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Posted March 13, 2003
By Maurine
Jensen Proctor
The newscasters
were using words rarely heard on television. “It’s remarkable,
unbelievable, incredible. It’s a miracle.” They were
saying that in a time of unrelenting bad news, they enjoyed reporting
something wonderful.
What turned
not just Salt Lake City, but the nation and the world, to jubilation
was the return of fifteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart to her family
after being kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom last June.
Fox reporter
Shepherd Smith said, “She has to be one of the most excited
girls in one of the most excited families in the country.”
The news station’s
experts repeated again and again, “You can count on one hand
the number of children abducted by a non-family member who are found
alive. It doesn’t happen.” Most kidnapped children are
murdered within the first twenty-four hours. Fewer than 2% of these
cases are found alive.
David Smart,
Elizabeth’s uncle speaking for the family at last night’s
news conference said, “Words cannot express how grateful we
are for the prayers around the world in behalf of Elizabeth. Do
miracles still exist? The answer is yes. We have Elizabeth back.”
Every Smart
family member choked up as they took their turn at the mike. Tom
Smart said, “We knew that her being found alive was statistically
very small, and it would be nothing less than a miracle if she were
found. But we believe in miracles. She has got to be the most prayed
for little girl in the history of the world.”
And if the miracle
hadn’t come through? “If she wasn’t alive, our
faith would still be intact.”
Public Awareness
Yesterday, two
different women called police with tips that they had seen Brian
David Mitchell, alias Emmanuel, at about 1:00 yesterday at 10200
South and State Street in Sandy, a Salt Lake City suburb.
Anita Dickerson
said that she looked over and saw a man and two women wearing odd,
homemade clothing. The women wore scarves in the Arab style and
sunglasses. The man had flowers in his hair like a throwback of
the 60’s. She was thinking how odd they looked, when she focused
on the man’s face and realized it may be Brian Mitchell. She
walked up closer to him, looked him squarely in the face, and was
certain. She called the police.
The other witness
said she had seen Brian Mitchell on America’s Most Wanted.
This show, designed to make the public aware and on the lookout
for criminals is hosted by John Walsh, who has worked closely with
the Smart family to keep the kidnapping investigation from growing
cold.
Todd McCall,
was just leaving his office, when he saw “a man and two women
who looked like transients who lived on the street because they
had all their belongings with them. The man looked like a calm,
peaceful person. None of them looked anxious or in distress.”
He didn’t know until half an hour later that he had seen Elizabeth
Smart and her abductor.
When police
apprehended Mitchell, he made no effort to resist. With him was
his wife, Wanda Barzee and Elizabeth Smart.
Mitchell Becomes a Suspect
Mitchell had
become a suspect in October when Mary Katherine, Elizabeth’s
ten-year-old sister, the only eyewitness to the kidnapping, came
to her father and said she thought the man in the room that night
had been Emmanuel, a homeless man Elizabeth’s mother, Lois,
had brought home the year before to work on their roof.
Lois and Ed
Smart had always tried to reach out in Christian compassion to help
the poor. She had met a very clean cut Emmanuel down town, given
him some money and then hired him to work one day on their roof.
They had never seen him again.
Though Mary
Katherine had been questioned repeatedly about the details of that
night by the police, in her fear and terror she had not remembered
anything but that the culprit wore a baseball cap. Then something
had jogged her memory.
From that point
on Emmanuel became the prime suspect for the Smarts. What’s
more Debbie Mitchell, Brian’s former wife had contacted the
Smarts with her suspicions that he might be involved.
The clean-cut
Emmanuel that Lois had tried to help was not his usual look. Lois
did not know that this was a man many in the Salt Lake community
knew as a religious zealot who had fallen out of the mainstream
years before. He was a common sight in Salt Lake street corners
dressed in flowing robes like Jesus or Moses, sporting a heavy beard
and panhandling in behalf of the poor.
His motive for
his alleged kidnapping of Elizabeth is still unclear, but John Walsh
speculated on The Larry King show that it was a quest for power.
He was a confirmed Mormon hater, he was down and out, a drifter,
a psycho.
David Smart
said, “There are many heroes in this story, but the real hero
is Mary Katherine, who, though she was only nine years old at the
time, was steadfast in what she said she knew and didn’t know,
and when she did remember she had the courage to come forward and
say it might be Emmanuel. She held fast to that. For a nine-year-old
girl to go through the trauma she’s gone through and hold
fast to that is extraordinary.”
Reunited
Yesterday after
she was found, Elizabeth was first taken to the Sandy Police Department
where she was reunited with her father, Ed, who didn’t stop
hugging her and crying for 30 minutes.
Family spokesman
Chris Thomas reported that Elizabeth is healthy, sharp, and articulate.
She was tearful and happy to be reunited with her family. She started
asking questions about how her brothers and sisters were doing and
was surprised that Andrew got straight A’s. The law enforcement
officers thought Elizabeth was doing very well for what she had
been through.
Ed said tearfully,
“I have always felt like our daughter was alive. I have had
strong feelings that she was still out there. The past month or
so it has been hard because I haven’t had those feelings.
I’m grateful for the prayers and the help. I don’t know
what she’s gone through, but I’m sure she’s been
through hell. She’s part of our family and we love her so
much.”
He added, “She
looks healthy. She’s grown a lot. I had to do a double take
and hold her back from me and say, ‘Is that really you?’
I just held her the whole way home.”
Missy Larsen
brought Elizabeth’s four-year-old brother William to see her.
She said, “He would hug her and look at her and couldn’t
believe that his sister was home.”
She also gave
this warning, “Elizabeth will be overwhelmed. She was overwhelmed
just seeing her family. The public wants to give their love, but
the distance would be nice for her right now.”
Ed’s sister,
Cynthia Smart Owens, said, “This is the most unusual, the
most wonderful reunion we could ever hope to have. We’d like
to publicly thank God Almighty.” Then she quoted from Isaiah,
“I will save thy children.” “Sing, O heavens,
and be joyful, O earth…for the Lord hath comforted his people,
and will have mercy upon his afflicted.”
Community Effort
The return of
Elizabeth Smart is a gift not only to her family, but to a worried
community who rallied round the Smart family and called her their
own. The Smarts profusely thanked the hundreds of volunteers who
worked and searched, the thousands who had prayed. From the moment
of her kidnapping when they roused their neighbors, the effort to
find her has been a cherished focus binding the community.
For instance,
Utah Congressman Chris Cannon told the news team on CNN’s
Crossfire that his four-year-old daughter has been praying for Elizabeth
for nine months.
The Smarts expressed
their gratitude to the media and to the local and federal law enforcement
officers who didn’t give up. Police said they have followed
up on more than 16,000 leads from the public. The FBI and local
law enforcement showed remarkable cooperation.
People stepped
forward from many organizations and all walks of life to donate
reward money for the abductor’s capture.
Yet frankly,
the Smart’s own tenacity played one of the major roles, showing
the world the strength of extended family, the power of faith, the
calm of prayer. They set a new standard about what families can
do when a child is abducted.
The nine months
since Elizabeth’s abduction, Salt Lake City has blossomed
with billboards about her kidnapping. You couldn’t live in
Utah without seeing her face. Believing that the way to keep the
police interested in the case was to keep the public fired up, the
Smarts cooperated with and courted the media. For many weeks they
held daily press briefings. They made themselves readily available
for interviews. They made friends of the media.
John Walsh of
America’s Most Wanted said that Ed Smart called him frequently
to ask what more he could do to keep Elizabeth’s kidnapping
before the public. When the police seemed somewhat lukewarm about
following up aggressively on Emmanuel after Mary Katherine’s
lead, both John Walsh and Larry King spoke of him on their national
television programs.
In early February,
the Smarts held their own press conference to show the public the
picture of Emmanuel and announce that they had reward money for
anyone who had information that would clear the name of Richard
Ricci. Ricci had also been a handyman who worked at the Smart’s
home and was for some time the prime suspect in the case. Clues
seemed to point to him, and he was put in custody for parole violation.
When he died the end of August of an aneurysm, many thought the
secret of what had become of Elizabeth Smart died with him.
The Smarts,
particularly Lois, didn’t think so. Lois said she knew him
and didn’t feel he was that kind of person, but they did have
faith in Mary Katherine’s memory. Perhaps clearing Ricci would
open the eyes of the police to other suspects.
Wednesday morning’s
Salt Lake Tribune reported that the Smarts had become frustrated
with the progress of the police because they seemed to dismiss Emmanuel
as a suspect and said as much publicly.
Ed Smart, Elizabeth’s father, told the Tribune, “They
said if we go public it could scare him off. I say the public can
be very helpful.”
Apparently,
Ed Smart was right.
What is the
future for the kidnappers? U.S. Attorney, Paul Warner, said, “On
behalf of the prosecutors, we will work vigorously and aggressively
to bring about justice to the perpetrators of this kidnapping and
other charges that might be appropriate. This much I can assure
you. Those responsible for these acts against Elizabeth will be
vigorously prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Where has Elizabeth Been?
Reporters peppered
C.F. “Rick” Dinse of the Salt Lake Police Department
with questions about Elizabeth’s whereabouts for the last
nine months, but he revealed little, saying the information would
be used to build a case and extensive interviews lay ahead for Elizabeth.
Still, speculation and sightings abound. According to unconfirmed
sources, she was first in the foothills not far from her own house
and then was taken on a cross-country haul. Police thought Emmanuel
had been to San Diego and Florida. Word has spread that they camped
out often in the desert. Some claim they saw her in a grocery store
last fall.
Perhaps more
intriguing, a picture has emerged taken at a party last September
in Salt Lake, not far from Elizabeth’s home. Here Mitchell,
in his flowing white robes, is shown drinking and also in the picture
are two women, heads bowed, hair covered and veiled. One of them
looks very much like Elizabeth. Apparently, much of the time Elizabeth
was under her oppressor’s thumb.
Much is to be
learned of this missing nine months. How did her kidnappers treat
her?
Why couldn’t she get away? Use a phone? Scream for help? Did
she have people with her at all times. More important is how long
will it take for her to recover from the trauma?
If she has inherited
the spiritual resilience of her parents, it won’t be long
before Elizabeth is healed from the tumultuous nine months she has
known. Their website concerning Elizabeth’s kidnapping carried
this motto of strength:
We will not live in fear.
We are watching.
We are united.
We are praying.
We will never give up.
We are all family.
Because Ed and
Lois Smart feel this way so intensely, it is not enough now to greet
and adore Elizabeth, exuberant as they are. Their concern is for
all missing children. To help them, as well as Elizabeth, they have
worked for months now to get Congress to pass the Amber Alert which
allows an immediate response to kidnappings so that the public can
be made aware before the culprit’s trail grows cold. The Senate
has passed the bill and it is now waiting for action in the House.
Ed said, “All of the children out there deserve to come home
to their parents the way Elizabeth has come home to us.”
Congressman
Chris Cannon summed it up, “For months we’ve been offering
prayers of petition, now it is time for the prayers of gratitude.”
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