SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah father of Elizabeth Smart said he is horrified by the parallels between the latest abduction story to grip the nation and his daughter’s long journey.
Snatched at knifepoint from her bedroom in Salt Lake City in 2002, then-14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was kept by a street preacher as he drifted, wintering at a homeless camp near San Diego, prosecutors say.
Nine months later, she was seen walking along a street in a Salt Lake City suburb with her alleged captors, all dressed in robes. Back at home, she had to adjust to her lost family.
“I remember the day Elizabeth was found, how wonderful that was. There are a lot of concerns about how we would move forward, and she’s done just amazingly well,” Ed Smart told AP Radio on Friday.
Like the case of Jaycee Lee Dugard, 29, found last week after an abduction that lasted 18 years, the suspect’s wife was apparently complicit in the alleged crime.
In both cases, the kidnapping suspect seems to have been motivated by religious extremism, Ed Smart said.
“It makes you angry that anyone would use God as an excuse to rationalize their predatory behavior,” he said.
He said he had one reaction after hearing of Dugard’s reunion with her family.
“Another miracle. She survived 18 years and is now out of the hands of this monster. It’s wonderful to hear of another rescue, another survival,” he said.
Elizabeth Smart, now 21, is studying for a music degree at Brigham Young University in Provo.
“A psychologist once said to me: ‘It’s really almost like being born again. You have to re-establish a bond with Elizabeth,’ ” her father said Friday. “Finding those things she loves and enjoys helps her move forward — finding things that will become her passion and allow her to put the past behind her.”
The Smart case has taken a meandering, six-year journey in state courts. Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, have been deemed incompetent to stand trial and are being held on multiple state charges, including kidnapping and sexual assault.
Mitchell was indicted by a federal grand jury in March 2008 on charges of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor.
Federal prosecutors hope to get a competency hearing sometime this fall.
