Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped from her Utah home at age 14 and then became an activist for missing children, gave birth to her first child- a girl – in February.
The news was revealed by Elizabeth’s father, Ed Smart, who told EastIdahoNews.com,”Elizabeth is great! She just had a little baby girl about three months ago. Chloe. We’re just so excited.” Chloe is Ed Smart’s third grandchild.
Upon first being asked about his new granddaughter by
The Salt Lake Tribune, Ed Smart replied “Well, that happened three months ago.” He said the media learning about the baby three months after her birth could be “just what Elizabeth wanted. “It is totally private. This is something she is keeping to herself and not trying to have out there.”
Elizabeth, now 27, married Matthew Gilmour, a Scottish man she met on a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission, in a small wedding ceremony at a Mormon temple in Hawaii back in 2012. Ed’s confirmation of Chloe’s birth comes weeks after he shared a public post showing a picture of himself with a baby girl on social media.
NEWS: Elizabeth Smart is engaged
It’s amazing to see such happiness come Smarts way. It was almost exactly 13 years ago, in 2002, when she was stolen from her bed by homeless street preacher, Brian David Mitchell. She was subjected to sexual assaults throughout her nine-month captivity, during which she was forced to wear a disguise in public and wander with her captor and his wife, Wanda Ileen Barzee.
Smart was finally rescued after people identified her while seeing the three walking around near Salt Lake City. Her captors were immediately arrested and eventually Mitchesll was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity and wife Barzee received a 15-year jail sentence.
Smart’s kidnapping story made international headlines and inspired the 2003 TV movie,
The Elizabeth Smart Story. She launched the
Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which provides resources to help locate missing children and stop sex-trafficking of kids.
Ed Smart also became a child safety advocate. He spoke to EastIdahoNews.com while visiting east Idaho to attend a screening of a documentary about child sex trafficking. “We want all of those people that have been victimized out there to be survivors,” said Smart. “We want them to find their dreams and find that new hope in life that helps them become the best and the most they can be.”
