Warning: This article contains discussion of rape which some readers may find distressing.
Elizabeth Smart’s father, Ed Smart, plays a major role in the new Netflix film about her kidnapping, which will leave many wondering where he is now.
The answer will be surprising for many who remember the image of the nuclear Mormon family presented when Elizabeth was taken, as Ed has since come out as gay, separated from Elizabeth’s mother, Lois, and also left the Mormon church entirely.
Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapping was headline news for almost a year in the US back in 2002 after she was taken from her home at the age of 14.
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After a nine-month search, her captors were eventually found due to her nine-year-old sister, Mary Katherine, reading the Guinness Book of World Records and realising who had taken her sister.
Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee were later captured and sent to prison after Elizabeth’s father, Ed Smart, and wife Lois had publicised a sketch of Mitchell against the wishes of the police.
Ed was a prominent figure in the case, with Netflix’s Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart showing how he and his brother, Tom, were considered suspects early in the investigation.
He said in the documentary that his wife told him the police initially didn't believe that he had no part in Elizabeth's disappearance, adding: "I was overwhelmed to the point that I was shaking and couldn’t stop shaking."
Interrogation footage shown in the documentary shows him vehemently denying any involvement in his daughter's kidnapping, and eventually, he and his brother were cleared by law enforcement.
Elizabeth was raised in the Mormon church and has spoken about the shame she felt for having been raped by Mitchell due to the teachings of the church that a woman who’d had sex before marriage was a ‘piece of gum’ that no one would ‘want to rechew’.
Ed himself ended up leaving the church after coming out as gay in 2019, something Elizabeth spoke about in a recent appearance on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard.
She said on the podcast that her father had called her to tell her he was gay at ‘six in the morning’ and blurted out in one go: "Elizabeth, I’m leaving the church, I’m divorcing your mother, and I’m gay’."
She added: “All I could think to say at the end is ‘well, you’re still my dad’, I still love you. He’ll never stop being my dad… when this happened, something really nice that came out of was that it like made me really establish my own relationship with my dad and not just piggyback it off the relationship with my mom.”
Elizabeth has not spoken out about whether she has left the Mormon church, but did say to Tudum: “I have a lot of appreciation for many of the things that it taught me growing up… But also, as an adult now, until I feel like I know for myself, I don't believe anything anyone sells me anymore.”
Whilst the Mormon Church, also known as the Church of Latter Day Saints, does not technically teach that being gay is a sin, what it does teach is chastity, and, since they do not believe in gay marriage, there is no way to be a Mormon and engage in homosexual acts without it being considered a sin.
Ed spoke to CBS’ Gayle King in 2019 about his decision to come out, saying that there is ‘no cure to being gay’ and he knows because he ‘worked very hard at trying to do that’.
He said: “I wanted to be where God was, and the only way I could do that was to stomp this part of me out, and I tried the best to do that, and it’s not something that is curable.
“At one point, I said to my wife, ‘I really wish that I could die now,’ not that I was suicidal, but I thought that if I could see God right now, I would feel like I would be able to answer for myself, and he would be accepting of me based on what I had learned was acceptable.”
Ed added that he had remained faithful throughout his marriage to Lois, but was unable to continue denying his own sexuality.
Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart is now available to stream on Netflix.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, contact the Rape Crisis England and Wales helpline on 0808 500 222, available 24/7. If you are currently in danger or need urgent medical attention, you should call 999.
If you are in the United States you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org.
Topics: Netflix, True Crime, Documentaries, US News
Michael Slavin