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Elizabeth Smart found.....Alive and well ! (1 Viewer)

Rob Gardiner

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Wow. This is great news. I never expected a happy ending to this.

However I do somewhat resent the fact that sensational scandals or local stories such as this get so blown out of proportion by the national media, it makes it difficult to find news on the many truly important things that are going on in the world.
 

Michael*K

Screenwriter
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Are you referring to Diamond and Tiandra (sp?). If so, you should know as a Chicagoan that that story was plastered all over the news, at least locally.
I know it was covered extensively at the local level. It just didn't get nearly the national coverage as some of these other incidents.
 

Micheal

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I knew it sounded odd that a 15 year old girl walking down public streets (who has been captive for 9 months) wouldn't try to escape...

Police questioned her aggressively about her identity, Officer Bill O'Neal said. He said she became agitated when officers asked her to remove her wig and sunglasses, and told them she recently had eye surgery. We took her aside ... she kind of just blurted out, `I know who you think I am. You guys think I'm that Elizabeth Smart girl who ran away,'" O'Neal said.

"Her heart was beating so hard you could see it through her chest," he added.

The group was taken to the Sandy police station in handcuffs; police said Elizabeth never asked about her family
Brainwashed or not it sounds very strange. To go from being kidnapped to putting on a fashion show in front of your family the next day.... strange indeed.

You can read the rest here
 

Walt N

Second Unit
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Jul 23, 2001
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I think this case is going to prove to be another textbook example of the strange but often documented Stockholm Syndrome running it's course.

Elizabeth Smart's failure to identify herself or escape during captivity might seem illogical on the surface, but it's nothing new for people who have been in similar situations.

Stockholm Syndrome:

Bonding to one's captor (abuser) is a survival strategy for victims that has been observed in a variety of hostage-taking situations. This strategy was labeled Stockholm Syndrome after a hostage situation in a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden in 1973. Three (3) women and one (1) man were held hostage for six days by two (2) men. During this period, the four hostages and their captors bonded bi-directionally. The hostages even came to see their captors as protecting them from the police! Following the release of the hostages, one of the women became engaged to one of the captors, another of the hostage started a 'defense fund'. All this was done in the face of the fact that the hostages were bound with dynamite and generally mistreated! Such bonding to one's captor / abuser no longer considered unusual by professionals who negotiate with hostage-takers. In fact, it is encourage its development, for it improves the chances for survival of the hostages, despite the fact that it means the officials can no longer count on the cooperation of the hostages in working for their own release or in later prosecuting captors.

Bonding with an abuser maybe the universal survival strategy for victims of interpersonal abuse. Studies of other hostage-like groups seem to bare this out. -- These groups are:

Hostages
Concentration Camp prisoners
cult members
prisoners of war
civilians in Chinese Communist prisons
procured prostitutes
incest victims
physically and/or emotionally abused children
battered women

Four Situation Factors that are Precursor to Stockholm Syndrome:
1. Perceived threat to one's physical or psychological survival and the belief that the captor would carry out the threat.
2. Perceived small kindness from the captor to the captive.
(Note: letting the captive live is enough.)
3. Isolation from perspectives other than those of the captor.
4. Perceived inability to escape.

Psychodynamics' Underlying Stockholm Syndrome
An abuser traumatizes a victim (who does not believe they can escape, or truly can not) with a threat to the victim's survival. The traumatized victim, who perceives isolation from outsiders; who could provide nurturance and protection, must look to the abuser to meet those needs. If the abuser shows the victim some small kindness, the victim then must bond to the perceived positive side of the abuser, denying (or dissociating) the side of the abuser that produced the terror. The victim begins to work to see the world from the abuser's perspective so that they may know what keeps the abuser happy, thus helping to insure the victim's survival. As a result the victim becomes hypervigilant to the abuser's needs and unaware of their own. The victim comes to see the world from the perspective of the abuser, losing touch with their own perspective, which is unimportant or even counter-productive to their survival. With the denial of the violent side of the abuser, comes denial of the danger. I becomes progressively harder to separate from the abuser due to the fear of losing the only positive relationship identity that remains -- her/ himself as seen through the abuser's eyes (which in the case of the adult victim has replaced any previous sense of self, for a child this may be, and often is, the only sense of self known).

http://members.tripod.com/~heimstadt/stockhol.htm
 

Micheal

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I agree. It's very strange but I can understand how some people might fall into that type of syndrome.

I just hope that the parents get her the help that she is going to desperately need. Families that try and deal with this themselves don't usually end up doing too well.
 

Brian Perry

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2. Perceived small kindness from the captor to the captive.
(Note: letting the captive live is enough.)
While I can understand some of the underpinnings of the Stockholm Syndrome, this "situation factor" seems to be contrived. After all, if letting the captive person live is enough to be considered kind, then by definition all of the hostages exhibiting SS would have this precursor since they're all alive.

I'd be interested to read more about the SS and to see if it can be determined when Elizabeth Smart succumbed to it, if ever. (It seems clear that she is either a textbook SS victim or, however unlikely, a willing participant.) Did it take mere days, as in the original SS example, or several months? And what are the ramifications for prosecution of these two lunatic kidnappers? Will Elizabeth push for leniency?
 

Micheal

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The other thing is that she knew the captor beforehand since he worked on the house. Things are obviously not what they seem.

First they said she was taken at gunpoint and now they say he had a knife. We'll have to wait a while until we get all the facts.
 

Luis S

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May 7, 2000
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What gets me is her age. Shes fifteen right? I cant speak for everyone else,but I was pretty sharp at that age. In fact I dont remember many at that age that werent. Im just puzzled how somone at that age wasnt a little more...I dont know, bold I guess? I cant imagine not trying to resist or escape somehow. At 10yrs old fine,but 15? I dont know,very strange. Im following this closely to see how it turns out....

Luis S
 

D. Scott MacDonald

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Messages
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The other thing is that she knew the captor beforehand since he worked on the house. Things are obviously not what they seem.
The guy worked on their roof for 5 hours almost a year before she was abducted. This was obviously enough for him to fixate on her, but the family had not seen him since so it's not like he was a common associate. Of course it could be that they started a secret relationship unbeknown to their family, but given his appearance and how kids these days are protected by their parents I find it highly unlikely. What is clear that at some point she was definitely brainwashed, and the latest details are very disturbing. I hope that somehow she can recover from the damage that has been done to her.
 

Micheal

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Of course it could be that they started a secret relationship unbeknown to their family, but given his appearance and how kids these days are protected by their parents I find it highly unlikely.
Teenagers are quite able to keep secrets from their parents, especially "these days".

I'm not saying that they had a secret relationship but I'm not ruling it out either. You would think that if he was fixated on her and they didn't have any contact between them that he wouldn't wait a year to make his move.

Either way..., there's much more going on here that we obviously don't know. One day she's denying who she is to the Police and claiming that her captors are her parents and the next day she's playing the harp, putting on a fashion show and doing photo shoots for the newspapers. Very strange indeed.
 

Michael*K

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Stockholm Syndrome or not, I found this exerpt from today's NY Times to be damned weird.
Ms. Ptaschinski said a girl she now believed was Elizabeth Smart came in only once with the couple, last August, and stayed about two hours, regularly getting up to get her own food at a salad bar. On the door of the restaurant was a poster of Elizabeth--at the time, perhaps, the most sought person in America.
"She could have run at that point or told us who she was," Ms. Ptaschinski said. "She just got her food and walked back to the table. She was never physically restrained."
 

Micheal

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1) I know a lot of teenagers form this age group and it would be unusual for a popular, attractive 14 year old girl from a rich family girl to seek the company of a homeless bum with a huge beard wearing robes (and probably smells), and is also psychotic. Even if she was intellectually curious about the guy, she wouldn't want to be seen with him.
You might be surprised at what a teenager will go through to shame their rich parents. Once again, I'm not saying that she had any kind of relationship with him but something just isn't right. I also find it odd that her little sister just came up with a new idea on who the suspect might be months after the kidnapping. Your memory tends to get more hazy as time goes by, not better. Especially when you say that you pretended to be sleeping when the kidnapping took place.

Question: Does anybody know when she was reported missing? i.e. Did the little girl run into the parents room during the middle of the night screaming "Someone's kidnapped Elizabeth!"?

The man who took her from her parents (willingly or not) should be put away. She is a minor after all.
 

Micheal

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Michael*K

I find that fact that she refused to cooperate with the Police even more bizarre. At that point you know that you are safe. She was either brainwashed or a willing participant.
 

Micheal

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Willing participants aren't typically abducted at knife point from their bedrooms.
First it was a gun, now it's been changed to a knife. Don't forget that the only witness was her little sister who was "pretending" to be asleep. For all we know he was pointing his finger at her, I assume that the lights were off.

BTW, her little sister suddenly recalled what he looked like almost 5 months after the "kidnapping" took place.
 

D. Scott MacDonald

Supporting Actor
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Messages
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You might be surprised at what a teenager will go through to shame their rich parents.
This is true, but nobody as offered any testimony (family, friends, etc.) to indicate that she had any such issues. If she decided to one night join this tent dwelling, ratty, polygamist psycho, it apparently happened with no warning.
 

Carl Johnson

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I've been trying to figure out what they can charge this guy with. He may or may not be the kidnapper, without her testimony they could never prove that. This case should be plea bargained to spare the girl from having to go thru a trial. A quick net search tells me that he can get five years for contributing to a minor's delinquency. Taking a minor out of state without permission has to be illegal too.
 

D. Scott MacDonald

Supporting Actor
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I've been trying to figure out what they can charge this guy with.
Well, he did allegedly marry her in some strange polygamist ceremony the night after she was abducted, so I assume that child rape could be added to kidnapping, etc.. Even if she was consenting (which I doubt at least in the beginning), I doubt that Utah's age of consent is 14.
 

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