Kidnap and Rape Victim Elizabeth Smart Marries Boyfriend

Elizabeth Smart, the Utah woman who was kidnapped and raped when she was 14, married her boyfriend Saturday in a private ceremony at the Mormon temple on the North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii.

Smart, now 24, married Matthew Gilmour, who she met while serving on a mission in Europe for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

They tied the knot at a Mormon temple overlooking the Pacific Ocean, her uncle Tom Smart told Reuters.

Elizabeth Smart marries in Hawaii. REUTERS

The ceremony was attended by a small group of immediate family members and close friends of Smart and Gilmour. The couple was to depart for an extended honeymoon after the religious ceremony and reception, according to Reuters.

Smart announced her engagement in January and said that the marriage would happen in early summer.

According to her uncle, the increasingly invasive media spotlight on her forced her to advance her marriage date and get married in a private ceremony.

Smart was kidnapped from her bedroom by a homeless street preacher, Brian David Mitchell, in June 2002. He repeatedly raped her and forced her to use alcohol and drugs and to watch pornography during the nine months she was held captive. She was also forced to wander with him town to town.

Her mysterious and shocking disappearance was widely covered by American media.

She was rescued by some passersby who spotted her with the accused in 2003. She later described the period of her captivity as nine months of hell.

Mitchell was convicted in 2010 of two major counts related to the kidnapping and subsequently sentenced to life in prison.

His wife, Wanda Barzee, also was prosecuted in the case and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Smart is now an advocate for missing children and also a television news commentator from time to time, Reuters reported.