Elizabeth Smart, who at 14 was kidnapped from her Utah home and held for nine months, has given birth to her first child with husband Matthew Gilmour. Like almost everything else about Smart, the February birth was low key and private.
Smart became a household name in 2002 after she was kidnapped by street preacher Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee. She said she was sexual assaulted during her captivity and was forced to wear a disguise in public and wander with her captor and his wife. She was freed after being recognized by people near Salt Lake City.
Ed Smart, her father, was in Rexburg, Idaho, last week to attend a screening of a documentary on child sex trafficking when he made the announcement about his daughter,
reported the East Idaho News.com.
"Elizabeth is great," said Ed Smart. "She just had a baby girl named Chloe about three months ago. We want all of those people that have been victimized out there to be survivors. 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."
Ed Smart also confirmed the birth to the
Salt Lake Tribune, saying it was "just what Elizabeth wanted."
"It is totally private," he said, declining to disclose any other information. "This is something she is keeping to herself and not trying to have out there."
Elizabeth Smart, 27, married Gilmour, a Scottish man she met while on a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission, in a small wedding ceremony at a Mormon temple in Hawaii in 2012,
according to E! News.