Elizabeth Smart has been a fierce advocate for victims in the decades following her own nine-month ordeal as a 14-year-old girl taken from her home in Salt Lake City.
Another high-profile kidnapping investigation is currently in the news as federal agents search for Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie.
On this episode of “Deseret Voices,” Smart sits down with guest host Lottie Elizabeth Johnson to discuss the global issue of sexual abuse and families in pain.
Subscribe to “Deseret Voices” on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Note: Transcript edited by Steven Watkins
Lottie Elizabeth Johnson: You’ve told your story so many ways over the years, through writing, through speeches and films. And so I just would want to know what separates this new Netflix documentary from all of these other tellings, and did it offer something different for you?
Elizabeth Smart: So when I was first rescued, I really didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to me. I felt a lot of embarrassment, I felt a lot of shame around what had happened, even though I knew it wasn’t my fault. I just couldn’t help how I felt. And I didn’t share my story, I didn’t share the details of what happened for years, actually. It really wasn’t until the trial happened, and I felt like everything that I had kept private all of a sudden was out, and I wanted my story to be more than just like a transcript, a courtroom transcript.
And I remembered how I’d felt when I came home. Besides not wanting anyone else to know, because sexual assault and rape and abuse, it can feel so isolating. I remember one of the reasons why I didn’t want to talk to people was because I felt like, “How could anyone else understand what I went through?” And so I didn’t know anyone who had shared their story publicly. I didn’t know anyone who admitted that they’d been raped or admitted that they’d been abused in any way. I didn’t feel like that was just something people talked about. It was kind of like people kept their skeletons in the closet.
And so after the trial happened, my story was all of a sudden out there. I felt like it needed to serve a purpose, and I just knew how isolated I had felt. And I remember just thinking, “Well, if it’s going to be out there, then I want it to help other people to not feel so alone.”
And over the years, I feel like that belief has just become more and more cemented. The amount of victims and survivors who have approached me and said, “Because you shared your story, I felt like I could share mine.” “Because you seem to be happy, like, I want to go forward in my life.” “Because you did it, I can do it, too.”
And as I’ve attended summits and conferences and I’ve listened to other speakers, I find it incredible that I can hear statistics and they can be staggering, and I can be shocked listening to the numbers, but also, give it a week or two, and that exact number gets kind of fuzzy in my brain. Give it a month or two, and that number may have fallen completely out of the back of my head. But I don’t forget how I feel when I hear someone else’s story. And I don’t forget, like, the emotions and just, like, I feel like you can sit and try to explain grooming like a dictionary would, but when you see grooming illustrated in a story or explained in a story, I feel like that meaning hits home so much deeper.
And so I just feel like stories are the best way we learn. So as this Netflix documentary happened, I just felt like this isn’t a problem — sexual abuse, kidnapping, like families in pain — this is not just a problem in America, this is a problem worldwide. And it felt like a huge world stage had just been given to me.
LEJ: What did it mean to you to have, you know, other family members’ perspectives as a part of this story?
ES: Well, my story isn’t just my story. I mean, there are so many sides to it. There’s my sister’s story, and there’s my dad’s story, and, you know, all these stories happened at the same time. So I feel like it tries to give you as complete an experience as possible. I mean, you do see my dad’s side, you get to listen to my sister’s side, you get to listen to my side, the police’s side, you know, local media was able to participate in it. And so I just, I feel like it gives a much fuller picture of what was happening.
LEJ: You also have a YouTube channel where you continue to take power of your story, and there’s been a couple recent videos on there that have caught my attention. That includes one where you take your brother and your sister-in-law and you’re revisiting, hiking this kidnapping site.
ES (on video): This might not look like much, but this is a place where so much happened to me. This is the place where my nightmares became real.
LEJ: I am just curious, how is the YouTube approach in doing this different from a movie or a documentary?
ES: I mean, the documentary, we never had the opportunity to hike back there. I mean, it is a very difficult, long hike. I feel like maybe the YouTube gives that visualization. And I just felt like it was kind of an opportunity because so many times people have been like, “Well, why didn’t you run? Like, 31/2 miles isn’t that far?” And it wasn’t necessarily so much like, “You’re wrong, 31/2 miles is really far,” but it was just like to give people a little bit more perspective of what it was like.
But then on this hike that we did, you know, I had the opportunity to talk more about why other victims don’t run. I mean, we can take, for example, victims of domestic abuse. You know, the average victim, it takes them seven tries of leaving their abuser before they successfully leave. And I, you know, I’m able to talk about the physical chains that I experienced when I was chained up, but then I also talk about like these mental chains that so many other victims experience that people don’t see. And from the outside, you know, you can look at them and be like, “Well, you know, like you had a car, you have like a credit card, you’ve got money, you had a phone. Why couldn’t you just tell someone you were being hurt? Why couldn’t you just tell someone you were being abused?”
It’s typically not that simple. And so kind of in these videos that I’ve been able to do, I’ve just been able to address things that like I wasn’t able to address in the documentary. I mean, the documentary really is focused more on my story, what happened, and then in these YouTube videos I can talk about issues that I care about. I can shed a little bit more light. I mean, I was able to show this hike, which the video, I feel like, does like a pretty good job of showing how difficult it is, but then, still, I mean, even seeing versus experiencing, it was a very, very difficult hike to get back up to where I was held captive.
LEJ: You know, watching that, it seems like such an intense level of vulnerability to go back there, to hike that, to talk about it as you’re hiking that and how did you get to that point where that was OK?
ES: Well, I actually remember hiking back there just, I mean, days after I was rescued, and I went with my parents. I mean, my mom was there, my dad was there, some — I think it was FBI agents were with us or police officers — it was some form of law enforcement. I don’t actually remember. And I think an uncle or two maybe was with us.
And, you know, I was able to take them to these different sites, these different points that I’d experienced something at, and I was able to, you know, point out. ... And my parents, I think, were very worried about me, understandably. And I remember my mom just being like, “Are you OK? Like, how do you feel? Are you OK?” And I remember just being like, “Yeah, I feel fine.” And she was like, “Are you sure? Like, are you sure you’re OK?” And I was like, “Yeah.” She’s like, “Well, how do you feel?” And I remember just saying — I remember saying the word, “I feel triumphant.”
Because all these terrible things happened to me here and it was a secret. No one could find me. And now bringing people here and, like, shining a light on it, no one will ever be able to keep this place a secret ever again. It felt like it was shining a light into a dark hole. And so going back, I mean, even this most recent time with my brother and sister-in-law and, you know, videoing it all and just, like, talking about what I wanted to talk about without having, I don’t know, some editor being like, “OK, this is good, this is good, that doesn’t matter.” I felt like that was a — it was a meaningful experience for me.
But also, just also recognizing that it was never the location that hurt me. I mean, it, the — like, that was just outside. That was just a place out in nature. And realizing that it was just the people in those places that hurt me. I feel like every time I’ve gone back to those places, which hasn’t been a lot, and honestly I don’t foresee a reason why I’d ever need to go back there ever again. But every time I have gone back there, that has just been kind of like a reminder, you know, it wasn’t that place up Dry Creek Canyon that hurt me. It was the people.
LEJ: In a 2017 interview you did with Deseret News, you gave a quote about your journey to advocacy that has really, I’ve not forgotten in the, I guess, nine years now. And I’m just going to read it and then ask a follow-up about it if that’s OK. But the quote was:
“I couldn’t have just come home and written a book, made a movie, and started speaking. I couldn’t have done that. I needed time to readjust back to my family, re-figure out my life again, and move on enough so that when I looked back on my life, I didn’t just see my kidnapping. I think that was really important for me.”
That makes me emotional. I’ve just thought about that so much over the years. And I’d like to ask now, when was that moment for you that you looked back and did not just see that, did not just see the kidnapping? Was that a gradual evolution? Was that a light-bulb moment?
ES: I think it was a gradual evolution. Because, you know, days after I was rescued, weeks after I rescued, it was right there. Like, my kidnapping was right there, right behind me. And so I would say it definitely took time. I’d say it definitely was gradual. I mean, I stand by what I said, like, I couldn’t have just jumped into it the next day. I couldn’t have just become an advocate the next day. Like, that was not a possibility for me.
I needed the time, and I needed the chance to have more experiences and reclaim my life back a little bit more before I could even begin to think about it. I mean, yes, over the years, I mean, I did a little bit here and there. I’d worked with the Department of Justice in writing a survivor’s guide, I, you know, I flew out to Washington, D.C., with my dad and we worked on the Amber Alert together, and we worked on the Adam Walsh Safety and Protection Act.
So I mean, there were things that I did over the years, but most of the time I went back to just trying to be a normal teenager. I went back to just trying to meet me, Elizabeth, again, get to know myself again. And I think that made all the difference.
LEJ: Was there anything that surprised you as you took part in this documentary, or maybe something that you learned about yourself as you did it?
ES: I think one of the things that I really appreciated — and I don’t want to say surprised, but I was a little bit surprised — was really, actually it came down to the production company and just how sensitive they handled my story and how careful they were and they didn’t want me to feel like re-traumatized in any way. Actually, to the point that when I saw the first cut, I thought it was, like, amazing, I thought it was really high quality, but I remember just going back to them and being like, “Well, I think this is great. I also feel like it kind of looks like I went on vacation for nine months. And I feel like if I’m going to do this, I mean, we don’t have to go into the nitty-gritty of every single day, but I want it to be accurate and I want it to be very clear about what happened. I don’t just want to, like, sugarcoat it or gloss over it.”
So I think they were a little bit taken aback that I said what I said, but I just, feel like I want it to be a true representation of what happened.
And so they’re like, “Oh, OK, like, if you feel like we should do that, like, we just wanted to be sensitive to you, we just we didn’t want to make you feel retraumatized in any way.” So I just really appreciated, like, the care that they took in sharing my story.
And then as I rewatched the whole thing, I mean, I actually became quite emotional watching my family’s side. And specifically my sister. Yeah, if I teared up at any point, it was watching her.
LEJ: Her quote regarding your kidnapping early on in the documentary, she says, “I think it’s something I still deal with.” And as I was watching, it seems very much for everyone involved, you know, there has been a healing process, there continues to be a healing process, and I — for you, I would love to know what are some things that have helped you heal and continue to help you heal?
ES: I think that the fact that I really never was doubted. Everyone’s always believed what I’ve said. I think that’s made a really big difference because so many victims aren’t believed. And when they’re not believed when they first tell, it becomes harder and harder to share with anyone else. So I think always being believed has made a big difference in my life.
I think being able to make decisions for myself, being given back, I guess, the gift of choice, that has helped me heal. I mean, I think initially when I got home, I found a lot of peace in music, I found a lot of healing in the outdoors, in horseback riding with my grandpa. And I think as life has moved on, you know, I have found that same sort of outlet in running and exercising. I still — I still love music and being with my family, in being able to experience more of what life has to offer.
I remember when I got home — and this is maybe a little bit of a morbid thought — but I remember when I got home I was so shocked at how many people cared, I was so shocked at how many people searched for me, prayed for me, cared about me, but I also remember feeling like, “I’m just forever going to be known as the girl that was kidnapped.”
And I remember just feeling like, “Wow, if I died tomorrow, my funeral would just be, ‘Oh, she survived a kidnapping, oh, what’” you know. And I remember sitting there thinking, “I don’t want my funeral to be like that. I want people to laugh and be like, ‘Do you remember that time?’ or, you know, have lots to say.” And honestly, I don’t even want that to be mentioned.
And so I feel like that just made me like, “OK, well, if I don’t want that even to be mentioned, I need to go out and, like, live my life and I need to have more experiences and I need to do all these other things.” And I feel like actually as I’ve been able to experience more of life, that also has helped because then when I’m in my alone moments and reflecting on the past, I have so much more to reflect on than just my abduction and captivity.
LEJ: With the Nancy Guthrie case so prevalent in the news right now, and I have a — I said I have a 4-year-old and an almost 2-year-old, but my 4-year-old is starting to ask me questions, right, about “What is kidnapping?” Because he’s hearing that word and seeing this and I — so I’m just wondering from your perspective, how have you approached the subject with your own kids? How do you recommend a clueless mother like myself to approach that with her own children?
ES: I think this should be a conversation that is ongoing. It can’t just happen once, and I think there is an age-appropriate way to approach it. And you know your children best, and so you know what they’re ready for. I mean, I know my oldest started asking questions way before I was ready. I was like, “Wait, you’re 3 years old, why are you asking me these questions? I’m not ready for this.”
But then again, someone said to me, the best time to start talking about it is when they start asking questions. And so as I just mentioned, that began at 3 years old for me. And I feel like, I mean, even things as simple as, you know, calling a penis a penis, calling a vulva a vulva, vagina a vagina and not attaching like the shame or the embarrassment to it.
I mean, for instance, my parents were like, “Those are your privates, those are your privates, like, don’t let anyone touch them, they’re your privates.” And that was really kind of all that was said. And so then eventually after I was rescued and I had to go in and I talk about it, I mean, I ended up feeling so uncomfortable, I ended up feeling just so embarrassed. I mean, even just saying the word “penis,” having to describe being raped in graphic detail, that was horrific. That was a horrific experience.
And so I just feel like if we can even just take away the shame of of saying “penis,” you know, it’s a body part. You know, elbow’s a body part, nose is a body part, it’s just another body part. If we can take that kind of shame away, that is a great beginning place.
I think it’s great to talk about safety. Everybody knows what to do if you catch on fire: stop, drop, and roll. But how many people know what to do if you get raped? I mean, I wasn’t taught what to do. But, like, there are conversations we can have. We can talk about screaming, we can talk about, you know, for — as great as it is to be kind and polite and respectful — you should never put your own safety at risk. You should never worry about someone else’s feelings over your own personal safety.
You should be allowed to say no, you should practice saying no. With your children, like, if they don’t want to give Grandpa a hug, let them not give Grandpa a hug. I mean, respect their body autonomy as well. When they come and tell you something that’s important to them or that they’re scared about, don’t just be like, “Oh, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.” I mean, listen to them so that that trust is built and so that should anything happen in the future they know that they can come to you and tell you anything and you are in their corner, that you believe them, you are on their side.
And above all, I think the most important gift any parent can give their child is to make sure that their child knows that they are loved unconditionally — that there isn’t anything that anyone else can do to them that would make them stop loving them, and that you are there for them and that they can disclose anything to you and you will be there to help them.
LEJ: The Elizabeth Smart Foundation also has this self-defense training program, Smart Defense, and I was wondering if you could briefly just talk a little bit about the growth of that, because that is available in public universities in Utah, right?
ES: It is, yes. It is an accredited class in almost all of the public universities in Utah. We’re still working on the last few. Give me time, I’ll get there.
But it is. And, I mean, one of the sad things is is I feel like I remember being a freshman and I think I was sitting through freshman orientation. I remember hearing it a few times, just, talking about making sure you’re, you know, you lock your doors, making sure, like, you consider renters insurance, make sure, like, there was much more focus on — like, making sure your things weren’t stolen than really personal safety.
I mean, I do remember I was given a whistle and it was called a rape whistle and you could blow on it if you needed help. And that’s great. However, I also remember everyone kind of laughing about it and just blowing on it because they kind of thought it was funny. But the truth is, actually, you’re two times more likely to be raped on campus than you are to be robbed on campus.
And so I feel like these are things that we should be focusing more on, and it should take a much bigger place in personal safety. Especially when you consider that the national average is 1 in 4 women is raped in their lifetime and, unfortunately, 1 in 3 women in Utah. I mean, that’s horrific. And these are just the cases that we know of. These are just the numbers that are reported. So we’ve got a lot to do.
LEJ: You know, with all of your life’s experiences, all of these projects, all of these great efforts you have launched, what is something you are most proud of?
ES: I think I’m just most proud of, like, who I’ve become today. Because it would have been easy to stay at home and it would be easy to kind of sink back into a black hole. And that would have been very easy to do. And I think I’m — when I say I’m proud of myself, like, sure, the advocacy and everything that I’ve been able to do with that, that is great — but I think I’m just most proud of myself that I’m happy today. That I have, like, the best husband and the best kids and trying to live the best way that we know how. I think that’s what I’m most proud of.
LEJ: Thank you so much. And is there anything else that you would want to mention that I haven’t touched on? Anything you’d like to share?
ES: I think I would just say this to other victims out there: Nobody can take away your value. Nobody else’s actions can take away your value. I know it’s so easy to feel like you’re worthless if you’ve been raped or if you’ve been abused or you somehow perceive it as your fault. It’s not. And no matter what people have done to you, you were born with value and you still maintain that value. You are lovable, you are worthy.
I’d want them to know that it is easy to feel defined by what has happened to us. I think we live in a world of labels, and no one person can be defined by just one label. We are complex and multidimensional beings. And you can be one thing and be a thousand others. You don’t just have to be defined by one thing. And you get to define yourself, and you do that by the way that you live every single day.
You deserve to be happy. Don’t give up hope. Keep going. You’ve survived every worst day you’ve had so far, whether that was yesterday or 10 years ago. Be proud of yourself. You’ve survived it. Keep going. There are more good people in this world than there are bad people, and there are people out there who are willing to help you, who are willing to believe you, so don’t give up.
LEJ: Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
ES: Of course.