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It has been just 100 days since Nancy Guthrie’s violent kidnapping.
Many believe that we are still months away from reaching any kind of happy resolution to this family tragedy.
However, Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped when she was a young teenager and spent months as a captive before finding freedom again.
She wants to confirm that Nancy can be alive after all.
Nancy Guthrie has been missing since the end of January
This week, Smart sat down for an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett.
Most of what she discussed was her recent passion for bodybuilding.
(The disordered eating and fitness behaviors that bodybuilding requires are common long-term consequences of childhood trauma.)
However, Burnett also pointed to Smart’s experience with long-term kidnapping.
“I want to ask you about one thing separate from all of this,” Burnett said, admitting that she had “been thinking about it with Nancy Guthrie and that she’s missing.”
She continued as carefully as she could.
“When you were missing and why everyone knew your face, everyone wondered,” Burnett admitted.
“And then months went by, and maybe the worst happened,” she recalled.
And I came back, and here you are,” Burnett added.
With that in mind, I asked Smart if she thought there was “any chance” that Nancy “could still get over it” despite being missing for months.
“Sure. Sure,” Smart replied.
She stressed that “it is possible to survive.”
“There are cases that have lasted many years longer than mine and have come back alive,” Smart admitted.
She continued: “And we are talking about years and years.”
“So it’s possible she could still be alive at all,” Smart repeated.
To be clear, Smart is not denying.
“Of course there is an alternative,” she admitted.
It very accurately alludes to the widespread belief that Nancy was dead—and that she likely died very early in her kidnapping, either from a lack of medication or from injuries sustained during the kidnapping.
“But until we know, we have to keep looking,” Smart emphasized.
She pointed out very accurately that Nancy “deserved, either way, to go home.”
