After putting it off for a couple of weeks, I finally got around to watching Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart, the new Netflix original documentary about the 2002 kidnapping that made headlines around the world. Though there was plenty that freaked me out about the case surrounding a 14-year-old girl being snatched from her bedroom in the middle of the night, there was something else that got my attention: Elizabeth Smart’s mom was nowhere to be found in the true crime documentary.
Sure, there was archival footage of Lois Smart discussing the case and pleading for the then-unknown assailant (later confirmed to be Brian David Mitchell) to return her young daughter, but she didn’t show up in any of the new interviews that are spread throughout the new documentary. As Kidnapped played on, I kept wondering why she wasn’t involved. Then I found out why…
