Elizabeth Smart | Golden Skate

Elizabeth Smart

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dlksk8fan

Guest
Elizabeth Smart

Elizabeth Smart the 15 year old that vanished form her Salt Lake City home has been found alive and returned to her family.

Some wonderful news for a change.
 
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Jules Asner

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

there's something weird about this kidnapping story. I don't know what it is but I'm sure we'll find out eventually.
 
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mathman444

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

What about the little sister, who evidently knew all the time who took the girl, but didn't tell for months?
 
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Jules Asner

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

there are a lot of questions to be answered.. for instance they say the mother and children met this homeless vagabond on the street one day, started talking to him and then invited him to the house and he became their handyman? What is this little house on the prairie? I don't know what mother would invite a strange man into their home with small children.
it just sounds a bit fishy. Eye witnesses that saw the trio together before the arrests said the girl appeared to be under no distress, she seemed fine. That's good news, but it seems there is more to the story.
 
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dlksk8fan

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

Julies I have the same feeling that there is more to the story then what we know.
 
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rgirl181

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

First of all, this happened in Salt Lake City, where I lived for 11 years, from 1974 to 1985. The city is about 70% Mormon, the state is about 90% Mormon. You cannot compare what people do in SLC to normal behavior in other cities. You have a whole city of people who truly believe they are the chosen people. The airport is the cleaneast place on earth and filled to bursting with towheaded children. Especially if you are a well-to-do Mormon, you grow up thinking and having a lot of reasons to believe, that God is absolutely on your side. It did not surprise me one bit that Mrs. Smart hired a homeless man who had asked her for money to work on renovating their home. They had a whole bunch of daylaborers working on their home, including the initial prime suspect, Richard Ricci, who, unbeknownst to them, was on parole. After being taken into custody for parole violation, Ricci died in jail of a brain aneurysm. With six kids, can you imagine upper middle class people in other cities doing this? Hell, no. But among members of the LDS church, it's not surprising behavior at all. They feel protected. They are, they believe, God's chosen people.

As for the daughter, Mary Catherine, apparently she was not shown a photo of Mitchell until recently. It's not like she knew the guy--Mitchell had only worked at their house for a total of five hours--and she was only nine at the time of the kidnapping. While I think there were definitely some police screw-ups, I don't think you can blame a child of that age for not coughing up, "Hey, it was that guy with the beard who worked on the roof for a couple of hours." Who knows what he told her when he took Elizabeth? I'll be back to kill you and your whole family if you say anything?

I know it seems like, "Hmm, there must be something more to this," and I wouldn't be surprised if the Smarts file a lawsuit against the police department after they get over having their daughter back, but I really don't think there is anything more to the actual kidnapping than a mentally ill man who decided to provide himself and his wife with a beautiful young girl to replace the wife's daughter, who left her mother and stepfather to go live with her father when she was Elizabeth Smart's age. Bad police work, no surprise. You wouldn't believe how many times Ted Bundy escaped custody when he was around. Boy, did he ever pick the right place for murdering young women and getting away with it. It's a strangely passive place--whatever happens is God's will, that kind of thing. Take the inverse of New York City and that's pretty much Salt Lake City--and I'm not kidding. A Mormon friend I knew back in SLC who was clearly the victim of egregious malpractice waited to ask her bishop if it was okay if she sued her doctor. The bishop said yes.

Anyway, just things to keep in mind as you watch the news deluge.
Rgirl
 
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dlksk8fan

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

rgirl-
I have to agree with you on this. Utah is a different place. Someone was saying on the news that they were praying for the safe return of
Elizabeth and how his little daughter prayed every night for Elizabeth. I was thinking did you tell your daughter to pray for every child that is missing or just the Mormon ones.

I wouldn't just hire some guy off the street to work on my house.
 
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RealtorGal

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

<span style="color:purple;font-family:helvetica;font-size:small;">In San Diego day laborers line up in various locations all over the county--in all strata of socio-economic neighborhoods-- waiting for people to pick them up for the day (or more) to do jobs at their homes or businesses. And they do--regularly</span>.
 
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Aloft02

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

I probably saw you on the chairlifts, rgrl, ;) I lived in Park City during five years of that same period you were in SLC!! What a beautiful place.

After living in Utah I can also add that nothing, absolutely nothing, is so highly prized in LDS women than cheerful obedience and faithfully following what dominant male figures (fathers, husbands, church prophets) tell them. It doesn't surprise me either that this could happen there at all. One dominant male in that sweet child's life (Mr. Smart) was supplanted by another ("Emanuel").

I used to joke with my girlfirends who were Mormon that if they weren't diligent the pronoun 'I' would atrophy...so many opinions began with 'we feel'...Some very strong women, of course, may have emerged from that religion, but it would be despite their church, not because of it. Women are never allowed to be church leaders, for instance.

I'm just so glad Elizabeth Smart is alive!!
 
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Jules Asner

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

we have day laborers here but they are mostly mexican and and I must be honest, I can see myself trusting a mexican immigrant worker a lot quicker than some nut who claimed to be a prophet Emanuel and was sporting a long beard and a white cape. I think I'll stay far away from Utah. :rollin:
I'm glad the girl is home.
 
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Show 42

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

......"absolutely nothing, is so highly prized in LDS women than cheerful obedience and faithfully following what dominant male figures (fathers, husbands, church prophets) tell them."
..........Can you say "Stepford Wives"? 42
 
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rgirl181

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>After living in Utah I can also add that nothing, absolutely nothing, is so highly prized in LDS women than cheerful obedience and faithfully following what dominant male figures (fathers, husbands, church prophets) tell them. It doesn't surprise me either that this could happen there at all. One dominant male in that sweet child's life (Mr. Smart) was supplanted by another ("Emanuel") .[/quote]
You got it, Aloft. Yep, you definitely lived in MoLand. Though I must say, the same can and has happened to other captives, that is, becoming subjugate to their captor. A 20-yr-old woman from Oregon was kidnapped and used as a sexual slave (I mean absolutely horrific stuff) for almost 10 years, kept in a box under the couple's bed (yeah, it was a husband and wife who took her, though it was only the husband who tortured the girl). After about five years, the guy actually took the captive girl home to visit her parents under the guise of being her boyfriend. The young woman, who was about 25 at the time, was so psychologically destroyed by the physical and mental torture that she went along with the whole thing. As the experts have been saying, captives quickly go into survival mode, which means doing whatever the person in power wants. It doesn't happen to everyone, of course--there was that young girl held captive for a month who got away--but I think it depends on how intent and skilled the kidnapper is on using mind control.

I probably didn't see you on the ski lifts--I was a dancer with RDT and not allowed to go wreck my knees on the slopes--but I did spend some fun times up in Park City, Snowbird, Alta, etc. Of course Park City is now all Sundanced out. But yes, gorgeous country; strange people.

Of course one can't be anything but thrilled that this girl was found, but she and her family have a long, tough road ahead. In the '70s, a kid named Steven Stayner was kidnapped at about age 10 and used as a sexual slave for seven years. Then he was returned to his family (17 years old, not interesting to the captors anymore). What happened? Steven died in an accident of some kind in his late 20s or early 30s and his brother, Carey Stayner, murdered four women in Yosemite in the early '90s. Of course this is the exception, but I am concerned for the kids in this family, all of them, in terms of what this whole thing is going to do to them. This thing has already turned into "news entertainment," with talk of TV movies and all that. I wish this family the best and hope they have the strength and luck to come through it relatively unscathed. In the Stayner case, it was 20 years after Steven's kidnapping before his brother became a killer (maybe he would have killed anyway, who knows?). Anyway, lots of tough stuff for this family coming down the pike.
Rgirl

PS So Aloft, what were you doing in Utah besides skiing? I'm always curious as to how people end up there. You can PM me if it was something like skipping out on bail:lol:
 
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RealtorGal

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

<span style="color:teal;font-family:comic sans ms;font-size:small;">I never made the connection between those brothers. Poor family! Is that the boy about whom they made a TV movie "I Know My Name is Steven"? </span>
 
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Aloft02

Guest
Re: Elizabeth Smart

rgirl - you weren't far off on the "skipping bail" joke :D - I was a Realtor in Park City (until one day I woke up to 18% interest rates, rethought my career and moved back to the west coast). Interesting aside on that time in Utah - I had moved there after 8 years in Alaska where equality of the sexes was the absolute norm. When staffing Open Houses in Utah I actually had men come in, look around, and say "Is there a <em><strong>man</strong></em> around here I can talk to about this house?" :rolleyes:

One time flying into SLC (from LA) the pilot said, We'll be landing in Salt Lake City in about 10 minutes. Set your watches back, oh, about 20 years." I understood completely.
 
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SkatingFantasy

Guest
Took her back to her parents house?

rgirl,
About the woman who had been held captive for 10 years, I don't understand how her captor could have taken her home after the first 5 years and her parents not recongnise her. Was the man acting like the woman's boyfriend , is that what you mean? And how could they leave her parents house and he keep her a slave for another 5 years after that? That is puzzling.
 
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rgirl181

Guest
Re: Took her back to her parents house?

SkatingFantasy,
The girl's parents recognized her, it's just that the girl went along with her captor's charade of being her boyfriend. She and her captor gave the parents some whole song and dance about how they'd been living together and thought the parents wouldn't understand, etc. The parents were just so happy to see her and the girl seemed so happy that they never questioned the situation. People will believe all kinds of things, especially when the truth is so awful.

Aloft,
I traveled in and out of SLC a lot over the 11 years I lived there and I can't count the number of times I heard the "We are now approaching Salt Lake City, turn your clocks back 20 years." Your story about being a realtor and having the husbands asking to speak to a man doesn't surprise me in the least. Even Mormons in Utah are different from Mormons in other states. In other states, they're more like everybody else. BTW, anybody remember one of Andy Warhol's "superstars," Ultra Violet? She's been a Mormon for almost 20 years here in NY. Yep, Ultra Violet is a member of the Lincoln Center Ward.
Rgirl
 
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RealtorGal

Guest
Re: Took her back to her parents house?

<span style="color:navy;font-family:comic sans ms;font-size:small;">I can't get over that awful story about the girl from Oregon. Why did he take her hone to her parents? How did she get out of it all?</span>
 
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SkatingFantasy

Guest
Took her back to her parents house?

Ok, thanks rgirl, but it's still amazing that he ever got her to leave her parents house again after visiting! Boy she was really brainwashed.
 
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