Elizabeth Smart Speaks For The First Time About Pornography's Role In Her Abduction — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00"This is Good Morning America..." "This is Nightline..." "You're watching WISN-12..."
2. 0:06"The abduction of Elizabeth Smart..." "The search for 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart has now gone nationwide..."
3. 0:10"She was kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake City..."
4. 0:15"Police say the first 48 hours in a missing persons case are the most crucial..."
5. 0:18"What happened to Elizabeth Smart?"
6. 0:27So when I was 14, I remember crawling into bed next to my
7. 0:30younger sister and falling asleep
8. 0:33the next thing I remember hearing was a man's voice saying, "I have a knife at your neck...
9. 0:38...don't make a sound. Get up and come with me."
10. 0:44I remember getting up and doing exactly as he said because I didn't know if he'd been through my house already, I...
11. 0:48...didn't know if he'd killed the rest of my family. The one thing I did know though...
12. 0:52was that my younger sister was still in bed next to me, alive.
13. 0:58He led me up behind my house up into the mountains. I was brought into this campsite...
14. 1:04It was very well stocked, very well hidden. And it was this man who kidnapped me and his wife was waiting for us there.
15. 1:09The woman took me into the tent where she forced me to change the clothes I had on
16. 1:14and then she got up and left. And next thing I knew
17. 1:19this man was in there telling me I was his wife, and then raping me.
18. 1:24Then I remember he was kneeling above me and he had this piece of metal cable and
19. 1:29he's wrapping it around my ankle and then crushing these bolts into place so
20. 1:32that I couldn't escape. And that was the beginning of what turned into the
21. 1:37longest nine months of my life.
22. 1:50So every time when I thought I hit rock bottom my captor would find something new to make it worse.
23. 1:55And one of those times I had been forced to drink alcohol and I had thrown up and then I'd passed out face down
24. 2:01and I woke up the next morning and my face and my hair we're still all crusted to the ground, covered in vomit
25. 2:09and I remember at that point just feeling like: How can you get any lower than this?
26. 2:16And it was just a few days later that my captor was really excited and really kind of amped up about something.
27. 2:25He said, 'Oh, I have something, and I'm going to show it to you...
28. 2:31you have to look it, you have to look at it.' And then I remember he pulled out
29. 2:35this magazine full of hardcore pornography and I remember he would just
30. 2:39sit and look at it and stare at it and he just talked about these women and
31. 2:45then when he was done he would turn and look at me and be like: 'Now we're going to do this."
32. 2:52It just led to him raping me more, more than he already did, which was a lot.
33. 3:00Looking at pornography wasn't enough for him. Having sex with his wife after
34. 3:06looking at pornography, it wasn't enough for him. And then it led into finally
35. 3:10going out and kidnapping me. He just always wanted more.
36. 3:21I can't say that he would not have gone out and kidnapped me had he not looked at pornography
37. 3:27all I know is that pornography made my living hell...worse.
38. 3:41"I'm hoping that we're going to find her today." "He is a question mark and we want to
39. 3:47put a period on that question mark."
40. 3:55"We are here to officially announce that we have found Elizabeth Smart."
41. 4:01Actually the following morning after I was rescued, my mom gave me a piece of advice that really changed my
42. 4:09life forever. And she said to me:
43. 4:10"Elizabeth, what these people have done to you is so terrible and you may never
44. 4:15feel like restitution is made but the best punishment that you could ever give
45. 4:19them is to be happy." And that advice has helped make me who I am today.
46. 4:30I have gone on to become an advocate for abuse prevention, an advocate against pornography.
47. 4:37I witnessed firsthand just how damaging it is.
48. 4:44When I take a step back and look at my life as a whole, I have had a pretty
49. 4:48incredible, wonderful life and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'm happy now and
50. 4:54I couldn't imagine my life any different from how it is now.