Crime Weekly - S3 Ep378: Elizabeth Smart | Taken From Her Bed (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

In June of 2002, a 14-year-old girl was taken from her bedroom in the middle of the night, from a quiet home in one of the safest neighborhoods in one of the safest cities in America. Her name was Elizabeth Smart. This case has endured for more than two decades, not only because of what happened to Elizabeth, but because of how it happened. It forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about trust, faith, and what happens when deeply held beliefs collide with someone willing to exploit them.Elizabeth wasn't held for hours or days. She was a prisoner for nine months, subjected to repeated trauma and torture that would have broken most adults. But Elizabeth's story is not just about what happened to her. It's also about survival and strength. It's about a young girl who would later turn the unimaginable into advocacy and support for victims of kidnapping and sexual violence. Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPodADS:1. https://www.HelixSleep.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 27% off sitewide!2. https://www.SKIMS.com - The Valentine's Shop is officially open! Shop our favorite bras and underwear, and after you place your order, let them know we sent you!3. https://www.EatIQBAR.com - Text WEEKLY to 64000 for 20% off ALL IQBAR products and FREE shipping!4. https://www.LiquidIV.com - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 20% off your first order!

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. In June of 2002, a 14-year-old girl was taken from her bedroom in the middle of the night, from a quiet home in one of the safest neighborhoods of one of the safest cities in America. Her name was Elizabeth Smart. This case has endured for more than two decades, not only because of what happened to Elizabeth, but because of how it happened. It forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about trust, faith, and what happens when deeply held beliefs collide with someone with.

willing to exploit them. Elizabeth wasn't held for hours or days. She was a prisoner for nine months, subjected to repeated trauma and torture that would have broken most adults. But Elizabeth's story is not just about what happened to her. It's also about survival and strength. It's about a young girl who would later turn

the unimaginable into advocacy and support for victims of kidnapping and sexual violence. Hello everybody, welcome back to Crime Week I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Lavasser. So we're talking about Elizabeth Smart today and I got to tell you I'm, I don't want to say like I'm super excited about it because that makes it sound like I'm happy. I'm super excited about it because I've been very, very stimulated while researching this case and writing the scripts. It's got police reports and psychological evaluations and all the things that I enjoy digging into.

And I've been learning a lot. and I really feel really excellent about my level of research and how I'm putting this case together. And I'm very happy that we're all here together to talk about it. This is an important case. And I knew the basics of it, like most people do. It was a huge case when it happened. She was gone for nine months. It was all over the TV.

Everyone was talking about it. But to dig this deep, as I do when we do deep dives, has been very eye-opening to me. And I've, like I said, learned so much. And I'm really pumped to get into it and start talking about the case. Yeah, this is going to be an interesting one for me because this is the first case we're covering where prior to talking about the case in detail, I know the victim. I wouldn't say we're like close friends, but I would consider her a friend. You know, I recorded multiple episodes of America's Most Wanted with her in Atlanta. and we had lunch and dinner on multiple occasions.

And we talked briefly about what she had experienced. And what I can tell you is that she's an incredible person. And what she's gone through, I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. But she's also turned it like you had said into a, you know, this tragedy into something that can help others. And you can really tell when you sit down and talk to her that that is her passion. That is her passion. She really, she doesn't like to talk a lot about. what happened. She wants to focus more on like, how do I educate people so that this doesn't

happen to somebody else? Correct. And so that's what that was my big takeaway from my interactions with her is she's really focused on there never being another Elizabeth smart again. And that's something I admire about her because not everyone is capable of doing that after they go through something like this, which is completely understandable. So I'm looking forward to learning about the details of this case because I only know the surface level. stuff and we obviously know how it played out, which this was one of those stories where we had a good ending, which doesn't often happen. And like I had said to you guys before, I haven't reached out to her yet. She just recently had a docu series or a special come out on Netflix.

Yep, she had a new book. She published a new book recently too. A new book as well. So I have not watched it yet. And so I don't want to in and date her with media requests because I'm sure she's very busy right now. But this series is going to go on for a few. weeks and near the end I will reach out to her and we'll see if we can get her on the show to talk about her experiences and maybe share some of some insight that we didn't get the opportunity to share with you so yeah I would love to talk to her she seems like one of the strongest people that exists if she's available we've texted back and forth so if she's available I think she'll do it but I also was talking to her a lot before Netflix and Netflix has the ability to really

get you busy yeah and she I can see on her social media. She's been doing a lot. So we'll see. We'll see if she can carve out some time. No guarantees. So as always, to understand what happened at the end, we have to go back to the beginning. And Elizabeth Ann Smart was born on November 3rd, 1987 in Salt Lake City, Utah, to her parents, Edward and Lois Smart. Elizabeth was one of six children, ranging in ages from her oldest brother Charles, who was 15 at the time of her abduction to her younger brother William, who was three. She also had two younger brothers, Andrew and Edward, and one younger sister, Mary Catherine. Now, six might seem like a lot of kids to have, for me, it definitely does. But the smart family were devout and practicing members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the LDS Church, which I believe, once again, after going deep and researching this, I believe this played a very big role in this case.

So while not every LDS family is large, the average American family size amongst practicing LDS members has been historically higher than the national average, which in the early 2000s was about two children per family. And this is because LDS doctrine teaches that children are spirits who existed before birth and parenthood is a divine calling, not just a personal choice. So having multiple children is not only encouraged in the LDS church, it's often seen as part of a larger spirit. spiritual purpose. LDS doctrine teaches that the highest level of salvation is family-based. So having children isn't just about this life. It's about building an eternal family structure that continues on past death and into the afterlife. For members of the LDS Church, family is not just prioritized. It is foundational. And everything else, including career, money, personal ambition, that's all viewed as being secondary to putting your focus and prioritizing your family.

So this was especially true in Salt Lake City, Utah, the spiritual and cultural epicenter of the LDS Church. The city was founded in 1847 by LDS pioneers, led by Brigham Young, who sought refuge from religious persecution in the eastern United States. And from the beginning, Salt Lake City was designed not merely as a settlement, but as a Zion community, spiritually unified, morally upright, and focused on collective well-being rather than individual gain. So in simple terms, it's a society where people try to live the teachings of Christ together,

not just privately. In the early 2000s, a majority of Utah residents identified as LDS, and still even now, a majority of people in Utah are part of the LDS Church. And in Salt Lake City, the smart family lived and worked among other LDS families. The children went to school with LDS peers, and many of their local leaders were also LDS. So both Elizabeth's parents came from large LDS households themselves, and so Elizabeth grew up with a very close and very expansive extended family that, you know, many of them were close by geographically, and she was able to spend a lot of time with them on a regular basis. Elizabeth enjoyed a very protected, an almost storybook childhood in her early years. Her father, Ed, owned and operated a successful mortgage brokerage firm in Salt Lake City while her mother, Lois, was an attentive stay-at-home mother.

The family was very well off financially, and this is going to be illustrated by where they lived in the Federal Heights neighborhood. This is one of the most affluent, established, and sought after neighborhoods in Salt Lake City. Federal Heights sits on the east bench, tucked into the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains, just above downtown and adjacent to the University of Utah. So from the million-dollar smart home, Elizabeth would have had a clear and constant view of the Block U, which we've been to Salt Lake City before. I didn't know what this was. But apparently the Block U is a 100-foot tall and 100-foot-wide concrete U, which is embedded into the foothills directly above the University of Utah campus and the Federal Heights neighborhood. The Block U, which is illuminated at night, dates back to 1907. And it's kind of known that neighborhoods near it have carried a prestige factor.

They've been historically viewed as safe. And like you kind of have to have some money to live there. So when Elizabeth and her siblings weren't swimming in their pool or playing in their picturesque neighborhood, they were taking part in all kinds of outdoor activities at their family cabin in Brighton, which is in the Wasatch Mountains east of Salt Lake City. The rustic log cabin, which had been in Ed's family for generations, had become a peaceful retreat where the kids could ski and horseback ride to their hearts content. It was said that Elizabeth played the harp like an angel and rode horses like a cowboy,

and she'd always felt very at home in the saddle. In fact, being on a horse contributed to one of Elizabeth's first faith-building experiences that happened at a very young age. So when Elizabeth was seven, she'd been riding horses in the mountains, and I guess she dismounted to pick some wildflowers that she saw in a field. and her horse ran off, leaving her alone and lost. So Elizabeth got down on her knees and prayed because she'd been taught that she could pray anytime, anywhere, and God would hear her. So Elizabeth prayed.

She asked God to help her get back to the cabin, and shortly afterwards, another rider came up the path and gave her a lift back to her cabin. So this is going to come into play later, right, when Elizabeth is in the worst situation that she could ever imagine, well, that she probably never imagined being in. Now, by the time Elizabeth was in middle school, she'd become a talented musician. She was able to play the harp beautifully, and her little sister, Mary Catherine, wanted to be just like Elizabeth, so she too began learning to play the harp at the age of five, which is the same age Elizabeth had been when she'd first picked up the instrument. The smart boys were also musically gifted. They played the piano and the banjo. And musical shows were always a part of family gatherings from picnics in their grandfather's backyard to long weekends at the cabin in the mountains.

The smart family was very close, tight-knit. They spent most of their time together, including praying together nightly before bed. The children were well-behaved, well-educated, and also sheltered. Lois was described as being a mother hen who guarded her baby chicks, picking them up from school every day, and preparing a delicious dinner for them each night. Elizabeth was a normal and happy 14-year-old girl. She went to the movies, she listened to music, did well in school, shared a bedroom with her little sister, and looked up to her parents. She was well taken care of and well protected. And what ended up happening to her was the last thing she or anyone close to her would have expected.

Which is interesting. You said the word sheltered, right? And we just covered Haley Busby earlier this week on CWN and what that balance is. And to me, as you're describing it, not too far off from the way I am with my children and I don't consider them sheltered, right? But it's like, where is that balance? Where is that balance where you're not a helicopter parent? And you're allowing them to grow and experience new things that, you know, aren't necessarily with you all the time. But this sounds like a mother who is not sheltering your kids, but just trying to protect them and trying to be a good parent.

I don't even know if there was a choice at this point, right? Because like I said, they're very, very much involved in the church. And so everyone around them, the smart family, even when they go to school, when they go out in the neighborhood, anywhere they go, all of these people share the same religious beliefs, spiritual beliefs, basically the same lifestyle. And so I don't even know if there was an opportunity for Elizabeth or the other smart children to have a culture shock or see that other things kind of existed out there because it didn't for them. And also I would say, you know, once again, this LDS thing comes into play so much. And Elizabeth's parents, Ed and Lois, are going to come under fire for this. And we're going to talk about it because it's going to be a very interesting conversation that I want to have with you. But they felt, hey, family's important.

Like, yeah, you can have your friends and we have our community. But at the end of the day, all you're going to have in this life and after is this eternal family. So it's very important to spend as much time as we can together, bond, and make sure that we're strong in our bonds to together and with each other. That was very, yeah, spiritually and culturally ingrained into the smart family and other LDS families. So I don't even know if it wasn't a choice. It was just kind of how life was. Yeah. I'm interested to see how this all unfolds.

And this would be something where I would love to have Elizabeth's insight on it now in retrospect, how she feels. about it, how she was raised her thoughts on it, and how much of a contributing factor that was. You know, that'd be, it'd be good to hear it right from the horse's mouth. I also think that, you know, I remember Elizabeth said something. I don't know if it was in her book or an interview because I read her book and I seen so many interviews, but she said when she was in her bedroom, the night she got taken and she heard a man's voice. She was so confused because she said, I wasn't even allowed to have any men in my bedroom.

Like even, you know, men who would come to the house, right? Even family members, really. It was kind of like, no, that just wasn't something that happened. So that was very shocking to her. God, I'm getting heart palpitations just talking about this. She's 14 at the time. Tenley's 13. And I just know how I was at 13, 14.

And it's not good. It's not good, Stephanie. They were very, the girls especially, you know, I couldn't tell you what the smart boys were thinking in their head. but the girls were very innocent, very sheltered, very naive. And you could tell that. I mean, even when Elizabeth talks about it now, she was like, I had no idea that these kinds of things even existed, that these kinds of things even happened to people.

It was unheard of. All right. Well, I'll just keep it together. So, as I said, the smart family was very strong in their family values and religious beliefs. They lived in a quiet, affluent neighborhood. They were surrounded by people who shared civil. values and their daily lives were reinforced by community, routine, and belief. And in that environment, danger didn't feel like something that could reach them, not because

they were careless, but because everything around them suggested stability, order, protection. In many ways, their faith in strong family bonds functioned as kind of an emotional shelter. It wasn't that they believed bad things never happened. It was kind of that they believed bad things happened somewhere else to other people in other circumstances. Their values had taught them how to live well, but not how to imagine being targeted. And that assumption that a loving home, strong morals, and a righteous life created a buffer against real harm that would later be tested in the most devastating way possible. What the smarts could not have anticipated was that the very beliefs that shaped their lives

could be understood and weaponized by someone else, someone with nefarious intentions. So it was the fall of 2001 when Lois and her six children first encountered Brian David Mitchell as he was panhandling in front of a local mall. In her book, My Story, Elizabeth Smart remembers the interaction clearly. She wrote, quote, we had just walked out of the ZCMI store in downtown Salt Lake City. There weren't a lot of pedestrians. Winter was coming on. So the beggar was hard to ignore, standing among the well-dressed crowd.

He didn't seem to notice as we walked by. I was on my mother's right, my little sister on her left, holding my mother's hand. We had been shopping, and I carried a couple of little bags. I was a teenager, but just barely, with blonde hair and blue eyes. As we walked, I remember glancing at my mother. She was very pretty. I liked being with her. She was one of my best friends.

Salt Lake City was not a dangerous place, and I had the luxury of growing up with a mother who was open and unassuming. Her demeanor was friendly, yet careful. Standing by the beggar, waiting to cross the street, I looked and made eye contact with him. My brothers had already seen him and had come back to ask my mom if we had any work for him. Mom glanced at him warily, not wanting to stare. I don't remember a lot about him, but I do recall that he was clean, cut, and well-groomed. No beard. He appeared to be nothing more than a normal guy who had hit a rough patch in his life. He certainly didn't seem to be dangerous or threatening. end quote. So Elizabeth's mother, Lois Smart, she would later testify that she thought

Brian David Mitchell was just a man down on his luck. He was a very clean cut dressed in clean clothes. He did not appear to be homeless. She said, quote, he just lost his job, looked young enough that maybe he had a family, people he was responsible for. End quote. So Lois walked over to Mitchell and she handed him a $5 bill along with their home phone number. And she told him if he was looking for work to call the number and asked to speak to her husband, Ed. In her book, Elizabeth said, quote, he glanced in my direction, seeming to take me in from the corner of his eye. I gave him a quick smile. I felt sorry for him and was happy when my mother handed him the money. What I didn't know, but would later learn, was that he had been watching me very carefully as we walked toward him.

He had taken the opportunity to study me further as my mother searched through her purse. He remembered everything about me, the clothes that I was wearing, my blonde hair, the way I looked up at my mother, the color of my eyes. And though he was very careful not to show it, he decided at that moment that I was the one, end quote. So this is where that interesting conversation comes in, because over the years, Ed and Lois Smart have received a lot of criticism for bringing Brian David Mitchell to their home and exposing their daughter to him. And that's why it's so important to understand the LDS Church in the unusually strong emphasis it places on charity, active morality. And I witnessed this myself when we were in Salt Lake City because I would take Uber's here and there. And I remember

one Uber driver talking to me and I was like, what do you think about, you know, the LDS Church? And at that point, there was some bad things happening around the church and some not so great news reporting in this Uber driver. Is that Lori Vallow? Am I conflating the two? Is LDS? No, LDS is LLVAL. LDS is Lori Valo. Okay, cool. Okay, cool. I thought I was mixing them up there. Obviously, there's different levels to this.

We're not combining all of them. We don't want to do that at all. And there's the FLDS church, which is like very extreme and believes in different things. You've gone pretty deep down this rabbit hole. Yes, I have. And there's people like Lori Valo who are absolutely bananas and they take the LDS teachings and they do different things with them. But I remember when I was talking to this Uber driver who she said, you know, I'm not a Mormon. She said, but these people are amazing. They do so much for us here. They have

food banks and they have, you know, clothing that they take in. And they are, they just make sure that nobody in this city goes without, whether you're a part of the church or you're not. And it's very important to understand why this is and how it ties back to what happened to Elizabeth Smart. And we're going to discuss it in more depth after our first break. Okay, Derek, can we talk about how winter basically turns your bedroom into your entire personality? Yes, if it's cold outside like it is right now, I'm definitely indoors. And if I'm indoors, I'm either working or I'm horizontal. That's why I'm so grateful for my Helix mattress because sleep is one of those things where you don't realize how bad it was until it's suddenly good.

Yeah, once you actually start sleeping well, you realize how much it actually affects everything you do, your energy, your focus, your mood, even how patient you are with people. I think you and I have experienced that with each other, right? You know what I mean? Once or twice? With our kids, I feel the same way. You know, you need that sleep. It's so important.

And before Helix, I dealt with a lot of things. Back pain, waking up, you know, because I was tossing and turning all night. Or I was like sinking in in weird places. Overheating, motion transfer. And switching mattresses has made a bigger difference than I expected. Helix actually helped me fix that. And I've had my Helix mattress now for a long time. I think going on six years, it's just as good now as it was the day I got it.

Yeah, I absolutely love my Midnight Lux. And one of the best parts is how easy they make it. You take this Helix sleep quiz, answer questions about how you sleep, and then they match you with the mattress designed for your body and your preferences. Not that all one size fits all situation you get with some other mattress companies. And Helix isn't just popular. It is the most awarded mattress brand. Tested and reviewed by places like Forbes and Wired.

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I mean, like I've had it. Five years at least. It's not getting uncomfortable. It's not like, oh, all of a sudden I feel mattress springs poking into me like it does with other mattress brands. I won't say who. So right now you can go to helixleep.com slash crime weekly for 27% off sitewide. This is exclusive for listeners of crime weekly.

Once again, that's helixleep.com slash crime weekly for 27%. percent off site wide. And I will say if you're going to be getting a mattress and you're checking it out, get their pillows too. If you're going to get 27 percent off site wide, throwing a few pillows because their pillows are amazing. All right, we're back. I also want to add, Stephanie's talking a lot about Utah. We're talking about LDS, but we have both had the chance to get out there. Side note here, if you have the ability or the chance to go to Utah, strongly recommend that you do. It's beautiful. It is stunning. one of the most beautiful places ever have been.

It just felt so pure and untouched in a lot of areas. Even the town that we were in, like, we were in Salt Lake City. Yeah, we were in downtown Salt Lake, but it didn't feel like that. It did not feel like it at all. It did not feel like it at all. It was like a main street that we saw, but it felt very like small town to me. It was gorgeous. Very clean.

Yes. Like I said, everybody there is super nice to the point where, you know, being from the East Coast, I'm like, what are you being so nice to me for? You know, what do you want? And I remember the first day I got there, I was waiting for you to get there because your plane hadn't landed yet. And I walked around the city. I like to walk places when I go there for the first time. And I felt completely safe.

It was in the winter. I felt completely safe the entire time. It is such a huge hub for the LDS Church. So there's so much history, monuments, statues, all over the place, beautiful things to look at. They were already decorating for Christmas. So this was even before Thanksgiving, they were already decorating for Christmas. It was looking really nice. and everybody there was just very kind, very open.

And this wasn't in 2002. This was a few years ago. So we were there going to the DNA lab that was, right? That was in Salt Lake. Yeah. Intermountain forensics. Yeah. So it was just.

Now different. Now it's under different names and all that. But yes, we went out there for work and Preble Penny case. And it was incredible. Yeah, it was great. So here's what you have to understand. At the center of LDS theology is the idea that every person is, literally a child of God, regardless of what they believe, regardless of their outward behavior,

their appearance, their social status. And in the religion's teachings, charity is not just encouraged. It is a commandment tied to salvation. Like, if you want to go to heaven, you need to do this. You need to do things for other people. Christ's teachings about feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and aiding strangers are taken very literally. Helping the poor and the afflicted is considered direct service to God and turning someone away who needs help can and will be viewed as a moral failure. Helping the lost is seen as a moral duty, and there is a deeply ingrained belief that offering kindness can actually lead someone back to righteousness, that showing compassion might be the turning point in someone's life, and rejecting someone in need may rob them of a chance

of redemption. So in LDS culture, the words judge not are taken extremely seriously. Members are taught that you cannot see another person's heart or struggles. and that people who may appear troubled are believed to just be experiencing spiritual or mental suffering that's temporary. In practice, this often looks like giving people the benefit of the doubt, interpreting red flags as hardships rather than danger, and assuming good intentions unless explicitly being proven otherwise. Now, Salt Lake City itself is the physical representation of this because in that city, the LDS Church functions not only as a religious entity, but as a social welfare system where the church operates, one of the most extensive private welfare systems in the United States. This includes church-operated food warehouses, often supplied by LDS-owned farms, dairies, canneries, Deserate Industries,

for instance, it's a major LDS-run thrift store and job training program with multiple locations and they provide employment for people struggling with job loss, homelessness, disability, or just getting back on their feet after being incarcerated. So you can already see they're not judging you. You've been in prison for 10 years. You killed somebody. There's redemption for you. And if you're shown kindness, you may, in fact, turn it around. Local bishops have authority to help people pay their rent, their utility bills, their medical bills.

They can even provide temporary housing. The LDS Church also operates this very cool thing. It's a large complex downtown called Welfare Square. And there you'll find food processing facilities, canneries, grain silos and mills, warehouses, distribution centers, and all of this stuff produces supplies for these bishop's storehouses and food programs. So Welfare Square relies heavily on volunteer labor, which is provided by members of the church. So the people who need help are viewed as just someone going through a rough patch.

They're not made to feel that they're wrong or bad. They're made to feel that they're still capable and worthy, and they're treated as part of the community. And they do all of this, the LDS church, quietly, discreetly. They don't make a big deal out of it. They're not talking about it all the time, and they do it without making people feel shame. They do it in a kind way. And I'm not a huge – you know, I'm not going to sit here and be like every LDS person is an angel from God on earth.

But that is the center point of why they do these things because they pretty much want you to be that. They want you to be like God's emissary, like bringing hope to the hopeless. And what the LDS Church does for Salt Lake City is beautiful and admirable, and it's appreciated. by a great many people like my Uber driver. However, all of what we just talked about, seeing every single person is good and worthy of help, it can create dangerous blind spots and a false sense of safety.

And add on to that in the LDS Church, pride is considered like a serious spiritual danger. And members are warned against assuming that they're smarter or more superior to others. They believe it is wrong to act out of fear instead of faith. So basically it's teaching people to ignore their own gut instincts. Yeah, to just follow blindly and trust that people are redeemed and rehabilitated. I'm cynical in that sense and I appreciate the premise of this religion.

Yes. But unfortunately, when you're allowing people in who may have committed some serious offenses, undoubtedly, just from a statistical perspective, you're going to let in some Trojan horses. and you're going to allow some really bad people to be exposed to some really good people. And it's almost like a wolf in a henhouse type situation where there's no real defender against them because the belief is that you have to trust them. And if you don't, you're almost in the wrong for doing so. If you don't, you are in the wrong, right? They say that like, hey, if you feel fear or suspicion of somebody, it's going to immediately bring like you should feel ashamed.

You're acting against God, right? They are taught, like, danger doesn't come through acts of kindness. And if you are a righteous person who's living a righteous life and you've created a righteous household, you're protected by God. And this creates, what, a false sense of security? And you kind of see that with Brian David Mitchell, right? Like, there's this belief that, hey, you know what? Down on their luck, they're not a problem. Here's my phone number.

And it's coming from a good place. So we're not victim blaming. It's coming from the best place, yeah. We're not putting anything on Lois, but it's that belief and those core values that are instilled in followers of the LDS religion where they see the best in people. And that's admirable. And in a perfect world, that would be totally acceptable. I wish I could do that, yeah. That'd be awesome.

Hey, you commit a crime and after you commit a crime. Clean slate. 100% of the time you're rehabilitated. The unfortunate thing is some people cannot be rehabilitated. Some people are just evil. And how do you differentiate between the two? Well, the way you do that is by having them reoffend and reoffend and reoffend. And then eventually you realize that these people are just at the core, bad people.

And even our court systems are guilty of this, where someone basically has to kill people before they decide. Oh, you know what? And even then, some of them are still getting out. But usually you see this progression of violent criminals who commit crime after crime and keep getting second chances and third chances. and fourth chances before they realize that they're a danger to society. This is kind of that in a different way. And like, am I going to say that nobody in the LDS church who had extended themselves in an act of true and genuine charity, had they ever been, you know, like had that thrown back

in their face? No, but at that point, maybe they lost money or they had something stolen from them. Yes. The smart family is going to lose a child for nine months. And what Elizabeth went through in those nine months is something she's never going to be the same from. Nobody really thought they were like, oh, well, if we lose money, you know, money's not important. Living righteously is.

If we have something stolen from us, well, that can be replaced. Elizabeth could not have been replaced. And there was no way that if she had not been found that Brian David Mitchell was ever going to just let her leave and walk away. That was not going to happen. And I just want to also point out there before anyone's in the comments typing as they probably already typed it at this point. but we are also aware that there probably are a lot of people who've committed a violent crime and been accepted with open arms into certain communities, whether it's LDS or something else, and completely reform their lives and become, you know, contributing members of society and the best of all of us, right?

We're not saying that doesn't happen. We're just saying that there's two sides to every story. I'm just saying I'm not taking my chances and giving this person my phone number and letting them come to my house where my children are. Like you have to have some boundaries. But in fairness to Lois, she didn't, she didn't know that this person had that history. She just, like you said, was someone who was down on their luck. She didn't know anything about him, though. Right.

That's the point. You didn't know anything about him. She's better than, Stephanie, she's better than us. That's what she's taught. That's the true. She's better than us. Yeah. She's a more forgiving kind of the glasses have full type person.

You and I, we're decrepit and cynical and. We're jaded. We're dated. We're dated because everyone's bad. I wish we could live in this utopia of a world. We covered too many cases. No. Yeah.

We're traumatized for life. I'm more apt to default to everybody's bad than everybody's good. Yes. And we're not saying that's right. That's just us. I think it's right. I'm sorry. I do.

Come meet us at CrimeCon. You'll see. We're just like, ah. Like everyone's going to kill us. I'm very suspicious. You definitely are. I'm not as bad. You're under the table, lots of times. Well, yeah, that's just because social interaction is draining. So also, I can never be a member of the LBS church because I would talk to one person at church. Are you people crazy? I'd be like, why are we talking so much? Isn't it time to go

home? We've been here for hours. Don't follow you, Stephanie and I. We're just, we're the opposite end of the spectrum. Yeah. So when Lois Smart gave Brian David Mitchell her phone number and when her husband, Ed, invited him over to their federal heist home to help him work on the roof. They were acting within a worldview that faith reduced risk. But instead, what they were actually doing was unknowingly inviting danger into their home and into their family. Now, Lois and Ed have also written a book to combat a lot of the criticism they've received. And they said in their book, quote, who are we to judge anyone? We all make mistakes.

Sometimes people just need a fresh start to get things moving in a positive direction again. That's why we have hired the homeless over the years. We believe that there are far more good than evil people out there. Those who are having a hard time still find the will to carry on and persevere. They want to do something good. We never questioned where anyone came from or if they had a checkered past. Maybe we should have, but we didn't. We brought these day workers home but never let them inside the house.

Our children had very little, if any, contact with them. them, they usually helped for a few hours doing yard work and landscaping. End quote. That's what they say in the book. However, that's not necessarily true. And I'm not trying to call anyone out here, but it's not necessarily true. Months before the Smart's encounter with Brian David Mitchell on that brisk fall day in 2001, they'd already been taught a lesson about questioning where people came from and maybe looking

into their past. In March of 2001, Ed Smart hired a man named Richard, Albert, Reese to help with some projects at the house. So for his job, because Ed was in like, you know, basically flipping houses and mortgages and things like that, he was constantly fixing up houses and selling them. And at the time, he was in the process of completing several renovations on his own home. Before Recy started working at the smart house, he did some projects at the home of one of their neighbors. And that's kind of how they got this guy's name. And during his employment there, someone broke into the house late at night and they made a

away with money and jewelry. According to Ed Smart, the police came and investigated, but they couldn't find a connection to anyone who had recently been in the neighbor's house. So after finishing his work with the neighbors, Reesie started working for the smarts on a day-to-day basis. And Ed said, quote, he was always likable, always asking how we were, how our weekend was, small talk. He really couldn't do the kind of finish work we needed around the house, but he was always a willing candidate. We decided to start him out on yard work. End quote. Ed and Lois Smart say that After about one week of work, Risi began talking to them about how he was trying to buy a car so that his girlfriend, Angela, didn't have to drive him to work every day.

And as it so happened, Ed Smart had a 1990 Jeep Cherokee that he was trying to sell. And so he talked to Risi about giving him the Jeep in exchange for his work. Risi and Ed Smart drew up a contract, which stated that he would work 40 hours a week, five days a week, and a portion of his earnings would go towards paying off the Jeep. So Risi agreed to the terms and Ed even helped him fill out the paperwork, like getting the registration transferred into his name, setting up the vehicle insurance. Now keep in mind, Derek, once again, maybe I'm jaded. But he's getting the registration and everything transferred into this guy's name before he's even completed the work that would make it so he could have done enough to purchase the Jeep. So basically this is on a like, I'm giving you this car with the belief that you will come back every day, five.

days a week and do 40 hours of work here. There's a blind faith there. I respect it. I respect it because I wouldn't do it. So Richard Albert Recy happily drove off in his new Jeep and then surprise, surprise, he stopped coming to work once he had the car. Shocker. This is what I would assume what happened, right? But I'm not Mormon. So Ed Smart said, quote, when Richard didn't show up for work for several days, we both had a bad feeling. So we decided to to find Recy and get the Jeep back. We want to trust that people are basically good, but it seemed the faith and trust we had put in him had been misplaced, end quote.

Okay. So you think that's the end of it. That's the end of Recy. He's already kind of showing you. Not super reliable. Maybe he just wanted to take your Jeep and drive away after you transferred the registration into his name. And Ed Smart, you know, he's a badass kind of.

He's like, I'm going to go find this dude and I'm going to get the Jeep back. So they got the Jeep back. And then Recy started coming back to work again a few days later. And when he did that, it appeared he was back on track and trying to make up for his lapse in judgment. And Ed Smart said, quote, we gave him back the Jeep, hopeful that he was not taking advantage of our kindness, but this time we put our name down on the title as lien holders. Although he could have not shown up again, Risi reached out to us and came back, worked and finished paying off the car. We were relieved that this time he had kept his word, end quote. I mean, I guess he could have not come back again, but you had your name down on the title as lien holders this time.

So you legally can pretty easily get the car back. But okay. So remember, the smart family said in their book, these people never went in the house. They didn't really have a lot of interaction with our children. But now we're also talking about this other guy. And one of the jobs that Resey had been tasked with was painting the hallway in the entry house of the smart home. And in this capacity, he did come into conversation. with the smart children who he was friendly and talkative with.

Resey talked about his girlfriend, Angela, a lot and how he wanted to ask her to marry him soon. He talked with the boys about motorcycles and snowmobiles, but Lois was somewhat uncomfortable with having a stranger in her home and around her children. And Ed said that something did seem out of place. Three months later, Lois discovered an expensive bracelet that had sentimental value to her, and it was missing. And as they were looking for the bracelet, they discovered that other items were gone as well. And Ed said at this point, everyone who was working at the house at that time was dismissed. They were kind of like, we don't know who it could be. They had several people that they were helping and offering, you know, a chance to make things up and have a fresh start in life.

They had several people working there. So he's like, everybody's dismissed because we don't know who it was. This included Risi. Now, the smarts did fill out a police report. They gave law enforcement the names of all the people who'd been to their home recently, including those who are working. working there, just as their neighbors had done. And just like with the neighbors robbery, the police said that they would check everyone out, but they later reported that they'd found nothing that suggested any of the names given to them could have been involved in the robbery.

In their book, Lois Smart said, quote, Recy worked for us for approximately three months. He was in and out of the house all the time. The children knew him, and he knew our home. He knew where spare keys were hanging. He had access to the house, and he knew that we had an alarm system we never used. He called us in September of 2001 to ask whether the title for the Jeep had been sent to us. It had come in mid-July, but at that time, we didn't know where to find him or how to forward it. Ed suggested that he'd come by the house to pick it up. When Recy arrived, he made a point of adamantly denying stealing Lois's bracelet, even going as far as to tell us that he went to the police station to take a polygraph test to prove his innocence. We appreciate this attempt to ease our minds,

but something inside told us he wasn't completely innocent. So this was the last time the smart family saw Richard Albert Recy, and it was only later, after Elizabeth went missing, that Adin Lois found out Recy was a convicted felon who had a long criminal history of burglary, aggravated assault, and an attempted murder charge. He was charged with the attempted murder of a police officer in Salt Lake City, and he'd served 28 years in prison for that charge, and he'd been released just a year before working for the smarts. Now, understandably, the smarts were like, how did this happen? How could Risi have had such an extensive criminal history? And this didn't come up while he was being looked into for the burglary

at our neighbor's house and the burglary at our house. It's a good question. It's got me thinking about my own life. All these cases do. And I ask myself, like, can I judge here because how am I conducting my own operations in my, you know, my own circle? And I had a lot of work recently done on my home and I have contractors going in and out and honestly as I'm sitting here thinking about it am I doing background checks on all of these people and the answer is no I'm not you know I'm looking at the company the owner and what they're doing but am I running background checks on them no it's kind of making me reevaluate some things because they'll also bring workers in there with them and they have access to my home they know the layout of my house they know my security system they know how

I open and shut the doors through applications and Kiko pads and all this stuff. So, yeah, I mean, obviously we're talking about a different situation here, but I think a lot of us listening or watching as you're relaying all of this to us can probably relate in one way or another where we've had people in our home that we thought were there for a specific job and they were decent enough people. But the reality is you don't know who's in your house and what they're doing. It could be as simple as, you know, fixing a pipe. And you're hiring these people because you don't have the time. Right.

Or you just don't have the skill set. You don't have the skill set. Yeah, obviously that. I could try to do an outlet, but I would prefer an electrician do it. You know what I mean? I don't want to get electrocuted plumbing. But you're hiring them so it's hands off, you know, like, okay, you guys do this. I trust you have the skill set to do it.

And if you have questions, you know how to reach me. But do you feel like now you might want to perform background checks on these people? I mean, I don't even know where the line is drawn. Like the one particular example that I'm thinking of, is I, and you were aware of this, but I recently found water under my foundation. So I had to have French drains and two sump pumps put in. And there was probably six or seven guys there, breaking up the concrete and pulling it out to install those French drains. And I didn't even speak with half of them.

You know, they're just like under that business. And so now you're relying on their background checks, right? And what type of work they're doing. Are these people, that individuals that they're vetting? Because they had direct access to my house. I mean, I wasn't even living there at that time, but now they know the layout. They know how to get in, how to get out, where the vulnerabilities are, what security measures I have in place. Who's living there?

So if it's a single mother with children, now they know. Yeah. What you do for a living and, you know, there's a lot there. And I don't know. I don't know what the answer is to that question and how you approach it. Like, do you go to the business and say, hey, I want background. checks on every single person who comes here? Well, I need names of every single person who's there, at least, like names, I guess.

Yeah, I guess. I had one instance with a moving company, and this moving company was recommended to me by a friend, and then they came and they did what they were supposed to do, and they were fine, but there was one guy, and he kind of gave me like, he was saying things, and I kind of was like, oh, I got sketchy vibes. And then two months later, that same friend messaged me, and she was like, oh, you'll never guess, like, this guy, like, he was arrested. he's been sexually assaulting women.

So it turned out to be, yes, this was a person that I got sketchy vibes from. He did have a criminal history. He'd been released from prison. And then he was doing the same thing that he'd already been doing that got him into prison afterwards. And I don't know, was he using these people's. It was kind of like a guy brought him as a friend. Like, oh, I need an extra set of hands. I need somebody strong.

Will you come with me? And there was no record of him being there. but thankfully my friend was like had used the same people. And she said, oh, yeah, this guy was arrested. I just saw it in the local paper. So yeah, very scary. And we are not done talking about Richard Albert Recy. He will make it appearance in future episodes of this series.

But let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Okay, real talk. Before skims, bras and underwear's were just an afterthought for me. I'd focus on what I was wearing on the outside. and hope for the best underneath. Yeah, which is wild because at the end of the day, if you're uncomfortable all day, it doesn't really matter how good you look

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I love them. And I will be honest, I have an issue because I have a puppy, a male puppy, and he likes to do things like pull underwear and pants out of the laundry and tear them to pieces. And it's so frustrating because I love Alfie, but he's taken away my favorite underwear. So I have to keep reordering. And in fact, he just did this with a pair of skim's pants, some fleece pants I had. And I had to reorder them. And I got two just in case.

But the fabrics are stretchy, supportive, and they don't lose their shape halfway through the day or after multiple ones. washes, that's been my biggest issue with other brands. Yeah, and you've talked a lot about the fits everybody line, and I will say this. I bought another three pack of their men's underwear. I know we have a large female audience, but I really enjoy skims as well. The fits everybody line really deserves to be talked about. The fits everybody t-shirt brought a seamless supportive without feeling bulky, and I'm not adjusting it all day.

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It's super cute. They have super cute pieces for Valentine's Day. So we love them. So shop my favorite bras and underwear at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. So select podcast in the survey and choose Crime Weekly. and for anyone watching or listening, you can shop directly at skims.com slash crime weekly. Okay, we're back. So in 2002, the Winter Olympics was held in Salt Lake City between February 8th and the 24th.

And it was during that time period that Lois began to notice her father, Myron Frankum, kind of seeming off. A few weeks later, he was diagnosed with a severe brain tumor. And for the next three months, Lois spent every day by her father's side, helping her mother care for him as he deteriorated rapidly. The Frankums had 51 grandchildren, but Elizabeth and her sister Mary Catherine were especially close to their grandfather, Myron, and every spring they would help him plant his vegetable garden. The spring of 2002 was the last time the girls would get to join Myron in carefully burying seeds that would bloom into corn and peas that their grandfather would never get to see because Myron, Frankom passed away on May 28, 2002, and his funeral was held the following week, June 3rd, where

Elizabeth and her sister Mary Catherine played Silent Night, one of his favorite songs on their harps. Elizabeth buried her beloved grandfather the day before her life would be forever altered. Now even before anything happened with Elizabeth, Lois and Ed Smart were craving a change. They'd put their house on the market, hoping to make a permanent move to the family cabin in the mountains. Ed said that they felt this would help keep their family tight and together. He'd been working too much, and it was to make a permanent move to the family. time to reevaluate some priorities. In the book, Ed said, quote, it felt as if we were all moving so fast through life and we wanted to slow down a little and enjoy the time we had together

while the children were still at home. It wasn't so much the cabin that was the pole. It was the idea of being in a place that had a slower pace, end quote. So this feeling of wanting to reconnect as a family had also made Ad and Lois withhold their decision about a request Elizabeth had made to join a friend that summer for a family vacation. Lois said they were hesitant to agree because she, Lois, had been away from home so much the previous months while her father was sick. She hadn't really, you know, she'd been very focused on taking care of her father and spending as much time as she could with him. And she really hadn't spent a lot of time with her kids, which once again, with the LDS religion, yeah, you're still with family and taking

care of family, but she felt guilty about kind of abandoning her duties at home and not being there for her kids as much as she should have been. And so she said she was looking forward to spending a lot of time with her children that summer. They had kind of a family vacation planned, and, you know, she had just lost her father, Lois, the kids had just lost her grandfather. Everybody was exhausted, emotionally drained. She was just like, I don't know if I want Elizabeth to go away anywhere the summer. I kind of just want to all reconnect and kind of reevaluate what's going on here. Now, June 4th, 2002, was a busy day, and the smart family was not necessarily feeling up to it. Everyone was exhausted from the months of watching Myron grow more and more ill, and the funeral

had been an emotionally draining event. But Elizabeth was scheduled to play the harp at the end-of-year awards ceremony at her junior high school, Bryant Intermediate. She was also slated to receive several awards that night for her outstanding academic work during the school year. It was her last year of middle school. She'd be entering high school in the fall. So at 5 p.m., Ed Smart was driving home from work when he spotted his daughters, Elizabeth and Mary Catherine, they were jogging outside. So Elizabeth was actually planning to join the high school cross-country track team in the fall, and she'd been training religiously every single day. And Ed stopped to talk to his daughters, and they told him they were going to jog around the nearby reservoir before.

returning home for an early dinner before the awards ceremony at 645. And you kind of look at this situation. Elizabeth's joining the track and field team in the fall. She's training for it. She's outrunning every day. She's leaving the neighborhood, leaving the safety of her home. They're going to jog outside of the reservoir and stuff. And so this is where I say it's not that the smart family or Ed and Lois were super overprotective.

Because for me, I would be like, you're jogging where? No, you're not. I'm going to follow you in my car and then you can jog by the reservoir. This is when I think something bad would happen, right? Not when my kids are home in their bed. Oh, my drone's up in the air for sure. I got my drone flying around the area for sure. Right. This is when I think they're at risk, when they're not at home, when I'm not with them, when they're out in the world.

You know, Salt Lake City's very safe. Federal Heights neighborhood, obviously even more safe. But if you're going to expect anybody to pinpoint or target your child, that's when you think it would be. And that's when you think they'd be taken. Oh, yeah, it's going to be outside the household, for sure. I mean, most of the cases that we cover, whether it's from the 1980s or current day, it's when you're a soft target, even adults, right?

Let's take kids out of the equation for a second. When they're going to attack you, it's not usually in your house where you have the upper hand. You know the layout. You may have access to weapons. They're waiting for you to be exposed. They're waiting for an area that's not as, frequent and not as populated and they can get in and get out undetected. And they're going to do it in a place where you may not have your guard up. You may be running, you may be listening to music,

you may be on a track or a trail where other people are passing you frequently. And so your guard is down because you know you're going to be encountering people that you're not necessarily familiar with. So another person who is aware of all of this who has now learned your pattern may see that as an opportunity to strike. What is the phrase I always say, victim of opportunity. So all they have to do is throw on some jogging gear, run by you, and you're thinking, oh, just another passerby, just someone else who's doing what I'm doing.

And in reality, they're not wearing a sign that says, I'm a bad guy. So it's very easy to gain access to you. And if you're not prepared for it, it would be pretty relatively easy to overtake you. Oh, yeah. Especially a 14-year-old girl, jogging around by a reservoir. A 14-year-old child.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like that's a super populated area. You know, there's no surveillance cameras. There's no home security cameras that might pick something up. Probably not a lot of people around. Add on to it, everything, the foundation that you laid for us earlier about the U-block, I think I'm describing it correctly, right? Like, this is just a community that is not known for this type of crime. It's just not where they are.

You're, you kind of in a sort of way, are living in a bubble because it can't happen to you. It can't happen in your area or so you believe. When I'm going through this story, you know, this is how so many other true crime cases have started, right? Because get this, dinner was set for 6 p.m. on the dot. Ed got home. His wife Lois was already preparing the food. Accidentally, Lois burned the potatoes. So she had to open the window over the sink to air the kitchen out. But that didn't stop the food from getting to the dinner table on time. But Elizabeth herself was not on time. Right. And this is when I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, like this is when in a typical true crime case, you see your daughter in the neighborhood. Yeah, she's like, I'm going to run by the reservoir. I know we have to lead for the award ceremony at a specific time. I know exactly when dinner's going to be. I will be there on time. time, she's not home for dinner. And at that point, Ed and Lois were concerned, not just concerned about, oh, you know, we're going to miss the award ceremony, but Elizabeth is a good girl and she

knows when to be here and why isn't she here. So they're already kind of worried about it. And in a typical true crime case, that is when you would hear, well, she never did come home. And then they had to go out driving and look for her. And then they called the police and, you know, but that's not what happened. Elizabeth at that point had just lost track of time as she was running. She got home late. And this caused her to miss her. harp performance, but luckily they got there in time for her to accept her awards. So, you know, bullet dodged. Now, when the family got home that night, they went through their usual nightly routine. They gathered for their nightly prayer as a family, and then Ed went around the house,

making sure all the doors and windows were locked up tight. He said he first went out to the car to bring Elizabeth's harp inside, and then he checked the front doors, the sliding doors off the kitchen, the back door. He also went into the garage to check that that was secure into the mezzanine door, even though that door was hardly ever used. However, in his book, Ed says that he was certain the window in the kitchen that Lois had opened to air the house out after burning the potatoes was still open when they went to bed. It was a narrow window, about 16 and a half inches with a screen, but Ed said, quote, we live at the end of a cul-de-sac, and we never felt it was unsafe to leave a window open, end quote. And I'll call your attention back to something

we talked about earlier in the episode when Ed and Lois were talking about Reisi and him being in the house and they were like he knew where we kept the spare keys. He knew we had a security system we never used. Right. I hear that story all too often. If I had a dollar for every time we had a breaking and entering or a property damage complaint and I would say, oh, do you have a security system? Yeah, we never activate it. I activate mine every night to the point where it's annoying for people because I'm usually the last one to go to bed. And I'm also cheap. So I'm like, hey, listen, if I'm paying X amount of dollars per month, I'm using it. And when you have a system like a SimpleSafe, it's there to protect you, but it's only as good as the user itself. So if you're not operating it and

you're not activating it upon going to sleep or when you're not home, it's not going to do much for you. It doesn't turn on itself. Or at least I haven't found a way for it to do that yet. You can automate it to be active during certain times. But overall, you have to make sure that it's ready to be activated because before you can activate it, everybody knows this, you got to make sure all the windows and doors are secured or it won't, it won't activate. Yeah. It is a tale as old as time where people have that system and yet don't use it.

And like you said, people who are working in your home, they're making note of this. And I used to deal with it all the time because, yes, I would lock it up. it's like, okay, it's 1030, it's 11. No one's going outside, but I have four dogs, right? So I could let them out at 10.30, 11, and they could do their business. But I guarantee you one or more of them is going to, in the middle of the night, 3 o'clock in the morning, be nudging at me, saying they've got to go out. I'm going to sleepily stumble towards the door, open it, and then the entire house

is woken up because I forgot that it was armed because I'm half asleep. And that would happen enough in the beginning when I first had the alarm system where I'd be like, should I even be setting it at night? Like this is, I'm waking the kids up. Everybody's stressed out. It's stressing me out. But I continue doing it. And now we kind of all just know I still do make a mistake now and then.

And the whole thing blares through the house. It's very, very loud. I'd rather that happen than have the opposite, right? Where it's not active and you're laying in bed and someone gets in. And these are the things you have to think about. Again, it's a weird way to live, but you have to imagine the worst. And kind of play the scenario out in your head where you go, how would I feel if me not being or me not wanting to go back downstairs to activate the system because the floors are cold

is the reason something bad happens. And you would never forgive yourself? Never. Never. Never. But are you going to regret going downstairs and activating it? No. No.

I mean, maybe in the moment. Yes. But no. Yeah, you don't want that guilt hanging over your head. And I think people like the smart family, they buy a house in a really nice neighborhood, in a really safe neighborhood. And they put an alarm system in there because they're like, I care about my family. It's the right thing to do.

It's what people do. But then they live in that neighborhood long enough where it's like, there's no crime happening here. Nothing's happening here. That all happens in the city. If it happens at all in Salt Lake City, it's happening downtown. There's nothing happening here in the Federal Heights neighborhood. And that leads to the complacency of, hey, we have an alarm system that we never used. Now, after what happened with Risi, the smarts did start arming their alarm system at night.

That's good. They say they did, right? And then there is a part in the book where Ed Smart says, well, you know, we had those sensors on our doors and windows. So you know what the sensor is, what they're talking about. If the window opens at some point after the system's armed, then it's going to indicate that something was open. It doesn't always need to be the front door. Well, it is essentially a magnet. Exactly.

Those magnets have to be in contact with each other. If they disconnect while the system is armed, it's going to send a message to the main panel, letting them know that window or door. is no longer closed. And so Ed Smart says, hey, we had those sensors on this kitchen window, but we didn't know at that time that the sensors weren't working on that window and another window. And I mean, at that point, you wouldn't have a smartphone, really, you know, to have an app and it would show you in the app, like with simply say, if it shows you in the app if a certain sensor is offline. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But you wouldn't have that then. You'd kind of have to hope that the alarm system would call you or you'd have to call and check with the alarm system. But either way, even if they had armed the

alarm that night, it wouldn't have mattered because, as we will find out, the way that David Mitchell enters the home is through that kitchen window that was left open because lowest burned the potatoes. It's a series of events. So, okay, I just want to make sure for the audience that we're on the same page. I know the window was open based on the burn potatoes. I got you there. Does Edward state that he alarmed the system that night? Did he arm it or no? He doesn't like explicitly state that in the book. Okay, because here's my pushback. He just talks about the sensors on the window, not working.

Not working. And so my pushback would be, if I had to guess, I would say he didn't arm the system. And here's the reason why. Even though we're talking 19, what, 92? 2000. So not that long ago, right? 2002 technology has evolved a lot more with alarm systems. I'm not saying it has.

And I don't, I mean, the iPhone didn't come out till 2007, right? So applications were not a big thing, even though it seems like 2002 was yesterday. However, I would still think that based on the keypad panel, which without a doubt was available back then, that system, because these magnets, right, and most people have systems in their house now, but these magnets line up where you have the magnet on the window sill and then you'll have the actual module on the window frame. and the module is what communicates with the digital panel. And if, I know now, if that window is open, the module and the magnet are not aligned. So your digital panel, even if it's just like a panel that has a couple lines of text,

not like a really intuitive flat screen, would say, hey, kitchen, even if those sensors weren't working, kitchen window offline. It wouldn't allow you to arm the system or you would physically have to bypass it in order to arm the system. for example, right now, if I have a window or a door or something that's open in my home and I try to arm it and it's open, it'll say to me, hey, can't arm system sensor bypass

at this particular location? Would you like to bypass it? Back then, it would be just more simple like, hey, here's the sensor. It's open. You have to close that before doing so. So I would, if I'm a betting man, would say more than likely he did not arm the system that particular night because if he tried to, the way. that window sensor whether it was inoperable or the window wasn't closed would have notified him on that panel.

I'll look more into it because like I said, I have, I have tons. I mean, hundreds of pages of police reports and psychological evaluations. Someone in the comments will know too. I'm sure there's some people in here that are very in tune with this case. And by no means, is this change anything? It's always back to what can we learn from these crimes. Because at the end of the day, it already happened. Nothing's going to change whatever. occurred with the smarts, but just like Elizabeth is trying to do now, trying to educate. Awareness, advocacy, yeah. Awareness, right? She doesn't want this to happen to anyone else.

So these little things aren't pointing out what they did wrong. It's pointing out what we can do right. Exactly. And that should be the takeaway for all of us. I completely agree. And I would be, you know, I'll check into it after we wrap up here today. But yeah, they had an alarm system. Lois says early in the book, they never used it.

But then Ed does talk about how they did start using it after everything happened with Recy. And then that night, he said he was sure. And it seems like he went to bed knowing that kitchen window was open. But it didn't really bother him because it was a safe neighborhood. And then he does talk about how like the sensors on that window and another window weren't working. But if the window wasn't closed, it wouldn't have mattered if the same. if the sensors were working or not, I kind of feel, unless they were motion sensors. But it doesn't sound like it. Yeah, I mean, well, if it was physically locked, more than likely, he wouldn't have been

able to get in, right? He would have, or there would have been a noise. He would have had to break something, yeah. That would have alerted Edward or Lois to let them know, hey, someone's here. And I mean, it's possible that somebody like David Mitchell or Brian David Mitchell would have still tried to find a way inside because he was, once again, he was able to kind of navigate the LDS system because he was familiar with what being LDS meant and that these people would be charitable and they would let you in their homes and they would try to help you. That's what they do. People like that will exploit that kindness. Yeah. So he was very familiar with the system, the ins and the outs and everything. So he claimed

later to Elizabeth Smart and this is going to be a big thing that we go back and forth through because some people said, oh, he was mentally ill. Some people said he wasn't. He was just very smart, very manipulative, very cunning. There was something wrong with him. it wasn't a mental illness that can be fixed. But he would say when he went in, he kind of said a prayer. And he was like, God, if this is what you want me to do and you want me to take this girl for my wife, then you'll give me a sign. And then he took the door, the window being opened as like a sign that that's what God

wanted him to do. That's what he says. Okay. All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor. IQ bar protein bars, IQ mix, hydration mixes, and IQ Joe mushroom coffees are the delicious low sugar brain and body fuel you need to win your day.

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mixtics, and four IQ Joe sticks so you can figure out what fits into your routine without committing right away. And right now IQ bar is offering our special podcast listeners and viewers 20% off all IQ bar products, including their ultimate sampler pack plus free shipping. To get your 20% off, just text weekly to 64,000. Text weekly to 64,000. One more time, that's weekly to 64,000 message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Okay, we're back. So now it's around 10.30 p.m. Ed and Lois, they talked to their daughter Elizabeth, and they said, okay, we thought about it, we talked about it. We have decided you can go on vacation with your friend this summer, but just like three or four days. And so Elizabeth was happy.

They then kissed her good night. They sent her off to bed wearing her favorite red silk pajamas. Their oldest son Charles, he was up a bit later working on a school paper. He got into bed around midnight. The baby, three-year-old William, he went to sleep with his parents in their room. Now, to be very clear, Elizabeth had not only been sharing a room with her nine-year-old sister, Mary Catherine, they also shared a bed. And this wasn't because of a lack of rooms to have. There were plenty of rooms in the house. They had a spare bedroom. She could have had one of those, but once again, this was a family thing. Like, you should be close to your sister, you should share space. You should be able to rely on each other and count on each other and grow up having a good

relationship. So Elizabeth had been asking for her own room for a while, though. And so it wasn't uncommon for her to sometimes sleep in the spare room or in baby Williams' room when he was in Lois and Ed's room. So when Mary Catherine woke up her parents in the early morning hours to tell them that Elizabeth was gone, they at first thought she may have gone into another room to sleep. But let's switch to the perspective of Elizabeth and Mary Catherine and hear what they had to say. about the night that Elizabeth was taken from the safety of her own home. Elizabeth remembers waking up with her little sister next to her in bed and a knife at her throat. The following words are Elizabeth's own words from her book, My Story.

She says, quote, rough hands were pressed upon my body as the stranger leaned over me, his dirty beard against my face. I have a knife to your neck, he whispered. His voice was soft, but very serious. Don't make a sound, get out of bed, or I'll kill you, your family. For a fraction of a moment, I was not fully awake. Caught in that fuzzy place between wakefulness and sleep, where your body may be reacting, but your mind has not yet realized what is

happening yet. Was I dreaming? Was this real? My mind was like molasses, slow, caught in uncertainty and fear. Then I felt the pressure of the knife, cold and sharp against my throat. I have a knife to your neck, he repeated. Don't make a sound. Get out of bed, or I'll kill you and your family. I was jolted awake. I felt the sharpness of the knife as he pressed it against my skin. My heart began to race exploding in my ears. I fought the urge to scream, glancing at my little sister in the dark. The words he had spoken seemed to echo in my ear. I will kill you and your family. I wanted to reach out for my little sister to hold her to protect her from this horrible thing. I needed to protect her. I froze in fear. Seeing the shadow of evil on his face, hearing the

determination in his voice and feeling the strength of his hands, I knew that he would kill. us if he had to. From that moment forward, I never doubted what he would do. Let me be clear about that. I spent more than nine months under his control. Every day I spent with him made me more and more convinced that this man was capable of killing. He would have struck me in an instant. There is no doubt it never was. I quietly slipped out of bed. The man grabbed me by the arm. There was enough light that I could see his knife. It wasn't a pocket knife. This was much more than that. It was long and black and serrated, maybe eight inches long. It looked like it could cut right through me, right through my heart and bone.

I can't describe the terror. It is simply impossible to express. Here I was, a little girl in the middle of the night being taken from my bed for my own home from what I thought was the safest place in the entire world. It was an unimaginable intrusion. Everything that I had thought, every feeling of safety or comfort, every assumption of protection, was stolen in that instant. My world spun on its head. My mind began to race.

Had he already killed my parents? Were other members of my family dead? What about my little sister sleeping beside me in bed? Would he harm her? Would he kill her? What could I do to keep her safe? His hands were large and powerful as they pulled me from my bed, holding the knife at my back. He pushed me toward my closet.

All of the lights were turned off. On the way out, I stubbed my toe. Ouch, I whispered. And he threatened me again. We passed through the bathroom. Holding me very close, the knife always at my back. He pushed me inside the closet. One of us turned the light on, but I don't remember if it was

me or him. Get your shoes, he whispered in my ear. I bent toward a pair of slippers. No, he spat pushing me toward my white running shoes. Get those. My heart sank in utter horror. Was he taking me outside? Sensing my hesitation, he leaned toward me again. I'm taking you hostage for ransom. I felt myself deflate. It seemed the very life was ready to leave my body. My throat tightened up with fear. The light was on now and I could see his face, his long beard, his dark brown hair. Everything he wore was dark. The terrifying knife. In every possible way, this was a very dark man.

Grab your shoes, he barked again. His voice was low but deadly. He was holding tightly to my arm. His fingers digging into me. I hardly noticed the pain. My body was flushing with adrenaline. I was trembling with fear. I picked up my white running shoes,

the same ones that I had worn when I had gone jogging the night before. Bending over, I started to put them on. No, not now. Bring them with you, he ordered. He pushed me toward the bedroom door. We slowly moved out. into the hall. He stayed right behind me, never more than a fraction of an inch away. The long knife was always close, not a sound, he told me I'll kill you and your entire family.

My heart pounded in my chest. I felt the itch of his beard against my neck. He led me toward the stairs. It was dark and quiet. None of my family was awake, deadly quiet, deadly darkness. I could hear the grandfather clock ticking from downstairs. He led me down the hall and pushed me past the stairs. Realizing his mistake, he forced me to backtrack, then led me down to the main hall. Dad, please wake up. I was praying in my mind. Mom, can you hear me? Please wake up and save me.

What is the quickest way out? He whispered as we stood in the main entry. I hesitated feeling sick with utter fear. He is going to take me outside. I thought he's going to hurt or kill me. I felt the knife against my back, cold, hard. I imagined the cut of the blade into my body. The sliding glass door behind us, I answered,

afraid that I was going to cry. He acted like he didn't hear me. Pushing me forward. He directed me through the kitchen, past the pantry, toward the back door. Out we went. We were on the patio now. He was always very close controlling everything I did.

He directed me across the backyard and up the hill to the side yard near the top of our property. I felt his arms tighten up around me as he pulled me to a stop. Put on your shoes now, he said. Why are you doing this? I cried. He looked at me in anger. I'm taking you hostage. I knelt down and pulled my shoes on.

I wasn't wearing any socks. I glanced toward my house. It was still completely dark. I felt a yearning to rush back there. Then I felt the knife again. He pushed me up the hill. were walking through the empty lot, scrub oaks, lots of dry brush and grass. He suddenly stopped me, reaching down among the weeds, picking up two green bags that had been

tied together with a rag. He slung them over his back and chest, end quote. Okay. So crazy. I wanted you guys to hear that in Elizabeth's own words. That's the best way, right? And in a normal situation like this with a 14-year-old child who's being kidnapped from their own home and considering what David Mitchell would do to her.

over the next nine months. He did not, like I said, he never ever expected her to be free, whether that meant he was going to keep her forever or he was going to eventually kill her. Usually we don't get to hear in the words of a victim like this, what it felt like and what happened. But we get to hear Elizabeth. And I think we can both understand that there's a lot of ambivalence happening here, right? She doesn't know how to feel about it. Not that she's not scared, but a lot of people would ask her later, you were in your house. Why didn't you scream for your parents? You were in your house. Why didn't you try to get help? Why didn't you go and run down the hall and get your parents? And I think that that answer is pretty obvious, right?

No, it definitely is. First off, my initial impression from all of this is I strongly believe that Elizabeth not only saved herself, but she saved her family that night. Her ability to stay calm in those moments was a life or death situation. If she had done what I think a lot of 14-year-old kids would do, which would be to run or scream for help, I don't think any of them would be here right now. I really don't. And so, and I'm sure she's already processed that. And in a lot of ways she's a hero. She really did save her family that night by willing to sacrifice herself. Like, I don't know if people realize how significant this story is, what she was willing

to do to protect her family, even though she knew what was happening. She knew she was going to be taken. And she had to imagine that she was going to be killed. Even though, I mean, she's 14, not six. So she knows where this is going to go. not going to be good for her. And yet, she remained calm. She did what was told of her. And she didn't make a sound because she knew that not only was she going to die, but more than likely everybody else would as well. So absolutely remarkable story that she's able to tell us now.

And I'm so glad that she's here. And honestly, after hearing it and having the chance to talk to her, it totally tracks. Like even in person, she's so calm and collected. And you can tell that all her words have a purpose when she speaks. She doesn't say a lot. She's quiet. But when she does speak, there's a point behind every word. There's an intentionality to it. And when she speaks, you do listen because she has a cadence to her voice where you know

she's coming from a place of an expertise almost, right? Like, because she's lived that. You know, and so, you know, having a 13-year-old, it's easy to put yourself in this position where you can think about your own child being in her. shoes and I can't imagine what Tenley would do and all that. And it's just a horrific set of circumstances. And I'm so glad she's able to talk about it with us now, not only because she's here, but just because she hasn't allowed it to consume her life and force her into a position where she's not able to convey this to the rest of the world. This is a story that needs to be told.

And every little sentence you described here, it's just, it's a horror scene. It really is. It could be a movie. It probably is a movie in a lot of ways. Elizabeth's always been strong, a strength that was well beyond her years. And she will always bring it down to one thing. And I know not everybody's religious and I know not everybody believes in certain things. But for Elizabeth, she said it was her faith that allowed her to stay strong. And she, especially not just that night, but over the next nine months, when she would continuously do what her captors, because you'll find out it's not just David Mitchell, right? Or Brian David Mitchell, it's also his wife at the time, Wanda Barsey. She did everything they told her to do, even though the things they were telling

her to do were disgusting, unimaginable, just completely out of the realm of anything Elizabeth Smart had ever been able to comprehend before. But she continued to do what they told her to do because she said, I had to do whatever it took to survive. And at this point, when he's got her with a knife in her back and he's like, I'm going to kill your family, if you don't do it. what I say, she doesn't even know, are my parents alive? Has he already killed them? She doesn't even know, but she knows her sister Mary Catherine sleeping next to her is alive. So even if she's staying quiet to just make sure that this guy doesn't go after Mary Catherine or hurt Mary Catherine in order to punish Elizabeth for, you know, her disobedience, she's going to stay quiet and she's going to,

yeah, in a way, sacrifice herself for the safety of those she cares about. And that's where her faith and her family values that were instilled in her since birth come into play here. She was more concerned about others than herself. Yeah. It's also part of character, just the way she's built. Yeah. You know, some of it is just who you are, man. She just, she's that girl.

You know what I mean? Like she has, she's, she's that woman now, but she was that girl at the time, even at 14. Just some people are built like that, man. And I'd like to think I'd act that way. in that situation, but who knows, a 14 years old? At 14, yeah. But you could hear, even earlier when she was talking about when they first saw Brian David Mitchell and she was talking about her mother, you can tell, this is not your average

14-year-old girl who was like, I hate my mom, I hate my parents, like they're way too, you know, they're way too, you know, they don't let me do anything. No, she said, I looked up at my mother. My mother was beautiful. I was lucky to have a mother like that. She was my best friend. The family was so important to the smart family. And now that comes into play where she's going to protect them at the cost of herself.

And she's 14. Normally, you wouldn't be able to keep such a level head at that age. No, no. Not at all. Incredible story. I mean, just I had never heard those details. So to hear them from her perspective, we don't often get that. Well, also what we're going to come to find is Elizabeth's nine-year-old sister, Mary Catherine, also has her wits about her.

Even at an even younger age, nine, right? we're going to find that Mary Catherine was awake when this happened. Wow. Yeah. So let's take our last break. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by Liquid Ivy. And Derek, you know those days, and I hate them, where you have to be on from the second

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So show up, start to finish with hydration from Liquid IV hydration multiplier sugar-free, tear, poor, live more. Go to Liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first order with code Crime Weekly at checkout. Once again, that's 20% off your first order with code Crime Weekly at Liquidiv.com. So what happened that night? How did Brian David Mitchell get into the smart home? What was his point to be there? So what happened is shortly before 2 a.m., Brian David Mitchell had made his way through the hills of the Wasatch Mountains and towards the Federal Heights neighborhood. He's dressed all in black. This is premeditated, obviously planned. He's ready. He's got on black sweatpants, a black sweatshirt, a black cap, black gloves. He had two military green sacks tied across his back. And what we're going to come to find about Brian David Mitchell, because next episode we're going to talk about him and how he grew up. He's very smart, actually, very smart, very manipulative.

And for a long time, kind of in his adult life, he was really into, first of all, not paying taxes, not paying taxes, not being at the hands of the government and living off the grid. So he was very skilled on being a survivalist, living off the land, not being kind of in any zip code or at any address. And at this point, he and his wife, Wanda Barzzi, they're kind of camping out in the woods. That's where they live. They're camping out in the hills of the mountains. And they're living there with like a tent and they're, you know, picking berries and going through garbages and doing a lot of panhandling in Salt Lake City, knowing that the people who live in Salt Lake City are. majority LDS and they will get money and they will get food and they will have charity bestowed upon them. So when Brian David Mitchell crept up to the smart house, he hid his bags because he's got two military green sacks tied together across his back and he hid them in some weeds behind the house.

And then he circled around the house. He was trying to decide how would he enter? All the doors were locked, he found out. But then Mitchell discovered the open kitchen window to the left of the patio. And he used his serrated blade to cut the screen and then he pushed open the glass window. And he later told Elizabeth that at this point, he hesitated. He knew there was no going back. Like if he got into that house and an alarm went off or someone was still up or he was seen, it was over for him.

There was no kind of talking his way out of how he happened to be there once he was inside. So at that point, before he even goes inside, he said he closed his eyes and he thought, if God wants me to do this, he will allow it. And then he went inside. Now, once again, this guy, Brian David Mitchell, he kind of gives me Charles Manson vibes because you'll see, and we're going to play you some footage later. He's interviewed by the police after he's found out to be Elizabeth Smart's captor and abductor. And he will get asked questions and he answers some of them. But then when he doesn't want to answer or he feels like he wants to avoid it, he'll start doing this religious a singing thing and he'll just kind of ignore the people. He does it during the trial.

And a lot of people, especially his defense, they were like, hey, this shows that this guy's crazy. He's off his rocker. And then all these people came out from the woodwork, all these people who had known him as he grew up. And they were like, no, he's not. He's never been crazy. This is what he does. It's manipulative. He would work at this place. I think it was called O.C. Tanner. And he would preach about how, you know, the LDS church was wrong. and they're doing it wrong, and he would argue with other people that he worked with who were also Mormons, because he had very extreme views by this time. And his boss was like, this guy was so annoying because every time you would, and we're all down for a spirit of debate, but every time you kind of got leverage on him or you made a good point, he would just start singing and he would ignore you. And that was his way of basically avoiding the question or not allowing you to feel like you'd gotten one up on him.

He hated to feel that anybody thought that they were smarter or more superior to him. He would refuse to accept that. So his faith, and I use that in quotations, as many members of the LDS Church who have gone astray and gone into a more like extreme drastic version of the religion and start talking about polygamy and oh, hey, we can have 20 wives. And oh, hey, some of these wives can be 12-year-old girls because that's what God wants. Those are the people that are the dangerous ones, the bad ones. he had kind of gotten into that.

But like them, he wasn't a necessarily religious person who believed in his faith so strongly. He tried to look at the way that he could pervert and twist the religion to make it fit with what he wanted to do. And in this case, what he wanted to do was get another wife and he was going to take her by force. And he wanted to make sure she was prepubescent and young. And so in order for him to sort of, I guess, justify it to himself, he had to feel that God was on his side with this. So it wasn't that he was crazy or that he didn't understand what's happening and he had kind of gone into psychosis. It was that he was just twisting this religion to use it in a way where this horrible and

illegal thing that he wanted to do was made right because it's what God wanted him to do. And by allowing him to go into the house and make it past that threshold, that was God giving his approval and his message and sign to Mitchell like, yes, this is okay. This is my will. This is what I want. And that's what he will continue to do over this next nine months with Elizabeth. Just continue to say that everything horrible that he's doing to her is what God wants and that he has the right to do it because he's the man and he's the spiritual leader of this household, which is a tent with him, Wanda Barzi and Elizabeth unwillingly there, his spiritual, the leader of this spiritual home. This is what he does.

And I am at this point I've read many psychological evaluations of this man, psychological evaluations of him when he was still a teenager. and in his adult life after he's arrested and taken into custody. And I agree. I don't think that he was crazy. I don't think that he was mentally ill or in some religious psychosis. I believe that he knew exactly what he was doing and he was very intelligent. Yeah. And, you know, that's all great and good.

I'm also looking at it just from a logistical perspective. And I just looked up Elizabeth Smart's house. And we'll have it up on the screen right now for YouTube. And, you know, my opinion, it's a gigantic house. It's a beautiful house. I guess it's depending on who's listening or what. watching this and the house that you live in, but it's gigantic from where I'm coming from. And it just makes me think about how much time he was out there because if this really was the

only window that was open and there's no way that he would have known that window was open without trying them all. He must have been there for a while, hand-checking windows and doors to see if there was a point of ingress to get in there. And then I wonder if there wasn't a window. I mean, he had to have assumed that there was a scenario where he went there and he's clearly prepared and the windows would all be locked and the doors would all be secured. And if that were the case, I wonder, and maybe you're going to tell us about this in the upcoming episodes, but what was plan B? You know, how was it going to get in? Because I don't think the intention was to go there and if everything was secured to walk away. So I mean, once again, we have Lois and Edsmart telling us,

like, oh, this other guy, Recy, that worked there, like, he knew the layout of the house. He knew that we had a security system we didn't use. And maybe, and maybe they don't want to talk about that too much, but maybe Brian David Mitchell knew something of the same, right? Yeah. Maybe he kind of saw, hey, these people feel really safe. Like, they are good Mormons. They follow this practice.

And from my experience, and I'm talking from his experience, from my experience as Brian David Mitchell, I have come to find that people like this who live in places like this, they're not super tight about security. They don't think that bad things happen to them where they live. You got to look at the aerial view of this house. I'm looking at it. It's a compound. I'm talking for everybody out there.

I know you've looked at it by now. It's a compound, right? Yeah. But it's a compound, right? I mean, it's huge and it's surrounded by woods. And it's just, it's a really good target. You know, those houses are not on top of each other. So the chances of someone hearing or seeing something,

especially if you're coming in from a back point, which it sounds like he did. He didn't come in from the cul-de-sac, right? So you can enter that back. He came in from the hills, the back, yeah? Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's perfect.

It's perfect for something like that. And I mean, there's even like- Completely hidden, too, because people like this, they don't pay all this money to have a next-door neighbor be able to see you when you're in your pool. They got foliage all around them,

so you got the hills to the back, directly at the back of the house. Then you've got the woods all nicely built around for privacy, but he took advantage of that. privacy. Yeah, there's skylights in here and everything. I mean, there's so many points. That's the downfall with the house of this size.

There's so many points. And not only that, your bedrooms are probably far away. And to your point, the people being in there would know how far away certain windows were to where you are. So if he has to break out a window pane or forcibly open a door, if he believes the alarm system isn't engaged, he's not too concerned about it if they're all on the top floor. Do you want to go into that or save that from the next episode as far as the layout of where everybody was? Well, yeah, everybody is on the second floor. There you go. Right?

So the first floor is going to be your normal living area, your kitchen, your living room, your dining room, an office. So your only point is the alarm system. That's your only saving grace. Because even if he breaks a window, if he does it quietly enough, you're not going to hear it. If you're all asleep, it's 2 a.m. You're not going to hear it. I live on the second, you know, my bedroom's on the second floor.

Try not to give too much information now. Now I'm on high alert. But I do alarm my system every night. I promise you. But, yeah, you're not going to hear it. I promise you. I promise you. I alarm it.

I don't want to find myself. And we do too many cases for me not to arm the system. And I'm a night owl. So I'm kind of the alarm system because I'm up until 2 or 3 a.m. You're the alarm guy. Yeah. That does not surprise me. I'm texting and emailing her at that time.

But looking at this house, yeah, it's blessing and a curse. It's a blessing to be able to afford something like this. But there are some drawbacks because it does make you a target. And something interesting you said when he mentioned to Elizabeth. that he was going to use her as ransom. Yes. Now, clearly that wasn't the only reason, right? It wasn't the reason at all.

He had no intent on ransoming her. I do wonder, though, if there was a small part of him, like, this family has money. Maybe there's a world where eventually I do do that, or at least it would fit the narrative. Again, I'll save it for you to kind of fill us in. But there are drawbacks to being in a community like this because it's automatically assumed that you're well off and that you have access to large amount of fund. I mean, he didn't take anything else, but Elizabeth. He could have.

He could have grabbed things on the way out, you know. He could have even asked her, you know, a 14-year-old girl like that from a family like that. Hey, I'm sure you have a nice diamond tennis bracelet that you've been given. Yeah. And I'm not like I'm not saying that this guy wasn't interested in money because he's going to pretend that, oh, we get rid of all our earthly possessions and we are lightened in our spirit by the lack of, you know, possessions and money because he don't want my taxes. But yeah, he's panhandling out there. There's going to be a story we talk about where he's trying to get a second wife earlier before he goes for Elizabeth. And there's this as a girl, a woman, a grown woman, not a girl who works at the mall and him and Wanda go there.

And they try to like court her. And then he's like, hey, she was engaged, by the way, engaged me married. And he's like, hey, that wedding ring there. That's a pretty nice wedding ring, man. I bet if you come with us and live in the mountains, we pawn that. We'll eat like kings for two months off of this, right? So it's not that it's not a concern for him. but while he was there in that house, that was not his concern.

He wanted Elizabeth. He claims the Lord told him that she was already his and that that was his possession to take Elizabeth Smart, which is weird. So Mitchell uses an iron patio chair to stand on because this is, you know, a window off the kitchen off the patio, so it's higher up. He can't just crawl in. So he uses that chair and he's able to get in through the kitchen window. And then he later said he was surprised when he did not hear an alarm. sound. He was surprised. Now, at the smart family, we've talked about it, they did have an alarm system,

but at that time, they didn't know that it was not as extensive as they thought. As I mentioned earlier, Ed Smart said, quote, we thought all of our doors had chimes as part of the security system, unbeknownst to us. They did not. Two doors and the back kitchen door were not functioning properly. These doors were missing the magnets that made contact to make the doors chime, end quote. So it looks like it wasn't so much as the magnets weren't working, as much as they had the security system installed and they were told like, hey, it's extensive, you're protected in every entry point. But when the system was installed, the people who installed it had not put the magnets on these specific points, two of these doors and the back kitchen door. And they didn't put the

magnets there at all. So no magnets. So it's not going to tell you they're offline. That would be a problem. Now, once Mitchell was inside, all he had to do was make his way to the bedroom. Elizabeth shared with her sister. Now, I wonder, how does he know this is Elizabeth and Mary Catherine's bedroom? Is he opening doors and kind of looking inside to see where she is, or does he have some former knowledge of where her bedroom is? We'll talk about that later. Now, what he hadn't bargained for, what he didn't know at the time, was that Mary Catherine was not asleep when he entered. And Mary Catherine, Elizabeth's sister, who was nine at the time, she later said, quote, I was sort of awake and I saw this guy in my room and I'm like, who is he? I saw him come over

to my side and then I saw him walk over to Elizabeth and he tapped her and she's like, what is it? And I guess she thought it was me. End quote. Within moments of Elizabeth and her abductor leaving the room, Mary Catherine was out of bed planning to get her parents. But then she saw a man or this man forcing her sister down the hall. So she runs to the door, she looks out to get her parents and she sees the man in Elizabeth still in the hallway, and she got scared. I mean, she ran back to bed, terrified. She ran and she hit under the covers. And Mary Catherine said, quote, I thought, you know, be quiet because if he hears you,

he might take you too, and you're the only person who has seen this. I was like shaking, end quote. So after that, Mary Catherine remained in bed for approximately two hours before finally summoning the courage to go and wake her parents up. And once again, people might judge this. We have to remember she's nine. Nine is the age of my youngest daughter. And I know for a fact how terrifying something like this would be to her.

I cannot judge a nine-year-old Mary Catherine for waiting that long because I'm sure the whole time, it's not like she was resting peacefully, the whole time she's thinking to herself, is it okay for me to go yet? Is it okay for me to go yet? And she said she knew it was that long because they had the grandfather clock and so she could hear the chimes. And then finally, after two hours had passed, she goes to her parents' bedroom. And Lois Smart remembered, quote, she came into our bedroom and she had a baby blanket wrapped her on her shoulders and head. She reminded me of a scared rabbit.

She said, Elizabeth is gone. End quote. So Ed and Lois, they began searching all the rooms for their daughter until Ed heard Lois scream from the kitchen. She had discovered the open kitchen window with the cut screen. And then they kind of figured out what had happened there. A 911 call went out from the smart home. at 4.01 a.m. 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was gone, and no one could have predicted or understood how much terror and trauma she would be subjected to on a daily basis for the next nine months.

Well, first off, Mary Catherine, I'm sure at this point has come to terms with everything, but she made the right decision because if she had woken up and went out there, at least she would have been taken. Worst case scenario, everyone would have been killed. But there would have been two kidnappings that night for sure. And I'm assuming, based on what you're going to tell us in future episodes, she was key to the start of this case. She was key. Well, at first, she couldn't remember a lot. And it was months and months later when this thing, and this is something that I think is hard to understand about trauma and about these kind of things where it was very terrifying. And she kind of buried it, right? And then it was months later where she saw something that triggered her

memory that reminded her of a man who had worked at her house over a year later. And that's finally when they kind of realized and put two and two together. But it would be months later. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's. But yeah, exactly. If Mary Catherine had gone out there and she didn't know what it was safe. She'd be with Elizabeth. She'd be with Elizabeth or he would have killed her. We don't know. And it probably gave them at least a starting point to know, hey, listen, Elizabeth did not run off on her own. That is big right there. Just because her running shoes had been taken, there could be an assumption that she's a runaway, although it wouldn't fit her character, but it's going to be something that law enforcement has to investigate and has to treat seriously. But now, with just this little bit of information,

they know, hey, this is an abduction. We have a suspect that we need to be on the lookout for. So I'm hoping, and I'm sure she has at this point, she realizes there's nothing she could have done. And that was the right decision. She's, you said, what, nine years old at the time? It was nine at the time, yeah. That's Peyton. You know, I mean, it's so close. They're so close in age. 10 Lee's 13, Peyton's 9, so relatable on a lot of different levels. But what a horrific set of circumstances? And the takeaway is could happen to any one of us. I've definitely had times where I forget to lack a window or something.

And all it takes is one night. Or it's summer and, you know, it's like that nice time in the summer and it's cool night. You crash on the couch or whatever and you just don't do your normal routine. It can happen to all of us. There's nobody to blame here. but Brian David Mitchell. Yeah, I agree. Educational tool.

That's what this is. It's not going to change what happened, but we can all learn from it and we can do things to prevent it from happening to us and the people we care about. And that's why I love covering these cases. Even if we say like, oh, we already knew we should lock our house

and arm our system. Like, yeah, logically we know it, but don't act like we don't get complacent sometimes. And so when you hear these cases, sometimes it is a little nudge and a little reminder that you need it. 100%. For me it is.

Because I guarantee you, ain't nobody going home after. listening to this and forgetting to arm their alarm their alarm system tonight? 100%. And that's the point, right? You're going to think about Elizabeth. You're going to think about her family. And that might be the deciding factor between you getting out of bed to go downstairs

to turn on that alarm. Right? That's as simple as it is. Like, if you're contemplating, do I need to arm it, you're probably going to think about Elizabeth and you're going to go down there and you're going to arm it because nobody wants this to happen to them. And this, I'm trying to say this the right way. having this person come into the home and take Elizabeth and having the outcome that we have

was the best case scenario. Am I saying that right? I mean, yeah, if he was going to do it anyways. This could have been just a murder of eight different people, right? Six kids, two adults. Or Elizabeth never comes home. Or Elizabeth never comes home. But it's so hard to say this in a way where, like, to put a positive spin on this, let me just be clear. There's nothing positive about this.

No, of course not. This is every parent's worst nightmare. Yeah, I mean, I just think about what could have happened, especially if Elizabeth was not as cool, calm, and collected as she was. And again, she's a hero. I genuinely feel also, knowing the cases I do now, if Mary Catherine had not been awake, they wouldn't have found Brian David Mitchell.

I mean, he was talking about leaving the state, Britney Elizabeth. So this could be one of those cases. We're talking about 20, 30 years later, Elizabeth Smart, 14 years old, taken from her bedroom, and we still don't know where she is. No, I'm so glad she's with us because she's such an amazing person, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about this story. And it just gives a whole new level to, like, the conversations I have had with her because I didn't know these details and I wish I had. Same. I didn't, yeah. Man, should have taken a selfie with her.

I know. She's like a superhero. Yeah, she really is. She really is. I do have a couple photos with her. So now I'm going to have to frame those bad boys, put them up there. But no, she's an amazing person, an amazing mother, amazing wife, and just a very kind-hearted person. And hearing these stories about this child at the time and then getting to meet the woman, I can tell you firsthand, everybody out there, not surprising at all. Totally tracks because she's just that, she's just that person. And I will say, like, she does a lot of talk. Now that she is married and she has children, she talks a lot and has for years about how she balances.

You know, I mean, you think we're paranoid and we're over-vigilant. Well, how does Elizabeth Smart balance protecting her children and letting them be, you know, independent, autonomous beings? Like, how does she do that? Because if it's me, we're living in a bunker, guys. Okay, we're never coming out. You don't even need windows in the bunker. I'm not letting my kids walk out in the open air without me by them 24-7. That's how I would feel if this had happened to me.

And she says this is something she's had to wrestle with and really like find a balance with because of her experience. And it's not been easy for her. I'm looking forward to learning more about this case. There's always something as an investigator we can learn from. And I want to see how this case is conducted now and what they did right, what they potentially did wrong. Because nine months is a long time. A long time. And so I'm interested to see how we got to that point.

Yeah. Any other final words from you? No, I'm excited to dive in next week because like I said, next week we're focused on Brian David Mitchell and it's going to make a lot of sense. I wanted to talk about Brian David Mitchell and who he was before we talked about what he would do to Elizabeth because it's going to add a lot of context. It's going to make him and his behavior and what he does and how he acts make a lot more sense. and I don't think it does bring a lot of pity in for him, honestly. I don't think that it's going to, you know, some people might say, oh, I relate to being raised by parents like this or I relate.

But there's a large portion of who he was and what he did and how young his proclivities started that are going to make you feel like, no, this guy's not like me. Like, no, he's not. There's something wrong with him deeply from the beginning. Not a surprise considering what we're talking about. Exactly. Well, we appreciate you guys being here. This is always difficult to talk about the silver lining here.

As we know that Elizabeth is still with us and able to share her story and help so many people. We will be back next week. If you haven't already, please like, comment, subscribe. Make sure your notifications are on. We get a lot of comments every single week from people saying, hey, for the last few episodes, I haven't been notified. And then I noticed that I was unsubscribed. Don't ask me why it happens.

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