I am so thankful for her family. I know they must have been going out of their minds with worry. At some point, I am sure they had prepared themselves for the worst, which is always a hard thing to do. This must be a tremendously happy day for all of them, even if the reports are correct about the sexual abuse.

Thank God for small mercies on us! This is the best news I've heard all day. :)

After nine months, I'm sure her family was loosing hope of seeing her alive. I'm glad she's back with the people who love her and have been missing her.

I'm just curious to know where the heck she's been all this time. It was all over the news, you would think SOMEONE would have seen her, or the guy, before now.

As much as this is happy news, the battle is probably just beginning for this family. As horrible as it sounds, it might have just been easier for them if she hadn't been found. If it's true that she was sexually assaulted daily, she's probably going to need years and years of therapy -- and she's more likely to suffer from depression, drug abuse, eating disorders and a ton of other problems. I can't imagine the next few years being very easy for this family.

Of course, there's always the chance that she might make it out of this fairly well. It's not very likely, but it's a possibility.

I must respectfully disagree with you. I remember a child abduction case in NYC from my childhood. Twenty years later the parents are still looking for answers. Nothing can be worse than not knowing what happened to your own child.

When there is life, there is hope. It won't be easy, but there will be many qualified doctors out there who can assist Elizabeth and the entire Smart family recover from this trauma. Hopefully, they will be able to learn how to cope with this and move on to live normal, healthy lives. It will take a lot of work.

Before anybody gets too riled up, I want to point out that I said it might have been "easier" had she not been found, not "better." This is definitely a happy thing for the family and obviously they're thrilled to have her back regardless of what happened to her. That said, a supportive family is simply not enough to help someone in this sort of situation. I have friends who have been raped and despite supportive families, friends, and boyfriends and lots of professional help, they still deal with the ramifications of this every single day, and a lot of them do suffer from depression, eating disorders and the other aforementioned issues; some of them self-injure and have attempted suicide. And that's one rape, not nine months of what could possibly be near-daily sexual abuse. And this girl is still fairly young, too, which can be even more damaging.

I'm not denying that her family shouldn't be happy to have her back -- I'm sure they are, and they should be! I just wanted to point out that unfortunately, they might not have even faced the hardest parts of their ordeal yet.

i was just watching the news about this when i was at the gym and they said that they couldn't release a lot of information but that it appeared she had gained weight, which is maybe where the pregnancy thing mentioned earlier stems from, and that she wasn't necessarily in utah the whole time. they said something about them being in atlanta for a period of time, i think. it's an amazing thing that she was found and my thoughts go out to her and her family so that way they can work to start to get back to whatever amount of normalcy they can achieve after this.

I think both ways are equally painful

Not knowing where your child is or what happened to them is horrible but at the same time watching your child deal with a molestation/rape/abuse in general day after day is horrific as well.
Either way, our thoughts should be with that family because the next few months or years are going to be just as hard :(

this is such wonderful news. i never thought it would end this way. her family must be elated, i'm sure they thought she was dead this whole time

Thats a little perverted man lol. The news articles I read said she was in surprisingly good shape and was physically unharmed.

How is it perverted? I got it off the news what they were reporting at the time... excuse me.

It truly is a miracle. God bless her. Its going to be very difficult for her to readjust, I'm sure. John Walsh was on Larry King Live tonight and they were talking about the brainwashing they imagine she endured. They also talked about the Stockholm syndrome, where victims begin to symphathize with their captors (like Patty Hearst). I can only guess this is what happened to her. How can you keep a 14-15 year old out of public for 9 months. All she had to do was stand in the middle of the street/store/restaurant and scream.
This guy was apparently a religious zealot who hates Mormons. I really hope she was not sexually abused.

this guy hates Mormons yet lives in Utah? wow that state is as Mormon as it gets.....

For God's Sake,
They need to fry this bastard. If there is one thing I can't stand for it's child molesters, rapists, kidnappers, etc. They always choose the most defenseless humans. That's why when there in jail they are at the bottom of the food chain. It's one thing to commit violence to someone of your own stature, but to a poor young child who has no way of defending themself. This is pathetic and unhuman. Sorry this is a very touchy subject for me.