own biological children, yeah.

1:15:28 He he's the wife. She found all these photos and

1:15:31 things that he had taken of those those incidents.

1:15:34 So that was her I'm out of here moment and left that marriage in

1:15:39 84. At that point sort of in his

1:15:43 life is when he sort of officially really gets evaluated

1:15:46 for mental health issues, but he was legally found to not be

1:15:51 mentally ill at that point. So this is so that honestly

1:15:57 blows my. Mind I Well, it doesn't.

1:15:59 It doesn't to me. To me, that says that what

1:16:01 they're saying is that he's coherent in his choices.

1:16:03 They're not saying that's right, what he did, that he's not, that

1:16:07 this is the thing. What mentally ill is and what

1:16:09 being coherent and making those choices is, is two different

1:16:12 things. Like, I just can't come at the

1:16:15 fact that somebody who doesn't have a mental illness would

1:16:18 perpetrate these things knowingly and willingly.

1:16:21 But that's where that's it's a psychopathic thing, That's

1:16:23 right. Not a mental illness that is

1:16:24 like like psychopathy. Is a mental illness.

1:16:28 But it's not treatable, really. No, it's not treatable.

1:16:30 And that's where I think that's the differentiation between like

1:16:32 whether or not you're, this is where like, yeah, whether or not

1:16:35 he was able to stand trial for Elizabeth's kidnapping,

1:16:39 etcetera, was like whether or not he was coherent enough to

1:16:42 stand trial. And it came down to whether or

1:16:45 not he was diagnosed as mentally ill.

1:16:47 And they were legally saying, no, he is, he is sound of mind

1:16:51 enough, yes. To stand trial, yes.

1:16:54 So that two things can be true in that he could have a mental

1:16:58 illness and still be fit to stand trial, which that's what I

1:17:01 think. That's the, that's what I'm

1:17:03 saying is it's he's not legally mentally ill where he can't be

1:17:07 held accountable. Be held accountable.

1:17:08 For his actions, there is a difference there in between of

1:17:11 like, you know, no, no, this guy's the behaviour that he has

1:17:14 maybe perpetrated is beyond his control due to mental illness.

1:17:18 That's someone who needs different therapy to someone

1:17:21 who's been coherent enough to make these choices within their

1:17:23 mental illness or whatever. Absolutely.

1:17:25 That they need to stand trial as as any other human would.

1:17:27 Yeah, yeah. So so that's important that in

1:17:31 1983 that was he was that was legally found that he is not

1:17:35 mentally ill to that degree. Make decisions, make decisions

1:17:38 coherently enough trial, yes, yeah.

1:17:41 So, but in this, he's sent to group therapy.

1:17:45 And who does he meet in Group therapy?

1:17:47 I mean, I'm sorry, but you should never meet a partner in

1:17:51 Group therapy. I know, right?

1:17:55 So in this group therapy, he meets Wanda Bazi, who in the

1:17:59 future becomes Hepzibah. Now this group therapy,

1:18:03 apparently people, when they saw these two together, the words

1:18:06 that people would use was that they were disturbingly

1:18:09 compatible. Eww.

1:18:12 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Both of them had in the past

1:18:17 injured animals, and I don't mean injured, actually, I should

1:18:20 say just killed. Let's just.

1:18:22 Tortured and killed. Tortured and killed.

1:18:23 Yeah. So Brian had killed the family

1:18:26 dog in in growing up Hepzibah, or Wanda, I should call her now.

1:18:32 She murdered the the family's pet rabbit and then cooked it up

1:18:37 and fed it to the family, which I could only come out a little

1:18:42 bit more than the dog in that yes, you can eat rabbit and

1:18:45 people do do that. I personally can't.

1:18:47 Like it's just not something. But you cook.

1:18:49 But that's your pet. Yeah, it's your pet.

1:18:51 And that's the thing. It's like a farmer raising,

1:18:53 raising rabbits to be, you know, slaughtered for food.

1:18:58 That's one thing. Yeah, it's another thing to.

1:19:01 Have a family pet? And and cook the family pet and

1:19:05 eat it. Yeah, yeah.

1:19:06 Yeah, OK. So they, they, they are just,

1:19:12 the two of them should never have met, let's be honest.

1:19:15 I mean, but they did and they got married.

1:19:17 They also had sorry she had had six children prior to meeting

1:19:21 him. One of her daughters has come

1:19:24 out publicly and said that Brian did molest her as a child.

1:19:29 So he's got full background history of this this.

1:19:33 Is it's repeated immediately every relationship he had he

1:19:37 perpetrated, you know, sexually explicit crimes on young girls

1:19:43 and boys I. Think too.

1:19:44 Yeah. So I mean, she came out here

1:19:48 publicly and said that she'd be molested, but and that that she

1:19:50 believed that both her mum and and Mitchell should have, should

1:19:54 be permanently in prison like that.

1:19:55 She just does not believe that they should ever get out.

1:19:57 So with the two of them together, this is where the

1:20:00 radicalization sort of occurred of the religious side of it.

1:20:03 So the two of them became this, you know, like he wrote that

1:20:08 book of the book of Emmanuel David Desire.

1:20:11 Yeah, and they would wear these white robes and they would

1:20:13 preach these religious messages and just and it.

1:20:15 Was about it was all shocking like.

1:20:17 Horseshit. Oh, totally so, but weirdly

1:20:22 enough, like this is all we go get into like where there was

1:20:24 premeditation of what they were going to do to Elizabeth,

1:20:26 whether it was directly Elizabeth is when that became I

1:20:29 think that was really probably when he saw her when he was in

1:20:31 the house. Same.

1:20:32 But prior to all that back in sort of earlier in 2001, they

1:20:36 were with some friends of theirs, which just blows my mind

1:20:39 that they had friends they but they had said to them, well,

1:20:42 actually Wanda had said it to to this guy, which Emmanuel Bryan

1:20:47 had gotten very annoyed with her for telling him this, that they

1:20:51 had had the God had spoken to them and that another wife was

1:20:56 going to come to them and a or a child was going to come to them

1:20:59 named Augustine. So she got quite, I think a

1:21:04 beating for that, for that. Yep.

1:21:06 But yeah, that then led to the kidnapping of Elizabeth, which

1:21:11 she named Augustine, which they not, yes, which is just

1:21:15 chilling. But the two of them are just

1:21:19 horrendous. Oh.

1:21:19 They're the they're the scum of the earth.

1:21:22 And you know what I think is even more disgusting?

1:21:24 I'm not a religious person, but when people hide behind

1:21:28 religion, I think that is the lowest of the low because people

1:21:34 who believe and people who are of faith like Elizabeth and the

1:21:39 Smart family were. Yeah, they place a lot of value

1:21:42 in that. Yeah.

1:21:43 And to hot fit for Emmanuel and Hepzibah, you know, for

1:21:47 Wandering and Brian to hide behind that and use that as

1:21:52 their motivation to commit these horrific and horrendous acts is

1:21:57 the ultimate cowardice. Totally.

1:22:00 Ultimate cowards act because yeah, they couldn't just go out

1:22:04 and blatantly do it. They had to hide behind religion

1:22:07 and I think that's disgusting. I believe that more so and more

1:22:11 so Brian than Wanda. Absolutely.

1:22:13 Brian used it as just a manipulation tool for sure.

1:22:16 It wasn't even something that he truly even believed.

1:22:18 I don't think he believed for a second that any of that was

1:22:21 real. He.

1:22:22 He. Saw that his dad used religion

1:22:24 in a manipulative way to get what he wanted and he's just

1:22:27 continued that on. I completely agree with that.

1:22:30 I think he's just gone. Oh, this is a way that I can get

1:22:32 people to do what I want, you know, And that he, I think, too,

1:22:35 he understood the LSD church. Yeah.

1:22:38 And he LDS. Sorry, LDS LSD.

1:22:41 No, it's maybe something else. He may have been on that too,

1:22:43 though. Possibly, Yeah.

1:22:46 So I think he understood the LDS church and what that created in

1:22:49 terms of particularly the young girls in that church and how

1:22:52 much more pliable they might be to manipulation.

1:22:56 Fully agree with that because they are so innocent.

1:22:59 And I mean, God, I'd love a world where we could all be that

1:23:02 innocent to believe that, you know, you would just, I mean, I

1:23:05 believe girls could want more for this.

1:23:07 But in the church it's, you know, basically that girls would

1:23:09 grow up and meet their their person, that is their love of

1:23:11 their life and they have children and everything is

1:23:14 rainbows and sunshine. And I wish that was the world

1:23:17 that we lived in that that's what rainbows and sunshines were

1:23:20 all about kind of stuff. But it's not.

1:23:22 And so you do need to educate children, you know, at

1:23:26 appropriate ages about more sinister things, unfortunately,

1:23:30 to protect them, you know, at an age appropriate way, which

1:23:33 they're not in the LDS Church. They they're kept very isolated

1:23:38 from the reality of life. Yeah.

1:23:40 And that I think that played into what Brian could then use

1:23:44 over Elizabeth. Definitely.

1:23:46 And he just blatantly knew that. Yeah, he knew.

1:23:48 I mean, I think, I think a lot of people who know very limited

1:23:52 things about the LDS church probably know that it's, you

1:23:55 don't have to, you know? Know a lot.

1:23:57 You know that that's probably the case, Yeah.

1:24:00 And I mean, even just the the wholesome activities they did

1:24:05 like the fact that the girls played the harp and I know all

1:24:08 of that sort of stuff like they stunningly.

1:24:10 Gorgeous. They really were.

1:24:11 Yeah, so sorry. So experts who had looked at

1:24:15 Mitchell and his personality basically decided that he was

1:24:18 not psychotic, but in fact he was manipulative and silly.

1:24:22 Stick. So he he really, this is the

1:24:25 thing. He was not mentally ill in that

1:24:28 form of like not being able, not being coherent in what his

1:24:30 decisions making will do. He was very coherent in all of

1:24:33 his decisions and very much in control of what he did and what

1:24:38 he did to Elizabeth in all of this.

1:24:41 Yeah. So the trial didn't happen until

1:24:44 2010? That's insane.

1:24:46 Reason for that is Mitchell spent years, I guess, attempting

1:24:54 a mental health defense so that you wouldn't actually then have

1:24:58 to be imprisoned or actually have to withstand a trial.

1:25:01 Yeah, he pretended to be insane. So much so he would sing loudly

1:25:06 during all of the court hearings and disrupt so somebody would

1:25:10 start talking and he'd be spouting off his gospel or

1:25:13 whatever. Yeah, it was complete

1:25:15 manipulation. He was pretending that he was

1:25:17 insane. He wasn't actually insane.

1:25:20 US marshals have said so. He was under the care in, in

1:25:22 within the court system of the US Marshals.

1:25:25 And they say that as soon as the the hearing was over, he'd just

1:25:29 stop. And he was he'd just walk out

1:25:31 and be normal. He wouldn't have these outbursts

1:25:32 anywhere else then when it was convenient for him in the

1:25:35 courtroom. Yeah.

1:25:36 And unfortunately, the judges kept postponed.

1:25:39 There were multiple judges over this time too.

1:25:41 I'm not even saying it was one person.

1:25:43 No, multiple judges over this time would postpone the hearings

1:25:47 until he was determined to be mentally sound enough.

1:25:50 He would have all these. So he was detained for this

1:25:52 whole time, I should say, but no conviction.

1:25:55 Would have these he would have these psychological assessments

1:25:59 they'd be like yes, yes, he's fine to stand trial and then

1:26:02 he'd they'd go to do a pretrial hearing again and he'd do the

1:26:06 same thing yeah. So it wasn't until 2010 until he

1:26:11 was actually put to trial. They basically said fuck it,

1:26:14 you're going to trial. We're not, we're not delaying

1:26:16 this any further. That's.

1:26:17 Right. Elizabeth was 23 years old at

1:26:19 the time of the trial, so that just gives you an idea of it was

1:26:22 nine years late. Just crazy.

1:26:25 Her testimony really dismantled his insanity defence because she

1:26:31 was able to say all of the coherent things, the logical

1:26:34 decisions he made while he had her, well, both of them had her

1:26:38 and she was able to counter everything that the defence had.

1:26:42 She was able to give a reason she was like and give examples

1:26:45 and. She was so good on the.

1:26:47 Stand. She was amazing.

1:26:48 She is so strong. She's such a strong woman.

1:26:52 In December of 2010, he was found guilty and sentenced to

1:26:56 life in prison without the possibility of parole.

1:26:58 Thank. Fuck.

1:26:59 Oh God yeah. However, Wanda Bazi.

1:27:02 So she was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial in

1:27:05 2004, but it was eventually given 15 years in federal prison

1:27:10 for her actions. There was a bit that went on

1:27:13 there with that. However, she was then released

1:27:15 early so in 2008 she was medicated and things with

1:27:22 antipsychotics but was released out into the public.

1:27:25 Yep. Now the family did.

1:27:28 I can't believe this, that at that time she was actually only

1:27:32 she pledged a guilty sorrow, I should say, in in 2010 as well

1:27:36 to Olivia Wright's. Yeah, abduction.

1:27:38 Yeah. So she did.

1:27:39 She got a little bit for that, but because she assisted in

1:27:41 getting a manual for his case as well, that's where she got a

1:27:45 little bit lesser on certain things.

1:27:47 I think she was eventually released for good in 2018.

1:27:50 Yeah, yeah, 2018, yes, sorry. She was because that the 2010

1:27:55 conviction was the 15 years. So, so yeah, the four years she

1:27:57 spent from 2000 and four, 2008 was the incompetence to stand

1:28:01 trial and medicated etcetera. Yeah, but then 2010, but it was

1:28:04 only for Olivia, who the cousin, it was not for Elizabeth at all.

1:28:09 So, yeah, so she got 15 years for that, but which that only

1:28:13 turned into 8, which is just fucked up.

1:28:17 It was released and like only recently two things have come up

1:28:21 about her. Yeah.

1:28:22 So in 2025, in May, she's 79 years of old of age at the

1:28:26 moment, now 80 this year. She was arrested because she's,

1:28:30 when she was released, she was actually, she's got to be marked

1:28:35 as a sexual offender. So with that, she can't go

1:28:40 anywhere near parks and things, but she was arrested at home for

1:28:43 visiting Liberty Park, Sugar House Park and one other I think

1:28:48 in Salt Lake City. But as a sex offender, she can't

1:28:52 be in the presence of children and therefore she can't be in

1:28:54 these spaces. Her explanation for being there

1:28:56 was that she was commanded by the Lord to visit the parks and

1:29:00 feed the ducks. I don't believe that from the

1:29:04 second wonder. But yeah, she's she's free at

1:29:07 the moment, but on pretrial release to the subject to what

1:29:11 goes on there with that. So interesting to see what

1:29:13 happens if she is spending more time, but she should never have

1:29:16 been released. I honestly think that that's

1:29:19 just unbelievably gross. But she it's, it's so inadequate

1:29:23 for her actions in this because she did not, she did the same as

1:29:27 Emmanuel. She because she was, she did

1:29:29 participate as well in in the sexual assaults of Elizabeth.

1:29:32 She enabled all of his other behaviors as well.

1:29:35 She should be held accountable. She could have at any point gone

1:29:39 to someone and said, Oh my God, this is what my husband's just

1:29:42 done. As the adult in that situation,

1:29:44 she could have spoken up to, yeah.

1:29:45 Came in in the library when Emmanuel was in a toilet.

1:29:48 She could have also turned and said, yes, we're both in this

1:29:51 situation, we need to get away from him, but no.

1:29:54 No, she was fully complicit. Completely.

1:29:56 She did divorce him in from jail.

1:29:58 I think in 2004 that happened, but still.

1:30:03 Yeah. So.

1:30:03 So I still did the shit you did. Absolutely.

1:30:07 Yeah. Yeah.

1:30:08 Just awful. Horrible.

1:30:12 Where's Elizabeth today? Yes, so she's a mother of three.

1:30:15 She got married to a really lovely LDS man.

1:30:21 She has three children. I think she's got two daughters

1:30:23 and a son. Yeah, she's a global child

1:30:25 safety advocate and the founder of the Elizabeth Smart

1:30:29 Foundation. So the Elizabeth Smart

1:30:32 Foundation includes abuse prevention education and also

1:30:38 survivor support, child safety legislation.

1:30:42 And they actually launched this thing called Smart Defence.

1:30:46 Now this is an online or you can do it face to face, I think in

1:30:49 Salt Lake, but an online self-defense course that

1:30:54 basically teaches young girls and young young children how to

1:30:59 defend yourself against a potential kidnapping hub or a

1:31:02 sexual perpetrator. The difference between like, you

1:31:07 know, rape and and consensual sex.

1:31:13 Yeah, she's an advocate big time for that now, in terms of the

1:31:16 that she felt like she was unprepared in that sense to

1:31:19 know. I found her really interesting.

1:31:21 She calls this like the chewed up gum metaphor.

1:31:24 And I've seen her. She's spoken about this.

1:31:26 I actually think she wrote about this a little bit in her book as

1:31:29 well. Yeah.

1:31:30 She says that she didn't try to escape in public because.

1:31:36 And part of it was this religious shame that you were

1:31:38 talking about. And she said one of her

1:31:40 teachers, when she was younger, she went to a youth group.

1:31:42 Yeah. And this teacher of this youth

1:31:44 group said that basically that if you're like a stick of gum,

1:31:52 once you're chewed up, nobody's going to want you.

1:31:56 Oh fucking. Hell.

1:31:58 Yeah, and if you're clean and in your packet, then somebody's

1:32:04 going to want to want you. Oh, so that was the thing that

1:32:08 she thought about when coming back, I guess, you know, the

1:32:12 thought of coming back into society.

1:32:14 She's like, well, I'm just like a I'm.

1:32:15 Chewed up gum. Oh, that's so awful.

1:32:18 Yeah. Oh God, it's absolutely

1:32:20 horrific. The thing like, I mean, yeah,

1:32:22 you want to shelter kids and stuff from these things, but

1:32:25 they need to have an understanding of the difference

1:32:27 between the like, what's right and what's wrong in these

1:32:29 situations to protect themselves.

1:32:31 Well, that's part of what she wants to do with her.

1:32:33 Yeah, work and and thank goodness she's doing that.

1:32:36 Oh, God, she did not do this. She there should be no guilt for

1:32:40 on her. And I'm not.

1:32:41 I mean, I, I think she's now in a place where she knows that.

1:32:44 Yeah. But every victim should know

1:32:46 that, yes. The other thing I just wanted to

1:32:49 point out was I think how traumatized to this day Mary

1:32:52 Catherine is. Yeah.

1:32:54 I think you watch her on that documentary and you're like, Oh

1:32:57 my God, this is still so raw for you.

1:32:59 Yeah, you haven't. This is not your fault.

1:33:02 She saved her. She.

1:33:03 Saved her sister. She is.

1:33:05 She is the epitome, in my mind, of a hero.

1:33:08 I could not agree with you more. But she doesn't see it that way.

1:33:11 And I look at her and I think you still look like a little

1:33:14 girl, whereas I think Elizabeth has definitely.

1:33:17 She's grown into herself and she's grown.

1:33:19 Through this experience, whereas I can still see Mary Catherine

1:33:22 hasn't. No, I feel for her so deeply.

1:33:26 Yeah, she is an incredible woman.

1:33:29 She was an incredible 9 year old girl.

1:33:31 Oh yeah. I'm so sorry that that happened

1:33:34 to her and that she had to go through all of those things.

1:33:36 And I think sometimes she's a forgotten victim in all of.

1:33:38 This absolutely. And I think that's where, you

1:33:40 know, like we focus on Elizabeth in this and as as we should as

1:33:43 the victim and all these sorts of things.

1:33:45 But, I mean, Mary Catherine was a victim as well in that room

1:33:47 that night. She experienced trauma, the fact

1:33:50 of losing her sister, who she idolized, the thought of losing

1:33:53 her forever. And but she has to focus on the

1:33:56 fact that she got her back. Yeah.

1:33:58 And that's why I said at the beginning of this that, you

1:33:59 know, as much as this story is, has got awful, awful parts of

1:34:02 it. And there are awful, awful

1:34:04 people in this. At the ultimate end of this is

1:34:07 what is the best you can get out of this that could ever happen.

1:34:10 And it happened because of Mary Catherine.

1:34:13 Yep. If she did not remember

1:34:15 Emmanuel's name, if she did not. I mean, they could have just

1:34:19 dropped this with racy. Yeah.

1:34:21 Without which is which is sticking to her truth and going.

1:34:24 That's not the voice. I know.

1:34:26 It was a different voice. It's going to come to me.

1:34:27 It's going to come to me. And she did.

1:34:29 She did such an amazing job. The police almost did do that.

1:34:33 They almost did. You know, when Racy died, it was

1:34:36 kind of like, well. There goes that.

1:34:39 Basically. And so the fact that she was

1:34:41 able to be so, so sure of it, yeah, as a nine year old.

1:34:48 I, I, I do go back to then help their parents.

1:34:51 The parents like Lois and and Ed as much as like I'm saying, like

1:34:53 the LDS church has done them wrong in terms in terms of, you

1:34:56 know, their upbringing. In some ways, I think the

1:34:59 parents were obviously raised their kids so right and backed

1:35:04 Mary Catherine. Yep as well and supported her to

1:35:07 get through this. Yep.

1:35:09 To stick to her guns and know what she knew was right and like

1:35:12 didn't just follow the line of the police and dismiss their

1:35:15 daughter either. So and I think that always just

1:35:17 comes back to how good of parents they were individually

1:35:19 as well. That's it.

1:35:20 Yeah, that's it. Lois isn't in the documentary.

1:35:24 No, he has, Elizabeth said. She just wants to leave all of

1:35:26 this in the past. Now she has she has spoken as

1:35:28 well and done a lot of public speaking herself and I think and

1:35:30 she's written a book with with Elizabeth about all this and she

1:35:33 feels like she's said enough. Yep, apparently so.

1:35:35 She's. Completely.

1:35:36 Yeah, Yeah. It's completely fair.

1:35:38 Yeah. Ed and Ed and Lois aren't

1:35:40 together anymore either. They have divorced after 34

1:35:42 years of marriage. And we can go down a whole other

1:35:44 track of that, of the Mormon church and what that does for

1:35:46 people 100%, you know, which I mean, I also all power to Ed and

1:35:49 that he's, you know, found out, found who he is as a person.

1:35:53 That's right. Eventually and being able to

1:35:54 voice that again, beyond the church, that he he has come out

1:35:58 as gay. And I mean, as we said, a

1:36:00 brilliant father and always, I think always meant to be a

1:36:03 father of these children. Definitely, no question there.

1:36:06 And, you know, you know, but he's finally been able to find a

1:36:08 voice to come forward and of who his truth is because the Mormon

1:36:12 church squashes that in you, too, to not be able to be who

1:36:14 you are. I think if that's the way that

1:36:16 you're genetically made to be. And that's a whole other story.

1:36:20 But good on him for coming forward on that.

1:36:22 But, yeah. And there are, again, there's

1:36:24 such, there's no malice between Lois and Ed and Elizabeth, all

1:36:28 those sorts of things that there are family throwing through no

1:36:30 matter what. So they're.

1:36:32 Yeah, Ed's very prominent in the documentary that has come out

1:36:35 most recently. And as we say, Lois isn't even

1:36:37 involved. But it's not because there's any

1:36:38 issues in the family. None at all, no.

1:36:41 No, that's exactly right. Look, I think in cases like

1:36:46 this, if it wasn't for the media retention, it would not have

1:36:50 ended the way it did. Yeah, I don't.

1:36:52 We don't know, thankfully, what would have come of it.

1:36:55 But Elizabeth does say that she thinks that Emmanuel had it in

1:36:58 him to kill her. It, it was on knife's edge, so

1:37:03 to speak, sometimes as to whether that was going to be the

1:37:06 case. And the fact that she survived

1:37:08 for those nine months, she endured the most horrific

1:37:11 torture that anyone would ever have to endure.

1:37:16 And she still came out of it the other side.

1:37:17 And she has grown. She's such a strong human being

1:37:20 for it, and thank goodness she was found.

1:37:24 Thank goodness he's in prison and we never have to worry about

1:37:27 him again. I love though, that she met her

1:37:29 husband, Matthew Gilmore in Paris, right?

1:37:32 Which I mean, well, nice. But he met her not knowing her

1:37:36 who she was in that, in that she was Elizabeth Smart, who had

1:37:40 been kidnapped and returned home after nine months.

1:37:42 So they were able to build a relationship with none of that

1:37:45 as being part of who she was, which I think just, I mean, he

1:37:49 saw who she was as a strong, amazing woman without knowing

1:37:54 all of her background. And so they fell in love before

1:37:56 he even knew all of that stuff about about her.

1:38:00 And that only made him love her more, you know, So I think

1:38:02 that's really amazing. So they're a beautiful family.

1:38:05 They are. Yeah.

1:38:07 All. I just want the best for her in

1:38:09 terms of everything now, because she's come out of this the other

1:38:13 side, which is so hard to do. I mean, the abuse that she

1:38:16 endured, you could forgive someone for going down the wrong

1:38:20 path after that. Oh, God, you know.

1:38:23 But she, I think, again, come back to the family.

1:38:25 Obviously, there was so much support and love there that she

1:38:27 was able to get back on that track and get and get the life

1:38:30 she deserved after all of this. Yeah.

1:38:32 Yep, absolutely. Gosh, another one in the can.

1:38:35 Meg, Oh. Yeah, get that out of my brain.

1:38:38 I know. Actually, Speaking of getting

1:38:42 things out of your brain, someone said to me something

1:38:44 about one of our old episodes the other day and I'm like,

1:38:45 yeah, no, I don't remember that. No, I know it's.

1:38:48 Time to go back and listen to the episode.

1:38:50 I know, I always. Feel like a weirdo, say, you

1:38:52 know, I was just listening to our episode from this weekend

1:38:53 and they're like, what? You listen to yourself, you

1:38:55 know? And I'm like I do because then I

1:38:56 can actually respond to people when they comment on our things,

1:38:59 because otherwise it's not in my brain at all.

1:39:01 Like same. I don't know.

1:39:02 What you're talking about it's the.

1:39:03 Moment. It must be the way we cope with

1:39:04 this. Yeah, it's got to be, I mean,

1:39:06 because it's all back there, but it's.

1:39:08 It's way back there, way back Push we push it do down.

1:39:13 Anyway, thank you for joining us for another episode everyone.

1:39:15 Should we just say it? Next week we are going to be

1:39:17 talking about the case of Carly Ryan, which is we're coming back

1:39:20 to Australia for this one. So really interesting case.

1:39:23 Yeah, not, not a hell of a lot of media on that one, but we

1:39:26 will. We'll bring it to you next week

1:39:27 and it will be interesting. Excellent.

1:39:29 All right. Thanks for joining us everyone.

1:39:31 Stay curious, crime besties. Bye.