Elizabeth Smart

We not only would return back to Salt Lake, but we would hitchhike back as well.

Unreal.

So when you're recognized, when was the moment when you realized that this was something different than what had happened in the library before?

It was when the one police officer separated me from my captors.

It was when he separated me, when he started to ask me questions by himself.

And they weren't with me because, I mean, they had been so close to me.

They'd been standing on either side of me that they were physically touching both shoulders.

And it was when I was separated from them.

and they weren't touching me anymore.

And this officer, he finally was like, you know what?

There's this girl she's been missing now for a very long time.

Her family, they love her more than anything.

They want her to come home.

They've never stopped searching for her.

Aren't you ready to go home?

And that was finally when I was like, oh my gosh, he knows who I am.

I'm actually going to be rescued.

It's going to be okay.

And so that is when I was finally able to admit who I was.

But of course, I was then handcuffed and put in the back of the car, which made me think, oh my gosh, I did the wrong thing.