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Coming up -- ed smart finally comes face to face with his daughter. >> i ran over there and i grabbed her. and i just started crying. and finally, i said, elizabeth? is it you? years ago, my doctor told me
Months earlier, elizabeth smart finally gets to go home. friends, family and neighbors rejoice. >> the streets were lined with photographers and media and people wishing her well. she kept saying, what are all these balloons for? who are all these people? she didn't realize how big the magnitude of her kidnapping had become. and she didn't understand that they were there wishing her well. >> it's real! it's real! >> an elated ed smart who spent much of the last nine months in front of the cameras pleading for his daughter's return now stands before them celebrating it. >> i can't begin to tell...
>> meanwhile, "america's most wanted" is turning up the heat. >> his photo changes dramatically depending on the length of his hair and beard. hundreds of miles away, elizabeth said she took another chance by suggesting to mitchell they go back to utah. nine months after elizabeth first went missing, both gambles pay off. coming up -- ed smart finally comes face to face with his daughter. >> i ran over there and i grabbed her. and i just started crying. and finally, i said, elizabeth? is it you? those first young men. the pioneers. the aviators. building superhighways in an unknown sky. thei...
I knew the threats that i had been told for nine months, and i knew what they were, and i was scared. and at the same time, i -- i thought that this is it. this is it. i'm done. this is it, like this is over. >> her father, ed, gets a call to come to the police station where an officer tells him they think they have found elizabeth. >> i look across the room. and there's this amazingly mature young woman. it was not the -- >> the 14-year-old girl. >> -- the 14-year-old elizabeth that had left us nine months earlier. and i looked at her and i thought, you know, it really looks like her. i mean,...
Summer 2002 in the early weeks and months after her disappearance, elizabeth smart is still nowhere to be found. her father, ed, struggles to keep her name and face out there with daily press conferences. >> i still feel so strongly inside that she is waiting for us to find her. >> the investigation zeros in on a local handyman named richard ricci who did work on the smarts' house. >> richard was referred by another contractor. he came up here and did jobs, painting and yardwork. you know, he was a very engaging person. i think the kids liked him. was easy to talk to. he seemed nice enough. >>...