Elizabeth Smart

And they would say, well, you know, we really didn't want to kidnap you, but God commanded us to kidnap you.

God has commanded, like, you should actually be thanking us because we rescued you.

You were chosen.

They said all these things to me.

I mean, they took it to extreme levels.

That's how they justified every single thing that they did.

was through religion.

And then as time went on, I mean, of course, they always would say, initially I was chained up.

So the threat of me escaping was not high.

It was very low.

I couldn't escape.

I couldn't escape my chains.

But as time went on, they'd always say to me, well, if you ever do anything we don't want you to do,

We'll kill you.

If you do anything we don't want you to do and we don't kill you, we will kill your family.

And that felt 100% believable because they had already broken into my home.

You know, the place that I thought was most safe and most secure.

And they had kidnapped me.

And they had, like, no one had stopped them.

And then he used to bring newspaper articles or missing flyers everywhere.