Like so many others, Elizabeth Smart was deeply shaken when she learned that Virginia Giuffre had died by suicide in April… See
Smart, 38, says she felt “absolute heartbreak. I mean, we failed her. Really, we did. And I know everybody says life isn’t fair. But for her, it really was not fair.”
Smart was also sexually abused by adults when she was a teenager. Kidnapped at 14 from her Salt Lake City, Utah, home by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, Smart was subjected to daily rapes and other abuse throughout her nine-month ordeal. In March 2003, she was found by authorities while walking the streets of Utah with Mitchell and Barzee and reunited with her family.
Considering the trauma both women endured as young teens, Smart, now an activist and mother of three, says she wishes “people could recognize the toll that sexual violence can have. I wish her death … would be a wake‑up call to leaders, to communities, just to everyone, to recognize how serious sexual violence, abuse … everything that’s been involved in the Epstein case.”
Smart, 38, says she felt “absolute heartbreak. I mean, we failed her. Really, we did. And I know everybody says life isn’t fair. But for her, it really was not fair.”
Smart was also sexually abused by adults when she was a teenager. Kidnapped at 14 from her Salt Lake City, Utah, home by Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, Smart was subjected to daily rapes and other abuse throughout her nine-month ordeal. In March 2003, she was found by authorities while walking the streets of Utah with Mitchell and Barzee and reunited with her family.
Considering the trauma both women endured as young teens, Smart, now an activist and mother of three, says she wishes “people could recognize the toll that sexual violence can have. I wish her death … would be a wake‑up call to leaders, to communities, just to everyone, to recognize how serious sexual violence, abuse … everything that’s been involved in the Epstein case.”
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