I know that there are a lot of questions about Elizabeth Smart. On television, I've heard various people wonder why she didn't try to get away, and even question whether she was kidnapped. I don't know what happened, and I imagine that only Elizabeth and her kidnappers could tell us. I am writing this only because I hope everyone will pray that she can recover from her ordeal.
When I was 17 years old, working part-time in an industrial branch at a bank, I was kidapped by a bank robber. He burst into the bank, wearing a mask and carrying a gun, and jumped over the teller counter. After taking all of the money from the teller drawers, he grabbed me and told me to get my purse. He took me from the bank to my car, which was parked just outside, and made me drive him away from the bank. He told me that we were going to Chicago. The bank I worked in was in central Mississippi. I had very little gas in my car, but I told him that I would take him anywhere he wanted to go, but that we would need to buy gas or we wouldn't get very far.
As we sped down the rural road away from the bank, with his foot over mine on the accelerator and his gun banging against my temple, all I could think of was that I was going to die unless I did what he told me to do. My instinct for survival was so strong that I was willing to do anything he asked, just so he wouldn't kill me.
I was very fortunate. The bank robber found my driver's license in my purse and thought that he had kidnapped the wrong person. My sister and I took turns working at the industrial branch on alternate Fridays. My sister was unmarried and thus had the same last name as my grandfather, who owned the bank. I was married, so my last name was different, and the robber thought he had taken the wrong person. He told me to pull the car over to the side of the road and get out. He said that he was going to count to ten and then shoot me. I dove into a ditch alongside the road. (Of course, I don't think he really intended to shoot me, he just wanted to get away and not have me see which way he went.)
In any event, I think it is very difficult for other people to understand the mindset of a kidnapping victim. After my ordeal was over, a few people who lived in our small town had the audacity to suggest that I was in cahoots with the robber and was planning to split the money with him. I'm sure some of them believe that to this day, 30 years later.
To complete the story, the bank robber was caught and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 99 years, served 18 months, got out and committed a murder, went back to prison, stabbed his cellmate to death with a fork, was convicted of murder a second time, and was killed by a deputy sheriff five years ago when he tried to escape before testifying in his civil rights action against the prison officials.
To this day, I do not like to go inside a bank. I almost always use the drive-in window if I can. I know that I am very fortunate to be alive. Elizabeth Smart was three years younger than I was when she was kidnapped, and she was held for nine months. I can't even begin to imagine the horrors that poor child faced. I can't understand why some people (and I'm not referring to Freepers) seem to want to blame her for what happened. I pray that she will be healed and I am so happy that she is home with her family.
I'm sorry to have been so wordy, but I really felt the need to say this.
CC
Anyway, Mitchell is finished with little girls, or even any girls for many, many, years.