Seven survivors of America’s most infamous abduction cases have united for the first time, creating television history.
Elizabeth Smart — held captive for a year in 2002 when she was 14 years old — brought the women together to share personal advice for Jayme Closs and help the teen move forward by recounting their own incredible stories of survival.
Jayme, 13, made headlines last October when her parents were murdered and she was kidnapped from their Wisconsin home.
Smart’s new 90-minute special “Smart Justice: The Jayme Closs Case” will air on Lifetime on Saturday, April 27 and promises to look at the Closs case through the eyes of survivors.
“Only survivors of abduction can truly understand her pain. We want to help her move forward,” Smart said in a promo trailer.
Smart, who also posted about the show on Instagram, leads a roundtable of survivors including Gina DeJesus, Katie Beers, Kara Robinson, Alicia Kozakiewicz, Denise Huskins and Sarah Maynard.
Jayme managed to escape in January after 88 days in captivity. Her abductor Jake Patterson, 21, intentionally abducted her after seeing her boarding a school bus, prosecutors said.
Smart said her hope was any survivor watching the special would realize they are not alone and don’t need to be defined by what happened to them.
“When I came home, my parents were waiting for me. But that didn’t happen for Jayme,” Smart continued in the promo. “Nothing prepares you for being kidnapped, and nothing prepares you for life after.
“Only a few of us know what it’s like, and we need to stick together to help Jayme. We want to help her move forward.”
Among the survivors in the Lifetime special are Gina DeJesus, who was just 14 years old when she was kidnapped by Ariel Castro in 2004 and held captive in his Cleveland, Ohio, home for nine years.
Katie Beers was just 10 years old when she was kidnapped by family friend John Esposito, who kept her in a coffin-sized underground bunker under his New York garage for 17 days in 1992.
Denise Huskins, the most recent survivor, was drugged and kidnapped in California in 2015 by a masked intruder who held her captive for two days. She won a $2.5 million lawsuit against Vellejo cops after they called her case a hoax.
Alicia Kozakiewicz was 13 when she began chatting online with her abductor Scott Tyree, a 38-year-old predator who posed as a boy her own age. He kidnapped her in 2002 and tortured her for four days, streaming the abuse online.
Sarah Maynard was also held captive for four days at the age of 13 when an intruder broke into her Ohio family home, killing her mother, brother and a family friend before locking Sarah in his basement.
Kara Robinson was 15 when she was abducted by serial killer Richard Evonitz in South Carolina in 2002. She escaped later that day when he fell asleep.