Elizabeth Smart

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.

from down in Salt Lake back to this hidden campsite, and he'd show them to me, and he'd be like, oh, all of Salt Lake is covered in blue ribbons and light blue balloons, and these missing flyers are on every tree and every telephone pole and in the windows of every house and every shop, every grocery store.

They're everywhere, but no one will ever find you