Another future John Waters star

Today's broadcast of This American Life was about mind games. "Act" II or III or something was about Elizabeth Smart, a Salt Lake Cityan abducted a few years ago. Her captor turned out to be a local crazy homeless man who thought he was a prophet, already had a wife but apparently wanted another [14 year old] one. With the two veiled women in tow, he traipsed around the very neighborhood from which he abducted Elizabeth. Her abduction was widely reported in the area, of course, and her photo was up everywhere. They walked right by people who knew her. He went with her into a convenience store once asking for something, with her photo hanging right there on the wall.

This American Life's coverage is really worth listening to (search for episode 286). One interviewee spoke to Elizabeth at a party that her abductor kind of crashed. She asked her where she knew her from, saying she looked so familiar. The abductor soon came up and said, "You don't know her."

The interviewee said, "He literally put a spell over Salt Lake City." But really, as the piece points out, the spell was already cast. The community's own expectations -- that she was abducted by an intelligent, calculating monster of a man and taken far away, blinded them. They just went on ignoring the loser, the crazy religious fanatic, perhaps not giving him credit for being able to pull off something like this. That, together with a piece of white cloth obscuring all but her eyes, kept people who'd known her since she was a child from seeing what was literally (almost) right under their noses.