- \n
- Advocate Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted in 2002 at the age of 14, has launched a new podcast, “The Survival Files.”<\/li>\n
- Smart, now 38, tells USA TODAY in an interview that she won’t be defined by her abduction or stopped “from experiencing things that I wanted to experience because of the nightmares of my past.\u201d<\/li>\n
- Smart also speaks about entering bodybuilding competitions, which provided “a new appreciation” for her physique. “I’m alive because of my body, and I want to take the best care of it I can.”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The day prior to Elizabeth Smart<\/a>\u2019s kidnapping had been \u201ca good day.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her time in junior high dwindling, Smart tells USA TODAY she started training on June 4, 2002 for the high school\u2019s track and cross-country team. Smart, then 14, ran with her younger sister, Mary Katherine, 9 at the time, because her mother Lois Smart said she couldn\u2019t go alone.<\/p>\n
Later, the sisters, their four other siblings and parents gathered around the kitchen table for dinner before rushing to Smart’s awards assembly. They arrived too late for Smart to play the harp as planned \u2212 \u201cMoving an instrument that big is not that much fun, so I don’t think my parents were too thrilled with me over that,” Smart quips \u2212 and later returned to their ritzy Salt Lake City home in Federal Heights.<\/p>\n\n
Nestled in the bed that she shared with sister Mary Katherine that night, Smart read \u201cElla Enchanted\u201d aloud, and at each chapter\u2019s end, her younger sibling begged her to keep going.<\/p>\n
“I read till midnight or a little bit later,” Smart says. “I remember looking over at her, and she was asleep, and I remember just thinking, ‘Well, that’s great.’ Tomorrow night’s going to come, and she’s going to say, ‘Wait, I fell asleep. Go back and read that last chapter.'”<\/p>\n
![\"Elizabeth](\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/gcdn\/authoring\/authoring-images\/2026\/09\/28\/USAT\/91984066007-getty-images-1849680.jpg?width=300&height=404&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp\")
<\/figure>\nBut far more sinister trouble lay on the horizon.<\/p>\n
Brian David Mitchell, previously hired to do some work on the family\u2019s home, abducted Smart at knifepoint, leading the teen to a campsite where his wife and accomplice, Wanda Barzee, waited. Smart, who says she and Mitchell never spoke prior to her kidnapping, was held captive, abused and sexually assaulted multiple times a day, every day, until her rescue nine months later on March 12, 2003.<\/p>\n\n
While held against her will, Smart says it was \u201ca conscious thought every day\u201d to persevere. \u201cIt was just doing whatever I had to do to survive. And it didn’t matter what it was. If it meant that I’d survive, then I was going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In more than 20 years since, Smart, now 38, has become an activist and started an eponymous foundation to fight for change and provide education. In August, she launched a true-crime podcast, \u201cThe Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart,\u201d<\/a> (weekly Mondays, where podcasts are available and on the iHeartRadio app), in which she interviews those who have endured various harrowing circumstances. And in April, Smart shared that she\u2019s taken an interest in body building competitions.<\/p>\n\n
While Smart acknowledges that her abduction was life-changing, she says it was not life-defining, and she\u2019d like to be known as \u201cmore than just a kidnapping survivor.”<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing up, my parents always emphasized if you borrow something or you stay somewhere, you should leave it better than [how] you found it,” she says. “Ultimately that’s what I would want to be known or remembered [for] \u2212 that the world, or at least my tiny corner of it, was better for having me in it than not.\u201d<\/p>\n