Police narrowly missed chances to rescue Elizabeth Smart from her nine-month kidnapping ordeal, the 25-year-old writes in a new memoir detailing a story that shocked the nation a decade ago.
A police cruiser was even sitting outside her bedroom in Salt Lake City when the street preacher Brian David Mitchell grabbed her at knife-point in 2002, according to an Associated Press account of the book. Days later, she writes in “My Story,” a search helicopter hovered over the makeshift camp in the mountains where she was being held, only to fly away. Another time, a homicide detective questioned Mitchell — as he sat right next to a petrified Smart, disguised in a robe and face veil.
Smart, who was used as a sex toy and slave object by Mitchell and his wife, was spotted by police in March of 2003, almost a year after the then-14-year-old was kidnapped. Mitchell is serving a life sentence in prison, while his wife is serving a 15-year sentence.
[AP]