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So today we are talking about Elizabeth Smart. Love. Tess, what do you know about Elizabeth Smart? I know that she, I think, was like in some middle of nowhere town, like Idaho or Utah. She was in Salt Lake, but she was in Utah. Oh, okay. And she was big family, had a lot of siblings. Yes. And she was kidnapped out of her bed in the middle of the night. Yes. But I don't know who. Okay. Were her siblings too or just her? Just her. Okay.
This story shook me to my core as a kid because they made, like, a made-for-TV movie, like, the year after. Was it with Hayden Panettiere? It might have been. Bitch! Now that you say that. Like, I just remember being like, this seems a little too, like, fluffy for the... It might have been. Well, I remember that was, like, on our living room and I was just like, I'm never sleeping again. Well, do you remember, like, how intense, like, our moms made, you know, rightfully so, being like, if you're kid... Like, you could be kidnapped. Shut up.
Oh my God, always. Because we had the code words if someone was going to come pick us up from school. What was your code word? Do you remember? Well, we never like locked one down, but we always were like ice cream or sprinkles or something like that. It's so scary. Yeah, because we talked about this on Premium before. Yes. If someone came up to your kid and was like, hey, your mom told me to come get you from school today. I know. And they instill the fear of God in you. They do. Rightfully so, just to be like. Did you have a password? Well, that's kind of how Dib started.
Oh, really? Because if someone was going to kidnap me at the park, my mom was like, don't scream mom because I don't know you're talking to me. Oh, my God. And she's like, you could say something like, and I'm pretty sure that's the form, the start of dib. Because that's what I call my mother, dib. And she calls Tess dib. We both call each other dib now. It still shocks me a little bit when she calls you dib. I know. Because she is dib. I know. And I'm also dib. Yeah. But just to her. Is Adrienne dib? No. Adrienne is not part of it. Sorry, Adrienne.
But he calls her Deb. Yes, but only as of like the past, maybe even 10 years. Oh, wow. He started later. He called her mom. I'm like, does he still call her mom? He refers to her as mom. He's like, Sarah. Yeah, he's like, Sarah, Miss Sarah. Actually, I don't know what he calls her to like if they're on the phone. Wow. I'm going to ask them tonight. Weigh in, you guys. Yeah. Guys, text me right now. I know you're listening. Deb's going to love this episode though because she loves the, you know. It's so scary. It's scary. Well, also...
I meant to have a picture of it pulled up. Have you seen what her captors looks like? No, it's like the scariest. Yeah. Pull it up because then they have it made for TV movie. Also check out our carousel, you guys. And then I remember seeing the pictures of the captors on TV and I was like, wow, this is a, these are the scariest people I've ever seen. Oh God. Do Elizabeth smart captors. Okay. Um, check out our carousel. You guys already know though, because, um,
Your premium Ramy's butt. Of course. At Ready To Roast mostly. Oh. Let me see if it's showing. Okay. Well, is this one of them? But the. Yeah, that's. Okay. Look at this one. Oh, gosh. Okay. Here. Look at this one. The scariest people. That is going to haunt me. No. And seeing that. Oh, it's a woman too? Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, so we got to get into it. But seeing that as like an eight-year-old, I was like, well, I already slept with my mom anyways, but I was like, wow, okay, I slept with my mom until like way too old. You guys until like fifth grade, but like after that happened, I was like, I'm going to sleep until high school. Oh, whenever I had a bad dream, I went into my mom's bed until like probably early high school. Well, I was like every night. It's like single mom life. Co-sleeping is very healthy. Well, yeah, I'm sure she never did it.
I love it. I think it's so cute. But probably because of Elizabeth Smart. It was so scary. Oh, Jesus. Okay. So my sources. Mainly just the... There's an A&E doc called Elizabeth Smart Autobiography. And spoiler alert, because you guys probably already know, but she does get found. I knew that. Yes. She does get found. And she is interviewed throughout these whole two episodes. Also, NPR and biography.com. Okay. Chic. So trigger warning.
Hmm.
Yeah, they had a... I mean, it's Salt Lake City. Like, why else are you there? Yeah. Truly. Exactly. Hold on. I'm going to take a sip of water. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Sorry for the gulp. No. Premium likes it, I think. Yeah. Well, we should do ASMR and, like, really take ownership of it. Oh, my God. We should. Okay. So...
Where are we? Okay. Elizabeth Smart was born on November 3rd, 1987 in Salt Lake City. She's Scorpio. Oh, she's Scorpio. Okay. That's the day after Dib and Marie and Twinette's birthday, right? Okay. Great. Her parents are Ed and Lois Smart. Like I said, she was born into like a devout Mormon family. She was the second oldest of six kids.
Oh, Jesus. Can you imagine? No. Six kids. No. And her dad was a successful real estate developer and her mom was a homemaker. Her family was just like very all-American, cherry pie, like... Mormon. Mormon, like blonde, you know what I mean? She was like a really great harp player and...
Yeah. Oh, the harp. The harp is amazing. The harp is crazy. Can I say something? Say it. The harp. The harp. Yeah. Justice for the harp. Justice for the harp. So she was amazing at the harp and she was just like an amazing student and like a great like athlete at school. She did cross country. Was she like cool, cool kid? You think like popular? It's hard to,
guess it's like depends on what you would count as popular right you know what I mean because I think like probably in this religious school she would be like a popular like I think she was just like a really good kid was she um attractive yeah she's cute kid yeah for sure and um I know sometimes you guys like don't say women if acid women are pretty we're just I need to paint the scene she's and she said she was very sheltered as a kid like not just like sheltered
because she was 14, she was like, I was a very sheltered 14 year old. I see. Which also makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. The heavy religious family. Um, so on June 4th, 2002, Elizabeth's 14 years old and her family and her attend an end of the year award ceremony at her school where she won a lot of awards for academics and physical fitness. Um, intense. Oh,
It's like one of those end of the year thing. Yeah. Now it's like kind of a chaotic time and a hard time for her family because the day before was her grandpa's funeral. And so her, and I think it was her mom's dad. So her mom was just like,
It was hard for me to get everyone together and like also be like mourning my dad and all of that. So the night of the awards ceremony, her mom was cooking and she burnt potatoes in the kitchen. So she opened a window to like let it all air out. And then they went to the awards ceremony, came back home. So she didn't close the window.
She did not close the window, Tess. Guys, it's like always close the window. I literally was like this. God, this episode. But I used to not when I lived alone, actually, now thinking about it. Well, you were on the second floor. That's true. So it made it feel more like. That's true. It was just so hot in there. Yeah, it was so hot in there. My God. So she doesn't close the window. That night, Elizabeth was sleeping next to her nine-year-old sister, Mary Catherine, and
And then about an hour after midnight, Elizabeth was awakened in the bedroom by the sounds of footsteps and the feeling of cold metal against her cheek. A man whispered, I have a knife to your neck. Don't make a sound. Get out of bed and come with me or I will kill you and your family. Her sister is right next to her, by the way.
So Elizabeth, he led Elizabeth out of the house and he start and they start marching for not walking for hours through the forest. So Mary Catherine's like, can you hear? It's like saying marching. I was like, don't say marching singing. So they're walking through the forest. Mary Catherine, her sister was the only one to witness the kidnapping and
She saw it, Tess. But she was pretending to be asleep. She was pretending to be asleep. But she, I think, saw, actually saw his face, though. And when they leave, she said that, because her sister was also interviewed, like, after they left, she got up for a second and ran to the door and then ran back to her bed because she was so terrified that he was still in the house, that he was going to come back in and kidnap her. And also, she's fucking petrified. Yeah.
And also, you guys, like, look at the picture of what this man looks like. Imagine seeing that in your bedroom. So she doesn't go and tell her parents for two, until two hours after Elizabeth was taken out of their house. No. Yeah. Which I, she, so I think she was nine. I think that's it. Yeah. And you never know how people act in these situations. Like, you do freeze. I mean, I think her body, like, probably shut down. Oh my God, that's so scary.
So she goes and tells her parents, she wakes them up and she was like, someone has come and taken Elizabeth. Her parents obviously freak out. They start looking all over the house. And then her mom said there was like a row of like light switches, you know, and she like hit them on in the kitchen. And where that open window was, she saw that there was a slit in the screen. And so she knew that someone had come in and taken Elizabeth. Yeah.
And that's when she, I had the chills. My God. That's when she completely lost it. Elizabeth's brother said they woke up to their mom crying in a way that they had never heard before.
Like whale. Oh my God. Wailing. And two hours. I am mad at the sister though. I'm not gonna lie. It's like, okay, be kind of scared. Two hours is a long time. I can't imagine how scared she must have been. I know. Like I, this one account said two hours. Maybe it was sooner. Like. No, and I don't blame a child. I don't blame anyone for, but like, I'm just. I'm sure you're just like, well, and also what she must have had to live with later of like, if I only would have gone like right then, like who knows? Like,
Oh, but you must just be so terrified. No, you must be paralyzed. At nine years old. No, I know. So they call the police and then they call all of their family members too. What is with people thinking that this is the right decision? They literally test. They're like a big Mormon family. They like, even the parents have so many brothers and sisters. They all come over to the house. There was like all of their friends there. The detective that arrived said it was the most contaminated crime scene he's ever seen. Oh my God.
Wait, what year is this again? 2002. Did we learn nothing from JonBenet? They learned nothing from JonBenet. And I think like these people just think like I need to be surrounded by my friends and family right now. But also it's also on the police officers who arrived. They should be like everyone out now. The detective said that the police officers working the graveyard shift are always the newbies.
But isn't this when most bad things happen? Yes. And this is when it happened with JonBenet too, but it's like no one wants to work those hours. The newbie should be like at 10 a.m. Yes. Like the chill time when it's like people get to work and not much is happening. A hundred percent. But like who wants to work a graveyard shift? Yeah, that's true. But it's like it doesn't really matter if you want to serve.
really matter what you want. Yeah. Like we got to find, find the bad guys. Yeah. So the detectives then have to be like, everyone needs to get out. We need to like learn everyone's name. We need to learn who's like been walking through here. Like what time it's just a mess and a mess. And so they take the family in for questioning. Okay. So back to Elizabeth. So they're walking right now through the forest and they're going up like a mountain. And then as they're going up the mountain, he then takes her off the trail completely and
And he has a knife to her back the whole time. And she said at this point that she told him like, if you're going to rape and kill me, please just do it here and now so that my family will find my body and know that I didn't run away that like this happened to me. And he was like, I'm not going to kill you. And then just made her keep walking. But he just said, I'm not going to kill you. Yeah. So on the walk, um,
On the walk, she realizes that she recognizes this guy. No, no, no. Yes. Tess, her kidnapper was a man by the name of Brian David Mitchell. He had a huge beard now, but before she, the first time and the only times that she had seen him, he was clean cut.
The first time she saw him was downtown. She was out back to school shopping with her mom and all of her siblings. And he was out begging people for work. He was like, I need help. I'm down on my luck. Can you get me some work? So one of Elizabeth's brothers goes up to Elizabeth's mom and he was like, hey, can we help this guy? Elizabeth's mom ends up giving him $5.
And that was the first time that she saw him. The next time that she saw him, he actually had come to work for her dad on their house. They lived in this like huge house. And there was like, I think it was still in construction. So he came to work on the roof at that house. And at that point, he had told her family that he goes by the name Emmanuel. Emmanuel. So he knew the house.
So from working construction tests, he saw every single entrance on the house. Were they rich? Yeah.
Do you think that was like what like attracted him to this? He said the first time he saw her on the street, he knew he was going to kidnap her. That's disgusting. Oh my God. Or he was going to take her. Disgusting. So he like tells the family, my name's Emmanuel. And I think they were all kind of like, that's weird, but like whatever. Like you're a white dude. Yeah. I think that they were like trying to like really help this guy. Yeah. So he, um, he, so he's working on the house. Um,
And then one day just stopped showing up. But he knows every single entrance of the house because of that. So now they are they're on the trail and they're coming down the mountain and they come to this camp where his wife, Wanda Barzee, was waiting. I think that's how you say your last name is Barzee. B-A-R-Z-E-E. He yells out Hepzibah.
And a voice yelled out Emmanuel. It's like they're fake little names that they have for each other. They're like disgusting theater kids. They're disgusting theater kids who like are playing prophet. And we've seen that. I think I've seen this film before and I didn't like the ending. Literally no. Never, never good ending. Yeah, exactly. So.
The camp Tess was just three miles from her family home, close enough that she could actually hear the voices of searchers calling for her in the days following. Rammies, it is literally crazy that I'm getting married in just two months. And I think the whole process has been so positive and really nice for me and my fiance, mainly because we have not followed any rules. We haven't been like, this is how our parents did it. This is how our friends did it. This is how we've seen it depicted in TV or movies. Like,
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I don't think this guy's that smart. Because, I mean, three miles walking is pretty far. Yeah, that's true. But I don't really know. That's like from here to your house, isn't it? I think my house might even be closer. It's like two miles. Maybe. But like it was in the forest too. And it's just like a normal, it's not like underground or anything. It's just like a normal house. No. Well, it wasn't a house. It's a tent. A tent. So it's a camp. Yeah.
So it's in the forest in a camp, but it wasn't just like a tent that was like thrown up. It was like very well laid out, very thought out. And the and then it's like at this point that Elizabeth sees the camp that she's like, oh, he's not going to murder me. Like he's planning to keep me just because there's like so much stuff in it.
And then, okay, she said the scariest thing about the camp, though, was Wanda, his wife. She was like, that was the scariest woman I've ever seen. She looked like a witch. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing scarier than like,
That's what my nightmares are made of. Women that are serial killers and stuff. It's just scarier because you expect men to be. That's a given. And more men are. I'm not even just saying that. It's true. When you see a woman that's evil, you're like, that is a sinister darkness. Sinister. She said she came over and gave her a hug, but it wasn't like a hug, like you're safe. Elizabeth Smart was like,
I don't even know how you convey this in a hug, but it was like, if you ever do something wrong, you're going to be like in deep trouble. Like it was just a very sinister hug. Yep. So then Wanda takes Elizabeth into the tent and she hands her this like robe. It looks like a, like it looks like a shepherd's outfit from like a nativity scene play or something like that. And that's what they're like dressed into. Oh my God. Oh yeah. Yeah.
And so she is like, put this on. You need to take your clothes off and put this on. And Elizabeth is like, no, please don't, don't make me do that. And she's like, if you don't put these on, put this on, he's going to come in here and do it himself. So either you can put this on or he'll put it on you. And so she puts it on and Wanda leaves the tent.
And then Emmanuel, I'm not going to call him Emmanuel. His name is Brian Mitchell comes in and he says all this shit about like, now you're sealed to me and you're my wife before God and his angels. And this can never be undone. Wife, wife. Um, and obviously Elizabeth is screaming like, and trying to get out. And he was like, if you ever scream like that again, I'm going to kill you and your family. Like he kept constantly telling her, telling her that, um,
And this is a very dark part. He then proceeds to rape her. And the really upsetting part is that Elizabeth, and this is where in the doc, she was like, I was 14, but I was a sheltered 14 year old that she didn't realize how sex worked. So she thought that if she like that you had to be on your back to be able to have sex. So she tried to be on her stomach and she,
like get away from him it's just so sad oh god oh and so she like she just didn't understand so it's like just he did rape her I just thought that was so sad that she like that shows you that she was like trying to crawl away yes and just being like if I can make myself get on my stomach then I will be safe oh it's just so sad and
Yeah. And like, just so that I don't have to like continue to say it, but he rapes her every single day that she, Oh my God. Every, every single day. So it's awful. Um, and, uh, she falls asleep after that. Um, I'm sure her body just completely like shut down. And when she wakes up, he's tying a metal cable around her ankle, um,
And she's pleading with him not to. She's like, I promise I won't run away, even though she had every intention of running away. But she would be tied to this metal chain. And it was like six feet by six feet. There's cables running all over the camp. And that's what she was tied to. And so that's the only amount that she could walk for a very long time. I have it later. But
And I'm like, how much that is, but holy shit, horrible. Okay. So back to her parents, like what they're doing at this time. So her family immediately starts trying to get her photos out into the world so that people can be looking for her, but they wouldn't. I think this is a night of her kidnapping. They wouldn't allow them to make a statement, put pictures out, do anything publicly for three hours.
I don't know if the police are like, we need to just like gather everything. I'm not really sure. But in the doc, they said that in this kind of situation, that three and three hours, 65% of the people are killed in a situation like that.
So they're almost like, let's wait until we have to put effort into it. I think that they were just like, we need to figure out what the situation is even in the first place. Right. Because you can't even like file a kidnapping right for 24 hours. Or is that just a missing person? Maybe that's a missing person. I think a missing person is like 72, right? Yeah. But they at least have the sister. For a minor. It's like, yeah. And they have their sister being like, I saw all this happen. That's true. So they, okay.
They are finally able to get the news out to every major newscaster doing live feeds. Her parents are like on TV pleading with people to be looking for her. They set up their headquarters and over 2,000 people from the community show up to do the search. They're like every walk of life they showed up. I know. Searches are so like haunting because obviously you need like help with numbers, but there's something like
I don't know. It's like, where do you even look? Yeah. It's just like, it feels so like, um, like what, what are we going to find? Shouting into the void, like quite literally. Like literally. So, and then of course people like start targeting the family and they're like, it's probably them, which like all of this, and we'll talk after, does make me like have thoughts about JonBenet. Oh really? You know? She's back. She's back. She's back to thinking it's the parents.
No, I'm kind of back. No, I'm an intruder. Oh. Oh. And we'll talk. We'll talk. Okay. Okay. So people start targeting me like it probably is the family. Right. One of the FBI's, one of the first things that they did was get a list of all the people who had worked at their house. They had about 60 contractors that worked at their house. Like this house is massive. So they get all those people's names.
And one of their first people of interest, and this will be throughout the whole case, is this guy, Richard Recy. He was one of the people working on the house. He was a handyman. He had a history of drug abuse. He had spent more of his adult life in jail than out of jail. He had stolen from their house before. So people were like, and especially the police, the police wanted it to be this guy. So they take him in.
He has an alibi, his wife or girlfriend or something, which is an interesting alibi. She was like, he was home with me. He was asleep the whole night, which is like, it's interesting that that can be an alibi because like, weren't you guys both asleep? Yeah, exactly. So it's probably not the strongest alibi, but an alibi nonetheless. He takes a polygraph test. He passes it. Can those not be used in court officially? No, but it's also just like one of her uncles is,
Like the polygraph test came back a little weird and he was being interviewed. He was like, I was under so much distress. Your heart is just like racing. Yes. He's like my niece, like just got kidnapped from her house. And you can also train yourself. Yeah, exactly. How to lie. I mean, Lisa Rinna or Lisa Vanderpump. Vanderpump. She passed one. Like truly. That woman was lying. And you know that there's not an honest bone in that woman's body.
Exactly. So he's not the guy, but the police continue to target him. Okay. Okay. So back to Elizabeth. Obviously, it's just awful. By the third day, they're sitting and he was talking and like talking. He would just, he loved to talk to hear himself talk. And it was always nonsense. And he was like,
And then all of a sudden he stops talking. And this is when Elizabeth starts hearing people shouting her name. And she was so scared to scream out because of all the ways that he's like, you know, told her if you ever do anything, even like when she was crying.
On the first day, Wanda was like, why are you crying? It's your wedding day. This should be like the happiest day of your life. Stop. Yeah. And then Elizabeth just kept crying. She's like, all right, you can cry today, but then you better cut that out from now on. These people were so freaking scary. Psycho. So she heard people yelling and then she just heard it stop. And she was like, oh my God, they're never going to find me. She also saw a helicopter that was looking for her. It was above their camp at one point.
And they never saw her. Oh, my God. I know. What do you do? Because then you just are like, they're going to kill me. And then also, like, you have to remember, like, this would be the most terrifying situation for anyone. She's 14 years old. Oh, my God. She's a child. A child. Also a sheltered 14-year-old. So he's just so disgusting. He knew that she was Mormon.
And so obviously, well, and she's 14. So he would make her drink alcohol as like a control tactic because he knew that was like against her religion. And he was like, Jesus drank wine. Do you think you're above Jesus? And not only like take sips out of drinks, like he would make her chug alcohol. And if she's like drunk and sick, probably. And if she didn't, then he would like withhold food and water from her. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah.
Yeah, it's just really awful. In the first weeks of their captivity, there was nothing for Elizabeth to do but sit and listen to him talk nonstop about how he was also going to go kidnap seven other young girls and they would all be his wives and come to accept him and love him.
What is like the wife? What's Wanda get out of all of this? She's just a psycho. Well, I think she is truly a psycho as well. I don't really know what she gets out of all of this. And I think she probably is like, but I'm his main wife. Oh my God. Disgusting. So this continues. Now we're about seven weeks from the kidnapping. Seven weeks of her just being in this camp, only being able to walk a short distance because she's chained up. Getting like assaulted every day. Every single day.
Um, Brian Mitchell. Oh, this is awful. Okay. So Brian tells her like, you're never allowed to talk about your family, about your friends, like anything that happened before this. And he would get super angry and scary. Um, when she would talk about that or bring it up, I'm sure she would be like, I miss my mom. Anything's horrible. Oh,
So he's talking one day about where his mom lives. And I don't know why she said this. I'm sure she doesn't know why she said this. Just like she blurted it out because she realized where his mom lived is right where her cousin, who was also her best friend, who is her age lived. And so she just blurted out, oh, my cousin lives a block away from there. And he all of a sudden just like stopped talking. And this was the first time that he had never gotten mad at her for bringing up his family. Yeah.
That, or a couple of days later, he goes to Elizabeth and he says, you're not going to like this, but God has told me that I need, I need to take your cousin as another one of my wives. And he shows her the knife and he goes, remember this? And then he leaves the camp. And Elizabeth is like, what did I just do? I just told him where my cousin lives. Tess, that night.
Her cousin Olivia woke up to a lot of commotion and chaos and she heard her dad on the phone with the police and he said, someone just tried to break into our house and were related to Elizabeth Smart. I have the fucking chills again. Oh my God.
He had cut the window screen trying to get in, but there was, um, there's pictures against the window seal. And so when he stepped in through the window, all of the pictures fell down and it was in her bedroom, but her sister was sleeping in the room that night and she woke up and saw it. And I guess scared him off.
The crazy thing is Olivia wasn't even in her room. It was her sister because all of Olivia and her siblings had slept in her parents' room ever since Elizabeth got kidnapped. Yeah, I would be too. Same. And just that night, her little sister happened to be like, I think I'm ready to go back and sleep in my own bed. And he tried to break in. How did he know exactly what house she was in? That's a great question. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know.
I hate this man. I hate this man. I don't know. He might be one of the most evil people we've ever talked about. He's, I mean, like, top three. And all these people are so evil. I'm like, you're also just so stupid. And you're also such a fucking loser. Yeah. Such a loser. Yeah.
Like the most, you're going to try to marry and assault 14 year old. Cause God's telling you to, you think that's cool? But that's what they always say. That's what they always say. God is an excuse for terrible things. That totally makes sense. I know. I don't know if he like said like which house, I don't know if he asked her more questions. I don't know, but somehow he might've been canvassing the house cause he would go into town sometimes. Um,
I would literally be Elizabeth Smart. I beg. Yeah. So I live at like 84. Yeah. Like I would be blurting like this would be me. Well, it's also. Because you probably just like are nervous and you just say things. I'm like, that would be me. Yes. And you're just in like such a stressful situation. Your mind's not functioning. Maybe she was drunk when he was talking to her from the alcohol. Like who knows? Who knows? Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, so this is so it was obvious, though, that, OK, people were like, wait, it's not Richard Reesey then who is doing this because he was in custody at the time that this break in started happening. OK, so which is like we know it wasn't Richard Reesey. But this made the police be like, oh, shit. And this also made the family, though, be like.
Elizabeth might be alive if he knew to go to like her cousin's house or something. It just made them start being like she could still be alive and like kind of gave them hope almost again. Okay. So she spent more than six weeks having a steel cable wrapped around her ankles. Six weeks never moving more than a few feet beyond the center of the camp and
One day, Brian and Wanda have this huge fight and Brian leaves Wanda and Elizabeth alone. He would go into town and he would eat and drink and get drunk and he would leave them with nothing. So were they feeding her? Barely. Barely. Barely. Like barely. There was at one point, Elizabeth was like, I can't believe I went through all of this and I'm going to die from hunger and thirst. Yeah.
She was like, I, yeah. So they were not taking care of her. And so since Brian would be able to like go into town and do whatever he wants, Wanda is like, I've had enough. I need, like, I can't stay up in this camp anymore. Like, fuck you for getting to go and have all the fun. I need to get out of camp or I'm going to lose it. And then Brian's like, well, we can't just leave Elizabeth up here. Like, even though she was like, there's no way I could have escaped because I was chained up. Yeah. But he was like, you're going to have to come down with us.
Elizabeth. So Tess, they're in these really weird taupe robes or whatever they are, like smocks.
And the women, like Wanda and Elizabeth, would have... It's not bonnets, but it was like sheets. It almost looks like a nun's sari kind of thing, but also like the same color. And they would put a sheet of like on her face except for her eyes. That is so terrifying. They looked so freaking scary when they were out. That's so risky though to like for them to be like, let's take her into town because she could...
You know what I think benefited them is being in a highly religious city like Salt Lake. Everyone's like, I've seen it all. Literally. Well, so when they were like coming down the mountain and they were walking on the road, Elizabeth was like, why is no one looking at me? Like, why is no one like questioning anything? Right. But also like...
When you guys see these pictures, if it were me, I would look straight down. Like I wouldn't look at them. I don't want to help anything. I don't want to be in contact with them. Like these people look like freaks. Did he have like the knife against your back like when they were walking? I don't know.
know actually I mean it's so easy to hear these stories and be like wouldn't she just run or scream or go up to someone but like she's so scared well and yeah because he had constantly told her um I'm gonna kill you and your family and something that she talked about later was like because someone was like was it Stockholm syndrome and she was like I was not in love with my captors and she was like people talk about um flight or freeze but they never talk about a
And that's when you will just do anything to try to stay alive because you're so scared. And she was like, that's where I was. Damn. I know. My God. So they're going into town. They start making regular trips to Salt Lake. And the thing that's so haunting is that they would go to all these places that Elizabeth had gone to just regularly as a kid. Like go to the parks that she went to, go to restaurants.
So she'd just be like eating at restaurants? But she had like the thing above her face. Yeah, but they would be out in public like that. Would they order her food? I think so. I'm just like, God, I'm always so stressed out. The food panic. The food panic. I know. I mean, they were also very strapped on cash. So it's not like they were going out to eat all the time. Right, they're not like a blue cheese stuffed martini. And keep them coming. And one for the little one as well. Yeah, no, they were not doing that. It was like very...
You guys, you know, sometimes you have to laugh because it's so dark. You have to because it's so horrible. Exactly. Oh, my God. So one time, one day, Tess, they go to this grocery store and the cashier was like, there's a party tonight if you guys want to come, which is crazy. And people were talking about on this doc, like,
because Salt Lake is such a Mormon city, you have the Mormons and you have the non-Mormons. And the counterculture is very strong because of that. Oh, I never thought about that. And so this party was made up of like
To me, what it looks like from pictures, it looks like something that would be like a party in Seattle or Portland. I was just going to say like 2010, like girls, hipster era. A hundred percent. There was punks there. There was like an artsy crowd. I mean, the cashier at a grocery store is inviting you to this like party. I'm sure you can guess what the crowd is going to be like. A hundred percent. Especially these three. Yeah. Yeah. So Elizabeth is like, I was 14. I'd never been to a party before. She's like, let's fucking go.
Wanda's like, when I said I needed to get out, this is exactly what I was talking about. Let's hit the town, girl. So they go into the party and like there's a lot of different alternative people there, but the three of them walk in and everyone takes notice, obviously. And there's pictures of them at the party that we'll post on the carousel. Who took the photos? I think people just like taking pictures. Oh, okay. Because yeah, 2002. So people have like digital cameras. Digital cameras. Yeah, exactly. On the wrist. Yeah. They're cannons. Yeah. Just like this is hot with my outfit. Yeah.
With my bodycon. Exactly. So they go in. Everyone notices them. And one of the party goers in the dock was like, he was just the guy at the party that needed to be managed already. Like he came in with a really intense energy. He started drinking a lot. He started drinking absinthe. Yeah. So he was walking around with his absinthe cup. Losery. Like the only time that a guy is as cool to drink absinthe is when you're literally like 17 being like, is this going to make me see fairies? What?
was that LA bar that was like an absinthe bar? Wait, yes. What is it about fairies? Because everyone says you drink absinthe and see fairies. Is it just from Moulin Rouge? I think Moulin Rouge is what they say. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But I remember like when we went to study abroad, we went to Barcelona to an absinthe bar and all of us were, I think 19 and all of us were like, sorry, just like want to ask before we drink this, like, is this going to make us hallucinate? And they were like, no.
you? Just like, just need to like make sure like I'm like know what I'm getting myself into. Exactly. And it's like, of course this loser would be drinking that. So he starts getting agitated. He gets obnoxious. Apparently the punks were not having him specifically. I hope they like beat him. They were like, you need to leave. Like you're ruining the vibe. And, um, at one eyewitness said that Elizabeth was just quiet the whole time.
And this guy goes to her, the party goer, and he goes, you need to ditch this guy. He's an asshole. He's bad news. And he said that Elizabeth just said that, or Elizabeth just seemed scared and lost. And the guy, cause he's on the dock. He was like,
And I felt so bad for her, but I didn't feel like it was my position to do anything. Yeah, because it's a stranger. Instead of just being like, God, that sucks that she's in this position. Yeah, because you don't think, oh, this girl's kidnapped. You think like, oh, that's her dad, her weird dad or something like that. And did she ever say why she wasn't like, help me? Like SOS? She said she was freaking scared because they were with her the whole time and she didn't trust anyone. Oh, my God.
Yeah. How can you really trust anyone at that point? And so she said, the guy, you could tell how much it weighed on him in the doc. And he was like, if I saw her today, I would just say how sorry I was. Like, I have a daughter now and I wish I would have done more. I have chills. I know. So, okay. August 2002, the, oh my God, this is going to drive you crazy. Salt Lake City Police Department received a phone call and they say that- We didn't answer it. Yeah. Because we didn't want to be working. They were like, yeah.
They said Elizabeth Smart is at the library.