hey, did anyone see last night on channel 4, a documentary about a kidnapping of a girl in america, i found it really odd, did anyone else?

Yes, I saw it a couple of weeks ago (it's repeated many times) but only because I'd just got in from the pub. It is odd.

Yes, I watched it. I found it weird how she didn't ever try to escape. I know she was only 14 and was brainwashed over the many months they had her but I couldn't understand why she didn't try to escape early on.

Maybe they threatened her family, probably because she wasn't a street wise child she was easy to manipulate. It is frustating when police are so convinced they have the right man and just ignore any other leads because that meant more months she had to endure being physically and mentally abused.

At least she was found eventually and returned to her family. Typical that such a weird thing happened in America!

i know, i found myself being drawn in to such an odd thing, i wonder how shes gone back to a normal life from that?

I supose the reason she did not go back was because she felt dirty and used as the victims of rape do. She would perhaps feel she was no longer the child of her family and not worthy of them, so stayed where she was. Probably thought it was all her fault.

hazel

The thing that really stood out for me was the fact that the police did very little in the end.

The younger sister had said that she thought it was Emmanuel that took Elizabeth yet the police didn't pursue it - surely they should have at least looked into him - she could have been found a lot sooner. Thank goodness she had a loving family that wouldn't give up.

Yes, a very strange case, even when it happend there seemed something just not right about it, i still think she went with him willingly, the family (real family) seemed strange too.

Anyhow she seems ok now, don't think she was raped though, not realy sure unless they didn't want to make a big thing over it at that time.

When she was first taken she was taken in the woods, held down and raped. They had a hidden camp where she was tied up and gagged and could hear the search party looking for her in the early days of her abduction. At the end of the programme it said she was receiving councelling and trying to get on with her life but had never talked publically about what went off.

jus been on dinner with a mate, only conclusion we could come up with was "only in america"

I found the family very odd, particularly the father - there seemed to be something not quite right about him.

Did anyone notice near the start of the search for Elizabeth the documentary made reference to the media who started digging into the background of the family? It flashed up a head-line along the lines of "secret diary, hidden sex ring" or something. The programme then glossed over these allegations and didn't mention it again.

I noticed that too Dug,,,,really strange!!!
And where was the mother in all the interviews????

Only in America? I didn't realize the Yorkshire Strangler or the Huntington Rambo were Americans!

This poor girl was raped, brutalised, and terrified into compliance by this *** (expletive deleted). She was onlt 14 years old at the time of her abduction.

He used typical abuser tactics on her, with threats and torture (witholding of food and water etc) on top of the sexual violence.

The things he did had her scared into silence. It is a common theme, in child abuse, and also a common theme in domestic abuse. you "learn to be helpless". that is why many people subk=jected to abuse, whether as kids or as abused spouses, they do not simply "up sticks and escape the abuse". Your mindset, your thinking... your "reality", even is altered to such a degree, that you cannot form rational thought. ask any abuse survivor.

This girl was continually told that if she tried to escape, or let on to anyone who she really was, then her family would be killed. obviously, her logic told her that, if he could do what he did to her, he was perfectly capable of carrying out his threat to her family

The abductors' wife's kids told, on this documentary how he brutalised, and abused them. If this (further expletives deleted) can do such awful things to the children he had in his care/ in his family, then surely he is capable of doing what he did to this girl.

I hope that the book is thrown at him good and proper!

PT

Well put PT. Isn't there also a phenomenon of abuductees "sticking up" for their abductors - saying that they have been treated well and don't wish to cause them problems??

Abductors are very clever people that play excellent mind games with very scared people.

I saw this and found it interesting. The kidnapper did his best to brainwash the poor girl. It was only a matter of time before his oddish behaviour was flagged. Having said that though, it must have been an agonising 9 months for the family.

Originally posted by BoroughGal
Well put PT. Isn't there also a phenomenon of abuductees "sticking up" for their abductors - saying that they have been treated well and don't wish to cause them problems??

Abductors are very clever people that play excellent mind games with very scared people.

There is indeed BoroughGal,

It's called Stockholm Syndrome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Elizabeth Smart's father had unwisely hired the man who kidnapped her to do work in and around their home.

So the guy knew the layout of the house and grounds, everything.

And I agree, well said Plain Talker.

:) Sierra

It was very interesting..The police were so keen to pin it on the other guy who had done some work for them also. It said he died 3 months after his arrest. i know he was a known criminal but he didn't have anything to do with this so i did feel for him and his family. Glad the young girl was eventually returned to her family though.

Originally posted by Sierra
There is indeed BoroughGal,

It's called Stockholm Syndrome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Elizabeth Smart's father had unwisely hired the man who kidnapped her to do work in and around their home.

So the guy knew the layout of the house and grounds, everything.

And I agree, well said Plain Talker.

:) Sierra

Stockholm Syndrome really came to the fore in the early 1970's, when the heiress, Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symboinese Liberation Army (Front?). they brainwashed her into robbing banks and all sorts of gubbins whilst she was in their power.

I would not quite say that Elizabeth's father "unwisely" hired this emmanuel guy. Hindsight is an exact science, after all.

Mr Smart had no reason, originally, to suspect that the hired guy would do something as awful as this. All he did was to hire the guy to do some work on the Smarts' property.

PT

I don't know how things are done in England, but in the US, you do NOT hire homeless people to do work for you, or allow them into your home. Especially if you have children. After all, you don't know them, and if they're homeless....well, I don't mean to sound cruel, but they probably have problems.

It is just not done, and even if you hire someone from a reputable company, you make sure you are home when they do the work, and you never let them out of your sight.

There's no way I would ever allow a homeless person I didn't know to wander around my house unsupervised. It sounds like dad decided to save a few bucks and get work done cheap.

My father in law used to do this. He had 10 acres of almonds along the San Joaquin river, and regularly used to hire people he met wherever because they'd work for less money. My husband and his sister and I worried and warned him, but he wouldn't listen.

He was permanently cured of this bad habit when he came home one day to find about $100,000 worth of equipment gone from his barn, including a new tractor. His workers were gone as well.

It's tempting to do because this type of work is usually short term, it's seasonal, and it's a whole lot easier and cheaper just to pay some guy and his friends or family a few hundred dollars each "under the table" and they do the job in a few days.

I'm sure this wasn't the first time Elizabeth Smart's father did this. But I bet it'll be the last.

:) Sierra

I believe Elizabeth was 12 when this happened. My mother's maiden name was Smart, but we're not related. That's a very vulnerable age as you can't keep a close eye on them like you can with an infant, especially if both parents are working. I was very worried about my 13 year old granddaughter having to walk home to an empty house because she lived too close to qualify for the school bus. On America's Most Wanted tonight it said there were over 13000 registered pedophiles in Florida alone.

Originally posted by buck
Only in America? I didn't realize the Yorkshire Strangler or the Huntington Rambo were Americans!

I agree, If it is one of the high profile cases that I am newly being made aware of, then you will struggle to find answers.

This is not a new thing though, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-Tung are alleged in certain circles to have been VICTIMS of this type of crime from an early age.

Before anyone says it, I have not lost my marbles quite yet :)

Originally posted by buck
I believe Elizabeth was 12 when this happened. My mother's maiden name was Smart, but we're not related. That's a very vulnerable age as you can't keep a close eye on them like you can with an infant, especially if both parents are working. I was very worried about my 13 year old granddaughter having to walk home to an empty house because she lived too close to qualify for the school bus. On America's Most Wanted tonight it said there were over 13000 registered pedophiles in Florida alone.

As most of us have mentioned on this thread, Elizabeth was 14 years old when this dreadful thing happened to her.

Whatever her age, it doesn't make what happened any better or worse. It should not have happened to her, no matter what her age.

PT

Sorry, bit hard for me to swallow, i still think that the girl wanted to go with him, same with the Hearst girl, think she new just what she was doing all the time, money can buy a lot, and the Hearst certainly do.

I think soon you'll hear a different Elizabeth Smart story as she gets older and "Writes her Book"

I really don't get what you mean, poppins, about this girl "knowing what she was doing"... "wanting " to go with him
did she really "want" a knife at her throat? to be raped? i think not!!!

she was abducted from the heart of her loving, stable, family...
she was raped and brutalised, and terrorised into compliance, and silence, with the abductor's orders.

she was a child.... just 14 yrs old, (I think she was "younger" than that, in her outlook because she had had such a sheltered life up until that point)

Any "complicity" on her part, in her abduction was more about self-preservation than being a "knowing accomplice" as you seem to hint. She had "learnt" through his treatment of her, and his threats, that this evil bloke would kill her, and/ or her family if she was not 100% compliant with his every order, with his every wish.

PT