SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Jan. 18, 2018 (Gephardt Daily) — Utah kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart is sending a message of hope to the 13 siblings rescued from a California home this week after allegedly being held hostage for years by their parents.
Smart was just 14 in June of 2002 when she was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City by a religious fanatic. She was held captive for nine months, during which she was starved and raped until someone recognized her and she was recovered.
Smart, who is now married with two children, was interviewed by ABC News on Wednesday, and promised the siblings, ages 2 to 29, that they can “go on to have wonderful lives.”
“I would want them to know that they survived, they did it, and that life is not as dark and as terrible as it has been probably for their entire life,” Smart said in the interview. “There is happiness in the future and they can go on to have wonderful lives. This does not have to be the rest of their lives, that they’re the ones who decide.”
When she was recovered nine months later, it was revealed that she had been taken as a second “wife” for a self-proclaimed prophet whose real name is Brian David Mitchell. Mitchell is now serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.
The 13 siblings in California were rescued from their parents’ home in Perris by local law enforcement after a 17-year-old girl apparently escaped and called 911, saying her 12 brothers and sisters were still being held captive at the home, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Some of the siblings were “shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks,” according to the sheriff’s department. The parents, David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, were arrested on charges of torture and child endangerment, the sheriff’s office said, and are being held on $9 million bail each.
Smart told ABC News that she would caution the public from questioning right away why some of the siblings, especially the older ones, did not attempt to escape from the home earlier.
“That’s an incredibly common question, that I actually get asked all the time,” Smart said. “When you’re in a situation where you’re being highly manipulated, where you’re being tortured … it isn’t just as easy as jumping in the car and driving away.
“Speaking as one who has been physically chained up, and as one who has also been held by chains of manipulations and threats, I will tell you … the chains of manipulation and threats are so much stronger than actual physical chains,” Smart said.
Smart said that she also wants the siblings to know that, “It’s not what happens to you that defines who you are.”
“It may shape you, it certainly will mold you, it might absolutely affect the direction of your life, but that does not have to define you,” Smart added. “You can still move forward, what ultimately defines you are the choices that you make.”
“I would encourage them to find the things in their life that make them happy, and don’t be afraid to … to go out and to experience the world,” Smart said.
Smart said she would tell the 17-year-old girl who authorities say called 911 and helped to free her siblings that “she’s a hero.”
“She showed incredible bravery, and incredible courage,” Smart said. “I would want her to know that she is strong and she is powerful.”
Smart, who has become an advocate for children’s rights in the years following her own abduction and captivity told ABC News, “I don’t believe we’re meant to be miserable; I don’t believe we are meant to be unhappy.”
“The human spirit is incredibly resilient,” Smart added. “I do believe it’s possible that one day will come where they don’t have to consciously think about what happened to them.”
Smart now runs a foundation dedicated to helping kidnap victims and their recovery. Missing young people from Utah she has championed include Macin Smith, missing for more than two years from St. George, and Elizabeth Salgado, who disappeared in Provo in April of 2015.
Smart, who turned 30 in November, lives in Park City with her husband and their two young children. The couple met while each served a France-Paris mission for the LDS Church.
