Elizabeth Smart, WTF?

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I mean thank god for miracles, but jesus, what's been going on with this poor girl that she's been hanging around with a scary-looking drifter in the suburbs for a year?

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/elizabeth_smart030312.html

― That Girl (thatgirl), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 23:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

maybe she hated her family?

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 23:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

http://i.abcnews.com/media/US/images/abc_brian_d_mitchell_030312_nv.jpg

That drifter looks like Jesus.

― slutsky (slutsky), Thursday, 13 March 2003 00:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oh, and didn't it say she'd been kidnapped at gunpoint? They weren't just partying. (Though I'm sure that guy was a blast to party with.)

― slutsky (slutsky), Thursday, 13 March 2003 00:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

Why is this (inter)national news? 15 year old girls run away with people all the time.

― David Beckhouse (David Beckhouse), Thursday, 13 March 2003 00:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

according to an eyewitness account by her sister, she was abducted at gunpoint and then held for 9 months (i.e. the story is, she didn't just run away).

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 13 March 2003 00:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

so bizzare!

― chaki (chaki), Thursday, 13 March 2003 00:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 13 March 2003 01:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

She was kidnapped by a home intruder. This was huge news when it happened and the poor girl, like so many others, had been written off as dead by the American public. To turn up alive so many months later is incredible. . .

― That Girl (thatgirl), Thursday, 13 March 2003 05:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

It is incredible. I certainly hope she wasn't abused physically or mentally (beyond being abducted for 9 months, traumatic enough).

Is her dad creepy, though, or is it just me? Her uncles seem fine. I wish she'd go live with her uncles and then I'd feel even happier.

― Aaron A., Thursday, 13 March 2003 05:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

I haven't seen any news coverage. Just heard a snatch on NPR and then was given some extra info by my mother.

She suggested Elizabeth had been brainwashed by someone like "those bald people in the airport."
"You mean the Hare Krishnas, Mom?"
"Yeah."
"They are a not cult, Mom."
"Well you know what I mean."

― That Girl (thatgirl), Thursday, 13 March 2003 05:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

Well, if the dad is as creepy as you suggest, she might have felt more comfortable with her abductor.

― j.lu (j.lu), Thursday, 13 March 2003 05:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

There is something really strange here, although it's wonderful she was found alive. Sounds like, possibly, even if she were originally abducted, she wasn't averse to not being at home. Who knows. I'm sure everyone from "Cops" to "Americas Most Televised" to "Survivor: Held at Gunpoint in the Amazon" will be filling us in on the details. Still it's great that she's alive.

― Skottie, Thursday, 13 March 2003 06:14 (twenty-one years ago) link

I like the way the dad is totally living it up with his fifteen seconds of fame. "IT'S REAL! IT'S REAL!" "MIRACLES STILL EXIST!"

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 14 March 2003 22:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

The whole thing is very weird.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Friday, 14 March 2003 22:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

Welcome to Utah, folks.

― hstencil, Friday, 14 March 2003 22:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

Were it not for the beard, he'd look quite a bit like my ex boyfriend. Oh dear.

― kate (suzy), Friday, 14 March 2003 22:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

From what I hear, when they found her she was talking like an Amish person / complete religious weirdo (lots of "thou"s and "sayest"s & stuff). So I think there was def. at least some component of brain-washing or something involved.

― Dan I., Friday, 14 March 2003 23:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Well, obviously: she also denied she was Elizabeth Smart.

They hung out with Utah punks! I was flipping channels last night and all of a sudden, on ABC, I see a kid holding up a vinyl copy of Pink Flag. He traded some records with them, evidently. Then he went into the whole "something seemed wrong but I couldn't tell what" speech.

(I was more interested in how the record thing operated as a form of covert communication. You imagine the crew saying "can you just hold up a record to illustrate the record-trading point?" And of course he thinks for a moment and selects Pink Flag as the record he wants to be with on national television, not for the people who don't know about it but for his "peers." Everyone in the nation goes "ahh, a record," except for the thousands who go "ha, cool, he likes Pink Flag!"

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 14 March 2003 23:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

seventeen years pass...

elizabeth smart is sort of a camp idol among certain gays i've met. my first boyfriend was enamored and would tell all sorts of stories about spotting the entourage that kidnapped her around town.

https://twitter.com/MaskedDancerFOX/status/1349748173535911943?s=20

― map, Saturday, 16 January 2021 01:29 (three years ago) link

Elizabeth Smart helped us find the light. 💡🥺

RT if you guessed she was #MothMask on #TheMaskedDancer! pic.twitter.com/9xIZRbrj1z
— The Masked Dancer (@MaskedDancerFOX) January 14, 2021

― map, Saturday, 16 January 2021 01:29 (three years ago) link

some of the first responses on this thread are......

― akm, Saturday, 16 January 2021 01:32 (three years ago) link

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