Elizabeth Smart Found!!!
 

I just turned on the news to learn that Elizabeth Smart has been found. Apparently, she was found during a traffic stop.

I am so happy for this family. I even choked up...and I don't even know these people!

It's so nice to hear such good news.:)

That is GREAT news!!!!!:D

found in a suburb of Salt lake city, no less!!

Wow I am so happy for her and her family. The local news report said that it is reported that she was raped and molested almost daily. I hope it is a false report but it is probably true. What else would a kidnapper do.

This is truly a miracle. I don't care why she wasn't spotted or why she couldn't figure out a way to escape or anything...she is alive and now she can go be with her family and TRY to resume a normal life. I hope that nothing really nasty was done to her. I can hope for that because, well, we didn't think she would be ALIVE either, so who knows what actually went on...I really hope that she is as okay as she can be...

I really hope that's not true. So sad. Poor girl is not only kidnapped but sexual abused everyday. A really normal girl only 9 months ago will now have to endure years of therapy from this. Why are there so many sick people out there?

SALT LAKE CITY - Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom nearly eight months ago, was found alive Wednesday during a traffic stop in suburban Salt Lake City, police said.


AP Photo


AP Photo
Slideshow: Elizabeth Smart Found Alive





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"Miracles do exist," said the girl's uncle, Tom Smart.


The girl was found in the car of a drifter who was pulled over in a traffic stop Wednesday afternoon, Sandy police spokeswoman Michelle Burnette said.


"Two separate women called in and said they thought they had spotted 'Emmanuel,'" she said. Emmanuel, whose real name is Brian David Mitchell, once did work on the Smart's home.


Sandy police pulled over Mitchell, another woman and a girl who looked like Elizabeth. They later confirmed her identity, police said.


Salt Lake City police detectives arrived to take over the investigation. Smart was transferred to the Salt Lake city police station. Mitchell was in custody at the Sandy police station.


Last month, Elizabeth's parents announced a new reward for information and asked for help in their search for the handyman known only as "Emanuel." They released a sketch of the man.


At the time, they said Elizabeth's sister, Mary Katharine, had come to them recently to say "Emanuel" bore some resemblance to the man who took Elizabeth from their room at gunpoint.


Elizabeth's kidnapping was part of a frightening string of child abductions that included the slayings of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam of San Diego and 5-year-old Samantha Runnion of Orange County, Calif.


Elizabeth was 14 when she was seized early on the morning of June 5 in front of her 9-year-old sister by a gunman who may have gotten into the house by cutting a window screen near the back door. As the younger sister pretended to be asleep, the gunman threatened to hurt Elizabeth if she didn't keep quiet.


The top potential suspect in the kidnapping, Richard Albert Ricci, a handyman who once worked in the Smart household, died Aug. 30 after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage while in prison on a parole violation. He said he had nothing to do with the kidnapping.


Investigators have said they believe he was involved but may not have acted alone.


Over the summer, the Smarts held twice-daily news briefings and helped coordinate huge volunteer searches. Ed Smart, a real estate broker, vowed to keep the case in the spotlight.


The family often got calls from the police, but it was never the information they wanted to hear. Often, police were calling to alert them to grisly discoveries that might be linked to their missing daughter; they wanted the Smarts to know before the story hit the news.


Sometimes, the news beat the police. Hands and feet had been found in a canyon, or bones had been discovered in the desert, according to the news. The Smarts would call police to ask if it was Elizabeth. Every time, the answer was no.


Police said they followed up more than 16,000 leads from the public in addition to those they have come up with themselves.


___


On the Net:

http://www.elizabethsmart.com

The BBC America believes they are going to announce at the news conference at 7:00 that she is pregnant with his baby. It is confirmed that that guy was a pedophile.

omg if that is true i can't even begin to imagine what that family is going through. That is just about the only situation i would ever condone an abortion for.

Where did you get that information? Is it tv or radio? Is there an internet link?

I wouldn't be surprised if he violated her. That's what happens to a lot of children who are kidnapped. I am so happy that she is alive. I hope that the kidnapper fries.

It is a digital tv channel I get. I don't know if they have a website. They said they believe if from information they are getting but can't confirm it. I hope it is untrue. But it is confirmed he is a pedophile so I wouldn't be suprized.

I thought they couldn't release information like that since she is a minor? am I wrong?

yeah State street in Sandy where they found her is like an 8 mile strip of clubs, bars, tattoo parlors, and used car lots.....oh and a couple of McDonalds - its pretty seedy

I just looked over www.bbcamerica.com and there is nothing there on Elizabeth Smart at all.
Ditto the BBC news site news.bbc.co.uk - not even in the Americas section.

Let's hope this is an urban legend getting loose.

(Sorry I haven't been around, folks--lots of family stuff at home going on. I'm still poking my nose in from time to time.)

Adrienne (PNAM-2003)

I just turned on the tv and missed the BBC World News which airs on the PBS station on channel 13 in NYC. I'll watch the National News.

This is fantastic news!!!! Between Iraq, empending war, the economy, terrorism etc...; we ALL need some happy news these days.

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.