Now helping other kidnap victims with her foundation and in her role as an ABC News contributor covering missing person and child abduction cases, Elizabeth Smart, from experience, has a strong opinion on the disappearance of baby Lisa.
Her mantra: Never give up hope.
"There's always hope," Smart told People, citing her own example and others as reasons for it. "There's my story, there's Jaycee Dugard's story and Shawn Hornbeck."
Smart, who's also involved in the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, can certainly relate to baby Lisa, the Missouri missing child case currently making national headlines.
"I think she's alive," she said. "She's so young, and I feel like - maybe I'm just an eternal optimist - I always hope that whomever is kidnapped or disappears is still alive."
"I think the most important thing is to press forward with this using as much force and power as you can, and continue search efforts, continuing on, not giving up."
Here's hoping, whatever the odds, that she's right.