SALT LAKE CITY - Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom nearly eight months ago, was found alive Wednesday during a traffic stop in suburban Salt Lake City, police said.
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"Miracles do exist," said the girl's uncle, Tom Smart.
The girl was found in the car of a drifter who was pulled over in a traffic stop Wednesday afternoon, Sandy police spokeswoman Michelle Burnette said.
"Two separate women called in and said they thought they had spotted 'Emmanuel,'" she said. Emmanuel, whose real name is Brian David Mitchell, once did work on the Smart's home.
Sandy police pulled over Mitchell, another woman and a girl who looked like Elizabeth. They later confirmed her identity, police said.
Salt Lake City police detectives arrived to take over the investigation. Smart was transferred to the Salt Lake city police station. Mitchell was in custody at the Sandy police station.
Last month, Elizabeth's parents announced a new reward for information and asked for help in their search for the handyman known only as "Emanuel." They released a sketch of the man.
At the time, they said Elizabeth's sister, Mary Katharine, had come to them recently to say "Emanuel" bore some resemblance to the man who took Elizabeth from their room at gunpoint.
Elizabeth's kidnapping was part of a frightening string of child abductions that included the slayings of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam of San Diego and 5-year-old Samantha Runnion of Orange County, Calif.
Elizabeth was 14 when she was seized early on the morning of June 5 in front of her 9-year-old sister by a gunman who may have gotten into the house by cutting a window screen near the back door. As the younger sister pretended to be asleep, the gunman threatened to hurt Elizabeth if she didn't keep quiet.
The top potential suspect in the kidnapping, Richard Albert Ricci, a handyman who once worked in the Smart household, died Aug. 30 after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage while in prison on a parole violation. He said he had nothing to do with the kidnapping.
Investigators have said they believe he was involved but may not have acted alone.
Over the summer, the Smarts held twice-daily news briefings and helped coordinate huge volunteer searches. Ed Smart, a real estate broker, vowed to keep the case in the spotlight.
The family often got calls from the police, but it was never the information they wanted to hear. Often, police were calling to alert them to grisly discoveries that might be linked to their missing daughter; they wanted the Smarts to know before the story hit the news.
Sometimes, the news beat the police. Hands and feet had been found in a canyon, or bones had been discovered in the desert, according to the news. The Smarts would call police to ask if it was Elizabeth. Every time, the answer was no.
Police said they followed up more than 16,000 leads from the public in addition to those they have come up with themselves.
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On the Net:
http://www.elizabethsmart.com
