Lost and Found: Elizabeth Smart

Once Upon A Crime | True Crime

Esther Ludlow

True Crime, Crime, Truecrime, Criminology, History, Criminals

4.6 • 5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the second installment of our Lost and Found series, we revisit the harrowing case of Elizabeth Smart, a 14-year-old girl abducted from her bedroom in the middle of the night. Raised in a close-knit Mormon family in Salt Lake City, Utah, Elizabeth’s life was upended when a simple act of kindness—offering help to a local transient—set the stage for a chilling and calculated kidnapping.

What followed was a months-long ordeal filled with psychological manipulation, forced travel across state lines, and an unimaginable fight for survival. Against all odds, Elizabeth’s story became one of resilience, strength, and an unforgettable return home.

This episode explores how one family’s faith and perseverance—and a public unwilling to forget—helped bring Elizabeth back from the brink.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast details true crime cases.
0:03.2	It contains adult themes and may include descriptions of violence.
0:06.9	It is not intended for children.
0:09.0	Listener discretion is advised.
0:12.0	Thank you for joining me for today's episode of Once Upon a Crime.
0:16.0	We are in the series Lost and Found.
0:18.7	This is Chapter 2, Elizabeth Smart. June 5th, 2002, around 2 a.m., Salt Lake City, Utah.
0:29.0	Elizabeth Smart, 14 years old, is sleeping in her room with her little sister Mary Catherine by her side.
0:35.4	Mary Catherine is nine years old. Elizabeth wakes up to see a man with
0:39.6	a beard standing over her. His hand is pressed against her body roughly, and he has a knife at her
0:45.3	throat. Don't make a sound, he says. Get out of bed or I'll kill you and your family. Elizabeth never
0:52.9	doubted that he would kill. She wasn't sure if he had already hurt or even killed her other family. Elizabeth never doubted that he would kill.
0:59.0	She wasn't sure if he had already hurt or even killed her other family members.
1:02.1	She was also very concerned about her little sister.
1:03.5	Would he hurt her?
1:07.2	She'd better do what he asks in order to keep her family safe.
1:10.1	He then tells her to get her shoes,
1:13.3	and he says he's taking her hostage for a ransom.
1:21.7	Nine-year-old Mary Catherine, in shock, just saw her sister taken by a strange man with a beard.
1:31.2	She heard the words hostage, kill, and your family. She was too frozen with fear to leave her bed. Finally,
1:37.3	hours later, around 4 a.m., she screws up enough courage to rent to her parents' room.
1:46.7	Elizabeth is gone, she says to her mother, barely above a whisper. You won't find her. A man came and took her. He had a gun.
	...

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