ALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Elizabeth Smart’s new book and documentary detail her healing process after she was kidnapped as a child.
In the early hours of a June night in 2002, a 14 year old girl was taken from her bedroom in Salt Lake City, and the search that followed became one of the most closely followed missing person cases in the country.
A new documentary premiering January 21, 2026, on Netflix revisits her disappearance in 2002, detailing the nine months she was kept away from home by Brian David Mitchell, a self-described street preacher, and Wanda Barzee, who assisted him, and her recovery on March 12, 2003, in Sandy, just a few miles from where the search began.
The documentary is told through Elizabeth’s own recollections and includes archival footage, along with interviews involving her family, who were treated as suspects during the early stages of the investigation. I’ve been waiting for a comprehensive look at this case for nearly twenty years, and I can’t wait to watch this one.
Smart’s story captivated the nation’s attention in 2002. She was taken from her Salt Lake City home in the middle of the night and endured months of abuse.
“I did what I had to survive,” Smart said in an interview with our Criminally Obsessed team. “This is trying to acknowledge that everybody has a story and that, you know, life doesn’t, I think, ever go exactly the way you plan it.”
Her book “Detours” pinpoints the steps she took to heal.
“I don’t want anyone else to feel like they can’t move forward with their life or that they have to live in fear or that there aren’t good people in this world or that they did something wrong,” she said. “I had no choice in anything that happened to me.”
Her documentary is scheduled for release in January.
“I have learned over the years how powerful stories are,” Smart said. “I feel like it’s one of the most effective ways that we learn because it’s easy to forget statistics and numbers. … I have been asked so many times, ‘Why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you escape?’ And I feel like in the documentary I tried to explain it,” Smart said.
The Netflix documentary “Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart” will premiere on Netflix on Jan. 21.
News
She Built a Wall of Old Refrigerators Around Her Garden… Until the Wind Carried Fire
She Built a Wall of Old Refrigerators Around Her Garden… Until the Wind Carried Fire PART 1: The Appliance Cemetery They called her yard a junkyard when she built a wall out of dead refrigerators. They called her crazy, a hoarder, and a neighborhood blight. But that was before the sky turned the color of […]
He Moved His Horses Into an Empty Swimming Pool… Until the Smoke Came Down the Mountain
He Moved His Horses Into an Empty Swimming Pool… Until the Smoke Came Down the Mountain Everyone laughed when the old cowboy moved his six horses into an abandoned swimming pool. They called him crazy, a senile hoarder ruining the town’s image. But the laughter abruptly died the afternoon the wildfire smoke rolled into the […]
He Built a Fake Cemetery for His Sheep… Until the Wolves Came From the Wrong Direction
They laughed when the old shepherd built a sprawling graveyard for his sheep. They called him crazy, senile, and dangerous. But the laughter died the night the wolves finally came—and absolutely refused to cross the wooden markers. PART 1: The Graveyard of Fools The wind howling across the Scottish Highlands had a bite to it […]
📵 “NO WITNESSES”: The Exact Words That Will Send the Police Boss to Maximum Security.
THE GRAVE SPEAKS: A Hidden Locket, a Smuggled SD Card, and the Final Trap That Broke the Kruger Syndicate PRETORIA — Just when the corrupt political elites of South Africa thought they could manage the fallout of the Kruger National Park tr*gedy, a 73-year-old woman reached out from beyond the grave to seal their absolute […]
😭 “WE HEARD HER VOICE ONE LAST TIME”: The Marais Family Reacts to the Hidden Tape.
THE GRAVE SPEAKS: A Hidden Locket, a Smuggled SD Card, and the Final Trap That Broke the Kruger Syndicate PRETORIA — Just when the corrupt political elites of South Africa thought they could manage the fallout of the Kruger National Park tr*gedy, a 73-year-old woman reached out from beyond the grave to seal their absolute […]
⚖️ FROM CORRUPTION TO PREMEDITATED M*RDER: The Charge That Just Terrified the Elite.
THE GRAVE SPEAKS: A Hidden Locket, a Smuggled SD Card, and the Final Trap That Broke the Kruger Syndicate PRETORIA — Just when the corrupt political elites of South Africa thought they could manage the fallout of the Kruger National Park tr*gedy, a 73-year-old woman reached out from beyond the grave to seal their absolute […]
End of content
No more pages to load
