http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1206/26/ijvm.01.htmlJANE VELEZ-MITCHELL
Husband of Murdered Woman Arrested for Hiring Hitman; John Edwards, Mistress Split Up
Aired June 26, 2012 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, a dramatic verdict in the Elizabeth Smart case. After being abducted and repeatedly raped as a teen and years of waiting for justice, a jury finally reaches a decision. Was Brian David Mitchell found guilty or insane?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s called "hero" and it`s being backed by no less than Elizabeth Smart, who of course was kidnapped from her home in 2002.
ELIZABETH SMART, KIDNAPPED FROM HOME IN 2002: I can`t say for sure it would have prevented me from being kidnapped. But if I did have the Hero app with me, it has a location tracking device that drops a pin exactly where you were at.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Literally when you push a button, it sends instant video, sound and location to all your friends, family.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, an unbelievable follow-up to the horrifying kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart -- an abduction that stunned the nation. Nine months of hell -- that`s how Elizabeth Smart describes her kidnapping when she was just 14.
She was taken from her Salt Lake City bedroom as her terrified 9-year- old sister helplessly watched. The brazen crime just captivated the nation. Miraculously nine months later Elizabeth was found alive, her kidnapper, a former street preacher, Brian David Mitchell, got life in prison.
Now, ten years later Elizabeth is a 24-year-old crusader helping parents keep their kids safe from predators with amazing crime-fighting technology. She`s a superhero as far as I`m concerned.
Elizabeth has teamed up with a company called Apptooth. It developed the Hero Smartphone app. It can track a child`s location and sound the alarm in case of trouble.
Straight out to kidnapping survivor, and again, my personal hero, Elizabeth Smart; I`m so excited to have you on. You`re joining us live from Salt Lake City. You are promoting I think appropriately since you`re a hero, the Hero app. Here`s what I want to ask you, had the Hero app existed in 2002, could it have prevented your abduction? And if so, how?
SMART: Hi, Jane. You know, I really couldn`t say that it would have prevented me completely from being kidnapped. I can`t say that it would have stopped me from going through nine months of hell, but I can say had the Hero app been there, been available, if I had it with me, I know that where I was being held was less than five miles away from my home. With that location tracking device it could have located me easy.
I believe that I would have been found before we ever made it back to the hiding space -- place. Even if I didn`t have that app with me, if I wasn`t allowed to take my phone with me, my younger sister who lay in bed petrified next to me for three hours after I was kidnapped until she finally had the nerve to go up and talk to my parents, she could have just reached over to her phone, pressed a button, that button would have sent out an immediate alert to my family, anyone with that Hero app within five miles. That would have been immediate.
And when a child goes missing, really the most important thing is time. The faster you act, the more likely you are to bring your child home safely.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, let`s show our viewers exactly how this Hero app works. It can work on a Smartphone or as I`m holding, an iPad. Now, we`re going to show you the tutorial. There it is. Ok. You go here. You see that you have friends. You have friends, you can even zoom in maybe a little bit tighter. And it will show you, oh, I`m in distress. So you can actually, actually alert your friends that you`re in distress.
But this is the absolutely amazing part of it. What you can do is, you see, it will give a GPS of where you are on a map. And it will also allow you to activate video of where you are. So, Elizabeth, if you were in trouble and you had this, you could literally press a button and suddenly all your friends would see videotape of you and maybe this perpetrator?
SMART: Absolutely. If you are in distress, you hit that Hero button and it will immediately start recording video and audio. And it will stream it out to everyone within that five-mile radius who has the Hero app as well as those people who you`ve pre-selected to be your individual heroes.
For instance, my dad - he`s my hero. He always has been and he always will be. But now he`s my hero on this app. So would it matter if I was here in Salt Lake City or, I don`t know, in China. I could say I was in distress, I hit my alert, it starts video recording. That video goes out to everyone within that five-mile radius, but it also goes out to my dad back in Salt Lake City, Utah.
And whether anyone has in the five mile radius, at least my dad does and he can contact police. He can contact people who can come and help me.
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SMART: I hope that not only is this an example that justice can be served in America, but that it is possible to move on after something terrible has happened.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Your abductor is doing life behind bars, thanks in no small part to your courageous testimony. Now you`re showing more courage in a new way. Becoming a superhero and really helping parents.
So let`s show some other techniques. Let`s zoom in on this, this is the Spark nanotracker -- we`re going to show you this. This is just a little tiny gizmo, you can throw it in your child`s backpack, somehow sew it into their clothes and it will essentially function as a GPS device and track your child wherever he or she goes, you can go on the computer and see literally down to the street corner where the child is.
I want to show another one, because these are fascinating. Here is one called the Brick House Security, we`re going to show you this. This goes on the child, the one I`m holding here, this goes on the child with the little tether there. The other one the parent holds, and if the child goes outside a certain perimeter, 30 feet, it alerts the parent with an alarm.
Elizabeth, thank God for this because they`re pro-active, we`re not reacting after something bad happens, we`re stopping something bad from happening.
SMART: You`re right. They are every step we can take to protect our children, everything we can do to make this world a safer place is one big step in the right direction.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. And I want to show one more. Here is a watch and it comes in kids sizes as well. It`s again a GPS tracker, all right. And then the parents have this and essentially you put this watch on -- and I think this is brilliant Elizabeth because I don`t think an abductor would think to take off a watch off a child, right?
SMART: Right. These are all great, they`re all needful.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And so many stories now, we hear that the abductors throw away the cell phones because they know there`s a tracking device, so a watch is fantastic. Final thoughts?
SMART: I think all of these are great, great tools to have. I think also though the important thing about this Hero app that we talked about just momentarily ago was that this uses the power of the crowd, this uses the power of everyone around you, so it`s not just limited to you and your child. This goes out to every person within a five-mile radius, which I think is amazing.
Time really is one of the most important commodities we have when a child goes missing. And so, all of these are wonderful tools to come together and work together to make this place safer.
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