Galaxy

For more than two decades, the world has known Elizabeth Smart through the unimaginable. At 14, she was kidnapped at knifepoint from her Salt Lake City bedroom by drifter Brian David Mitchell , who threatened to kill her family if she made a sound. Mitchell — a religious fanatic who claimed Smart was his “wife” — held her captive in makeshift campsites in the Utah mountains and San Diego for nine months, where she was raped and endured repeated abuse from him and his accomplice, Wanda Barzee . The case transfixed the nation, becoming one of the most high-profile child abduction stories in modern history. Since her rescue in 2003, she’s spent much of her life transforming pain into purpose. Smart, who shares children Chloe, 11, James, 9, and Olivia, 7, with husband Matthew Gilmour , has become one of the world’s most visible advocates for victims of sexual violence while building a life far beyond the headlines: wife, mother, bestselling author, speaker and survivor. But in April, ...