Record number: 25066
Title: I Am Elizabeth Smart (2017)
Medium: TV Movie
Actress: Alana Boden
Description: Lifetime TV-Movie about the real-life abduction of Utah teen Elizabeth Smart.
The movie begins with 14 year-old Elizabeth Smart (Alana Boden) awakening in her Salt Lake City bedroom to find the hand of Brian David Mitchell over her mouth. Under the threat of killing her family, he admonishes her to stay quiet. He abducts her from her home at knifepoint, and takes her to the camp in the woods that he shares with his wife, Wanda Barzee.
Later that day, Mitchell forces Elizabeth to become his second “wife”, after which he takes the child to his tent and rapes her (off-camera).
Elizabeth awakens to find a steel cable locked around one ankle. The other end is locked around a tethering cable, keeping her confined to the camp. The cable is kept on her ankle continuously. The ankle cable is not unlocked from the tethering cable, except on those occasions when she accompanies the two adults to the stream to collect water.
Later, under threats of killing her family, the ankle cable is removed. But she still endures nine months of daily sexual assault at Mitchell’s hands.
In the last 15 minutes of the movie, after returning to Utah, officers from the city of Sandy, Utah PD converge on the trio. The child is separated from her adult captors. One of the officers asks her if she is Elizabeth Smart, to which she responds, “I am Elizabeth Smart.” Onscreen, Elizabeth is handcuffed, hands behind (it’s protocol). At the police station, the handcuffs are removed, onscreen. Shortly thereafter, she is reunited with her parents, who take her home.
Tags: country_us, ending_release, footwear_bare, gagtype_hand, onscreen_tying, outfit_robe, restraint_wire, restraint_handcuffs