Their efforts worked, as she was rescued after a stranger spotted her on a busy Salt Lake County street with her kidnappers. Smart was taken at knifepoint at age 14 from her bed in Salt Lake City by a self-described prophet who held her captive for nine months several miles from her home.

Mitchell promised Smart he would kill her and her family if she tried to escape, she recalled. She said Mitchell raped her often, which caused physical pain, but also the emotional distress that she would be rejected in her adult life because she was no longer a virgin.

Wanda Barzee eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in state and federal prison. She was released in 2018. Brian David Mitchell is currently in the United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute, a high-security, federal prison in Indiana.

When she was 11 years old, in 1991, Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped while walking to a bus stop near her home in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. She was shocked with a stun gun and forced into a car by Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy, who held her captive for 18 years.