(KGTV) - In her new book, Elizabeth Smart says the man who kidnapped her also tried to kidnap a girl in El Cajon by posing as Mormon and befriending the girl’s family, according to People Magazine.
Smart detailed Brian David Mitchell’s alleged plan in When There’s Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up. The book includes information about Smart’s abduction in 2002, when she was 14 years old. Smart was held captive by Mitchell and Wanda Barzee for nine months.
Before Smart’s kidnapping, Mitchell deliberately went to a Mormon church in East County to find a girl to victimize, Smart wrote. He eventually saw a photo of a girl on a family’s piano, she said.
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Smart did not indicate which of the two Latter-Day Saints churches Mitchell may have attended. The girl's identity was not made public.
“That was all it took for him to decide that this young girl would be his next victim,” Smart alleged in the book.
Smart wrote that Mitchell met the girl at a family dinner and returned to the riverbed where he, Barzee, and Smart were living. Mitchell planned to return to the home and “rescue” the girl, which Smart wrote actually meant kidnap and rape.
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Mitchell left the campsite wearing the same dark clothing and carrying the same knife he used to kidnap Smart, she wrote. Smart claimed Mitchell opened the door to the home but heard a man snoring and left.
“I know most people consider snoring a health risk or an annoyance,” Smart writes. “But in the case of this young girl, it saved her life.”
Smart, now 30 years old, is an author and motivational speaker. She has two children with her husband.
The claim is not the first link to the San Diego area. A local woman snapped photos of Smart with her captors in Lakeside back in October of 2002. It was only months later that the woman said she realized just who she had photographed.
Smart was held for five out of her nine months captive in Lakeside.
