DoctorOz: Elizabeth Smart on Survival, Forgiveness, and What Came After

This show is committed to keeping children safe. Friday, we took on teachers sexually abusing children in towns across America. And just yesterday, child star Corey Feldman was here to stop down pedophilia in Hollywood. Abuse can happen anywhere. My next guest knows us all too well. Elizabeth Smart made national headlines after being abducted from her bedroom at just 14 years old. She was abused, raped, and ripped of her identity for nine long months. Now, nearly 15 years after being rescued, Elizabeth is happily married and a mother of two. Today's True Crime Tuesday, Elizabeth Smart is here and she's speaking out on what you can learn from how she overcame unimaginable trauma and she's revealing her new mission to make sure no victim suffers in silence. Please welcome back to the show Elizabeth Smart. You look wonderful. Thank you. So happy you're back. Come have a seat. It's been three years already. Time flies. You can imagine it, it does. And I remember being so impressed when we first met at how you'd be able to figure things out after such a difficult time in your life. And I remain, because I follow what you do, three years later, all of the achievements you've made, the remarkable resilience that you've shown. Where does that come from? I have so much to be grateful for in my life. And I think I am who I am today because of the way my parents raised me. I mean, there never was a day growing up that I didn't feel that they loved me. I mean, I don't know how many homework assignments and music lessons they both helped me through. But it was their lifetime of love and support that has helped me be who I am today. So, as painful as it was for the nation, To watch your disappearance, there was also joy when you were found. And you've made a new movie. Thank you. You're telling the story, along with a documentary. And there's going to be a huge appetite to revisit what we saw without you now through your eyes. What was the most difficult thing for you to look back upon? Well, making the decision in the first place was a pretty huge decision, but in the end, I'm ultimately glad that I did because as I've moved forward in my advocacy and as I've met other survivors and other victims, I've just realized what happened to me is not unique. It's not an isolated incident. I mean, rape unfortunately happens every day as we have daily proof right now in the news and kidnapping happens every day. For me, I've been asked many times over the years, well, why didn't you run? And why didn't you scream? And why didn't you do this? Or why didn't you do that? And whenever I used to be asked those questions, I'd feel really defensive and I couldn't understand why. And then one day I realized, it's, My brain was not hearing the question. It was hearing an accusation. It was hearing, you should have run. You should have escaped. You should have got away. You didn't do enough. When in truth, everything I did, I did to survive. And ultimately, I made it. And just having had my experiences with survivors, that's really bothered me because I don't think a survivor should have to be questioned like that. I mean, they survived. That's a Pretty big deal. I mean, we should be there to support them. This is what I love about you. What a profound insight. The reason I asked the question was more worried about you, that it would trigger something in you that maybe you'd been able, and God bless you for being able to accomplish it, leave in your past. And by revisiting it, it might bring it back into your present. I think if I had decided to do a movie or a documentary the day after I got home or the year, maybe even five years, Maybe even 10 years after I got home. It could have easily done that. But I feel like I've come to a point in my life where I choose to do what I do. I choose to speak about it. I choose to work in this field. And I've had so much attention over the years. I feel like this is something worthwhile that I should be doing, that I can speak out to, and hopefully people will listen. They'll listen. Up next, Elizabeth's surprising message to her captors. So stay with us. It's riveting. That was Elizabeth Smart, reliving the first moments of the ordeal that changed her life forever. Remember, the trauma she experienced following that night led her on a path, on an unimaginable path you would never have expected to be on. Do you ever think back and mourn the life you didn't get to live? I think I wouldn't be human if I didn't wonder if this hadn't have happened to me, what would I be doing? Where would I be at today? Of course, I've spent time thinking about that. So one of the things that you've done that really caught my attention, and I'm not going to mention the name of the couple that kidnapped you. I don't think they deserve that, but I do want to mention that you forgave them. And I'm curious about the motivation and how you would forgive a couple that abducted you and caused serious harm to you, albeit you overcame much of it. I think we often think of forgiveness as something that we do for someone else, but I don't know, that's not me. I guess I, maybe I'm a selfish person because I think of forgiveness, you do it for yourself. Because if I still held on to my hate and anger and resentment, that would mean that I couldn't love my husband 100%. That means that I wouldn't be able to love my children 100% because part of me would still be taken up with this hate and this anger and this disgust. And I don't have, Extra emotion to waste on them. They stole nine months of my life. I'm not going to let them steal any more. So the couple is in prison now. But if they could see you, if they could watch you, what would you say to them? Nothing. I have nothing to say to them. Yeah. They took so much away from me. I don't feel like they should take any more, even if it's a sentence. Good for you. You showed remarkable... Remarkable maturity in articulating how you wanted to spend all of your energy loving your husband and those two beautiful kids. And they are cute little ones. So what did it take for you to make the extra jump beyond just putting emotion to them to putting trust into them, and especially your husband? I talked to many women who have been caught and kidnapped or raped, and trusting a man is hard for them. Was that difficult for you? I think there was a number of things that made a difference to me, one of which was I was abducted and I was raped and I was abused by a stranger, not someone I knew. And that, as I'm sure you're well aware, is not the norm. So that was thing number one that I'm actually grateful for. I'm grateful I was kidnapped by a stranger and not someone that I knew. The next thing is that when I came home I was allowed to go back to being the kid as much as I could. That I was before. I think that was hugely beneficial as well. Plus, I chose my husband. I mean, I didn't, I wasn't forced. I chose him. He was my match. He was who I was supposed to be with. He's a smart man. How was your past shaping? The way you mother those two children. It's a constant battle, definitely. On the one hand, I want to just protect them and be there with them and constantly watch over them and never let anyone that I don't know near them or anything, never want to let them out of my sight. But on the other hand, I know that if I shelter them and protect them from everything... That's not preparing them very well for the life ahead. And so finding that balance, I still don't know how to do. If anyone has advice, please share it with me. I'm going through it myself. Believe me, it happens faster than you imagine. All right, up next, Elizabeth is reunited for the first time with a doctor who helped put the man who abducted her in prison for life. Stay with us. I am back with Elizabeth Smart, who is here revealing her new mission to make sure no victim, no victim suffers in silence. And one of the things that shocked me the most about this story Is that even after you were freed and they had the perpetrators in custody, it still took nine years to put the man in jail. He was able to convince people that he was crazy. Did you think he was crazy? No, he's not crazy. He was able to con people for that long? Isn't that remarkable? Yes, but I know he can do that. He was that manipulative? Extremely. So the case ultimately did go to trial when prosecutors sought out a forensic psychiatric examiner to evaluate the captor's mental state and testify in court. The psychiatrist, his name is Dr. Michael Welder, and he's here today. Dr. Welder, please join us. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. It's interesting, you just look in your eyes and watch you process the fact that this man was manipulative. So the evilness was not just that he stole you, but he was good at lying to people, at conning people. And I had no idea that... You had to intervene at the level you did to change that around. So how did you ultimately diagnose and then convince people that Elizabeth's captor should be on trial? This matter turned on a very complicated question that many, many, not just one or two, many psychiatrists and psychologists arrived at an idea that he was delusional, that he had a grandiose delusion, that he was a prophet, that he was the one who was, the one mighty and strong. And so when the case was first presented to me... He was on a track to release. Did you know that, Elizabeth? So when the case was... Did you realize that? When they asked me if I wanted to move this from the state courts to federal courts, they did say, if I didn't, that he could possibly be released. Oh, I'm just being your... If I was your father, I would have been crawling out of my skin. So this case was gone. And part of the reason that it was was because there was really a convergence of a number of highly trained, highly qualified professionals who said... He's got grandiose religious delusions. His idea of being the one mighty and strong was something that I came to learn as I became more immersed in the Mormon culture. There are fundamentalist splinter sects that derive from one person saying, hey, it says in Doctrines and Covenants, chapter 85, that one mighty and strong will rise up from outside the church and put the church on the right way. And hey, I'm devout, I'm good. Why can't I be the guy? And so what I found, the more I learned, was that his own sense that he was the one mighty and strong was not a dramatic departure or deviation that we would say in a false belief. And religion, one has to have context. Otherwise, we're just judging another religion as irrational. And what I came to learn over the course of reviewing a tremendous number of documents is that he was very much involved in plea negotiations at one time. And when the plea negotiations went south... He didn't participate, but he was assisted by a psychologist who hid the evidence. And so the court never knew. And that's why the court continued to find him incompetent, because the testimony was, I can't get him to talk about his case. Why would a psychologist lie? That's for another show. It's for another show. Are you allowed to lie to protect your client if you're a psychologist? It's really, we'll go off on a tangent. Oh, my goodness. Doesn't that make you angry? But the third key, what I learned from Elizabeth, And other people who were courageous enough to speak to me is that he was a pedophile. And the intensity of his pedophilia was something that bore itself out in a fascinating way in our interview, in our interview. He wouldn't participate, he wouldn't speak to me, but when I put on a tape of Elizabeth, he swiveled in his chair, opened his eyes, and he was engaged. And what I was able to communicate to a court was, his perversion trumped his religion. What did Elizabeth tell you that woke you up to that insight? What Elizabeth told me is a very important lesson to anybody who might be watching. I think that in this day and age of CSI and all of the police dramas that we watch, people forget. I'll share with you this from my experience. In the courtroom, forget DNA. There is no more powerful evidence than the testimony of the person who's been through it. What you lived, where you lived it, when you lived it, when it started, how it happened, because you brought truth alive. And many people put in this situation, they're frightened because they have to relive an ordeal. But what they don't realize, and what Elizabeth certainly realized ultimately is, when you stand in court and you confront the perpetrator, the person who victimized, you have the power and they are silenced. And they must listen to you holding them accountable. And there's so many people out there who because they're silent, A person may get off. I've worked on too many cases where people who could have come forward and done what Elizabeth did were silent, the person got off, and then offended again. So hers is not only a powerful example of what she's done, but she's not only renewed, rejuvenated, resilient, but she has power. She has power. I see you smiling. They're in jail for life. Thanks to your bravery and your insight. What is your message for the victims out there who are struggling still, overcoming problems similar, analogous in their lives, the ones that you were able to overcome with these perpetrators? The first thing I want them to know is that it's not their fault. Whatever it was that they experienced, it's not their fault. It doesn't matter if you're a young girl in bed, kidnapped at knife point, taken up into the mountains, or you're a prostitute. Rape is rape. Violence is violence. It's not your fault. You don't deserve for that to happen. There's no circumstance in which that's okay. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. You deserve to live the life that you want to live. So don't let whatever it is that's happened to you to define you. It can probably shape you, probably mold you, probably change and alter the course of your life. But don't let it define you. You define who you are by what you decide to do. I truly treasure having you back here this time. Michael, make sure to catch the movie I Am Elizabeth Smart, premiering this Saturday night on Lifetime, along with the A&E documentary. Plus, there's an interview special with Elizabeth on November 20th, so you can get more of this wonderful insight. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss out on new videos to live the good life.