UPDATED: BrianDMitchell GUILTY of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart

[bbeba103]

Elizabeth Smart Testifies in Alleged Kidnapper's Trial..

Deborah Hastings Contributor AOL News Updated: 4 hours 45 minutes ago.

Nov. 8 -- Elizabeth Smart took the stand today in the federal trial of her accused kidnapper and described how she awoke in the early morning hours of June 5, 2002, to feel a knife at her throat. The man holding it threatened to kill her and her family if she did not come with him, she said.

"He said he was taking me hostage, for ransom," Smart, now 23, testified according to The Associated Press. "I was shocked. I thought I was having a nightmare.

Smart was the third witness to testify in federal court in Salt Lake City in the trial of Brian David Mitchell. The self-proclaimed prophet "Immanuel" is accused of kidnapping Smart when she was 14 and repeatedly raping her during a captivity that lasted nine months.

Wearing a red jacket and black and white skirt, the blond young woman recalled the night she was abducted from the bedroom she shared with her ittle sister, Mary Katherine, then 9.

"I remember him saying that 'I have a knife to your neck, don't make a sound get out of bed and come with me or I will kill you and all your family,' " Smart testified.

Smart testified that the kidnapper ordered her to put on some shoes and then they left the house and walked for several hours until they reached a campsite, where Mitchell's wife, Wanda Barzee, washed her feet and made her take off her pajamas and robe and then ordered her to take off her underpants.

"She said if I didn't take them off she would have the defendant [Mitchell].

The Elizabeth Smart Case

She said Mitchell performed a sort of wedding ceremony and then, despite her protests and attempts to fight him off, he raped her.

Smart did not have to look at Mitchell during her testimony. U.S. District Court hymn. Mitchell is able to view the proceedings remotely from another room, hymn. Mitchell is able to view the proceedings remotely from another room, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Earlier, Lois Smart recalled the "utter terror" she felt when her younger daughter told her Elizabeth had been kidnapped during the night.

"Elizabeth is gone," Lois Smart said 9-year-old Mary Katherine, looking like "a scared rabbit," told her parents.

"My heart sank, and I called out to [husband] Ed, 'Call 911,' " Lois Smart testified, according to CNN. "It was utter terror. It was the worst feeling knowing that I didn't know where my child was. I was helpless."

In opening statements earlier today, public defender Parker Douglas told jurors that Mitchell was driven by escalating mental illness and extreme religious beliefs. Mitchell faces life in prison if convicted.

Testimony got under way today after a federal appeals court in Denver on Friday denied a defense request to move the trial out of Utah, The Associated Press reported.

Mitchell's attorneys had argued that pretrial publicity had tainted the jury poo and that empaneled jurors already believed Mitchell was guilty in a case that made national headlines.

His lawyers say they plan to use an insanity defense for their client. Mitchel claims to receive visions from God and has been repeatedly removed from the courtroom for loudly singing hymns.

Elizabeth Smart flew from Paris, where she was on a Mormon church mission to Salt Lake City late last month for the trial of her accused captor, who once worked as a handyman for the Smart family.

During the government's opening statements last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Felice Viti told jurors that Elizabeth Smart was dragged from Utah to California to Nevada and back again during a "nightmare" in which she was constantly raped and drugged and forced to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and watch Mitchell and Barzee having sex.

In the weeks following her abduction, the girl was held between two trees by an ankle cable and given a bucket to relieve herself in.

"The once limitless horizons of Elizabeth's world went no further than the ength of the cable," Viti said, according to court transcripts posted by the Tribune. "She was nscri ordered to strip, was told she was married to a man she didn't know, raped and tied between two trees ... and told that this was her new life. That tent was her new home. That bucket her new bathroom."

Elizabeth was rescued in March 2003. She was found wearing long robes and wandering in a Salt Lake City suburb in the company of Mitchell and Barzee.

Barzee's case had been delayed for years after her attorneys claimed she was ncompetent to stand trial. A Utah judge approved forcibly medicating her with incompetent to stand trial. A Utah judge approved forcibly medicating her with antipsychotic drugs, and she pleaded guilty to kidnapping charges in November 2009. She is serving a 15-year sentence.

http://m.aol.com/news/default/getConten ... l/19707312

[gwen]

Elizabeth Smart recalls her life as a captive

Salt Lake City, Utah (CNN) -- Testifying in the trial of her alleged kidnapper, Elizabeth Smart recounted before jurors Tuesday an encounter with a Salt Lake City, Utah, detective that could have brought her home months earlier.

The homicide detective encountered Smart and her alleged abductor, Brian David Mitchell, along with Mitchell's wife, Wanda Barzee, at the city library in the fall of 2002, several months after she was snatched at knifepoint from her family's home in June, she testified Tuesday.

The three had gone to the library to research California and San Diego, Smart said. Mitchell was already considering moving her there, and the encounter with police spurred him to do so.

Smart said she was wearing robes and a veil. The detective approached her and Barzee, who were sitting at a table while Mitchell used the bathroom, she said.

"The man introduced himself as a homicide detective. He wanted me to remove the veil so he could see my face," said Smart. She recalled Barzee's hand clenching her leg and interpreted it as a warning not to say or do anything.

Meanwhile, Mitchell returned, and Smart said he positioned himself between her and the detective. The officer said that police had received some calls, and that he was looking for Elizabeth Smart, she said.

But Mitchell told him that looking under her veil "was not allowed in our religion. Only my husband would ever see my face in my religion," Smart testified. He told the detective she was his daughter, she said.

The detective "asked if he could be part of our religion for a day" so he could go back and report the girl was not Elizabeth Smart, she said. But Mitchell refused, saying only her husband could do that.

The detective left, Smart said, and "I felt like hope was walking out the door."

"I was so mad at myself that I didn't say anything," she said. "I was mad at myself for not taking the chance. I felt like it was so close. I felt terrible that the detective could just walk away. ... Maybe something would have happened for me. Maybe something would have happened for my family. I was just very upset."

It was not until the following March that her abduction ended.

Smart testified Tuesday about the summer and early fall of 2002. She recalled going to a "rave party" in Salt Lake City and said Mitchell got drunk and they got thrown out after he told everyone to repent. They also spent the night at several different apartments in the city, she said.

During that time, they were wearing their linen religious robes, and she was wearing a veil. After the incident with the detective, she testified, Mitchell made her wear a veil covering her eyes, telling her "the world wasn't ready for the light that was in my eyes." She also was not allowed to speak to anyone, she said -- and whenever someone approached her, Mitchell would get between them.

Learn more about Mitchell

She also recalled being forced to destroy the pajamas she wore the night she was abducted. Mitchell said "the time had come that I needed to sever all ties with the world, and that meant my family as well." She said he let her choose the method, and she chose to burn them because it would have been too difficult to shred them. Mitchell also took her tennis shoes away, she said, and told her he would put them in a public garbage can.

A small piece of the shoe sole had begun to come off, Smart testified, and she ripped it off and kept it. She also retrieved a safety pin that had been on her pajama top and used it to pin the piece of sole onto a piece of paper, placing it into a binder she had.

"I didn't want to let go of my family, of my life," Smart said.

She said Mitchell used marijuana, and she and Barzee smoked it with him on one occasion. But she said he took the marijuana away from her, saying she wasn't inhaling right.

Smart wore a knee-length black skirt Tuesday with a ruffled salmon-colored top and cardigan. At times, her voice dropped so low she was difficult to hear.

She also detailed an unsuccessful attempt by Mitchell to kidnap her cousin, intending to make her his next bride. But he returned to their camp in the foothills alone, saying that after he cut the window screen and attempted to push the blinds out of the way, he knocked over objects, and the noise awoke the occupants of the home.

Mitchell had had a revelation that he was to have seven wives plus one, Smart said. He told her that when he obtained other wives, it would be her job to demonstrate to them "sexual intercourse and its variations."

On Monday, she testified Mitchell told her that he had planned for months how he would snatch her so she could join him and his wife in a "celestial" plural marriage.

"He said they had been preparing for me since he saw me," she said.

Mitchell had done some handyman work for the Smarts after the family encountered him panhandling outside a mall in downtown Salt Lake City. Smart said she had seen him around the house but never spoke to him.

It was the second day of testimony for Smart, now 23 and living in Paris, France, where she is on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Glimpse into Smart's life as a missionary

On Monday, she spoke of being raped "daily at the very least," tethered between two trees "like an animal," and forced to watch and participate in sex acts she found repugnant. She said she was forced to smoke cigarettes and drink wine and "hard liquor."

She did not have to face her alleged abductor Monday or Tuesday. Mitchell, 57, loudly sings hymns whenever he is in court. He had been ejected, as usual, from the courtroom and was watching the trial from another room. He is charged with kidnapping and taking a minor across state lines for sex. If convicted, he would face life in prison.

Mitchell's attorneys do not dispute what happened but say their client was insane at the time of the abduction, and therefore not responsible for his actions.

Smart was found nine months after her abduction in March 2003, walking on a street in the suburb of Sandy, Utah, in the company of Mitchell and Barzee.

Barzee, 64, pleaded guilty in November 2009 to kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor in federal court. She was sentenced in May to 15 years in federal prison. She also pleaded guilty but mentally ill in state court to conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping in the attempt to kidnap Smart's cousin. She was given a sentence of one to 15 years, to be served concurrently with the federal sentence and given credit for the seven years she had already pent in custody.

As part of her plea agreement, Barzee agreed to cooperate in the state and federal cases against her husband.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/09/uta ... tml?hpt=T1

[SavannahStar]

What a beautiful and courageous woman she has turned out to be!

[Fashionista]

<center>Evidence Photos in Kidnapping Case




Elizabeth Smart's bedroom





This is a photo of the back window of the home Elizabeth Smart was taken from.
The photo is an exhibit from the Brian David Mitchell kidnapping trial.





This is the Smart family's kitchen.





This photo shows the bathroom where Elizabeth Smart was taken immediately
after she was awoken and knife point and before she was led out of her house
in 2002. It is an exhibit from the Brian David Mitchell kidnapping trial.





These are the pajamas similar to what Elizabeth Smart was wearing the night
she was taken.





This is the knife allegedly used to kidnap Elizabeth Smart. It was entered as evidence
during Brian David Mitchell's trial.





This is the photo of the wig purchased to disguise Elizabeth Smart.





These are the sunglasses purchased to disguise Elizabeth Smart.





This tree is one of the two trees Elizabeth Smart was tied to during her kidnapping.





This exhibit from the Brian David Mitchell kidnapping trial shows the screen cut from Smart's home.





This link of cable is evidence presented during Brian David Mitchell's trial.





These secured the cable that held Elizabeth Smart captive in the camp above
Salt Lake City.




.

[gwen]

Accused captor is an unholy hypocrite, Smart says

Salt Lake City, Utah (CNN) -- They were the words Elizabeth Smart waited eight years to say, and when she spoke them from the witness stand Wednesday, they poured out with an intensity that brought jurors to the edge of their seats.

Brian David Mitchell was no prophet, she said. He was an unholy hypocrite.

There was nothing divine about his mission to steal her in the dark of night and make her his unwilling child bride, she said.

"He was crude and vulgar, self-serving," she stated, looking directly at the jury. "He was his number one priority, followed by sex, drugs and alcohol, but he used religion in all those aspects to justify everything."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Felice John Viti asked how she could be so certain about Mitchell's character, and Smart held nothing back.

"Well, nine months of living with him and seeing him proclaim that he was God's servant and he had been called to do God's work, and everything that he did to me and to my family is something I know God would never tell someone to do," she said. ''God would never tell someone to kidnap a young girl from her family's home in the middle of the night, from her bed that she shared with her sister, from her sister's side, and continue to rape her and sexually abuse her. ... I know he was not called of God because God would never do something like that."

Within minutes, Smart stepped down from the witness stand, ending three days of riveting testimony against the homeless street preacher accused of kidnapping her and holding her captive as his preordained "celestial" wife. Asked if she was glad it was over, Smart paused for a moment, as if carefully considering her response. She then smiled and said, "Yes."

Smart, who turned 23 last week, led the jury through the ordeal she calls "my nine months in hell." She was 14 when she was snatched from her bed at knifepoint and marched into the mountains behind her home to a makeshift camp, where Mitchell "sealed" her to him as his wife. Other kidnapped girls were to come, she said Mitchell told her, and her job would be to "demonstrate" to the newcomers how to carry out their sexual duties.

Smart said she initially was tethered to a cable strung between two trees. She was raped on a daily basis, forced to smoke and drink and parade around naked in a game Mitchell and wife, Wanda Barzee, called "Adam and Eve." She said he called himself Immanuel and wrote a book outlining his religious beliefs called the "Book of Immanuel David Isaiah." He called his private parts "Immanuel's Pride," and his bed "Immanuel's Altar," she testified.

She said she resisted his sexual advances, once biting him as he tried to kiss her.

"He said I would become accustomed and learn to love it," she said Wednesday. "He said he understood and recognized that I felt like a prostitute or a concubine or a second-class wife but that wasn't the case at all."

Although Mitchell claimed to receive revelations directly from God and said he was destined for celestial glory, many of the details of his life, as described by Smart, were earthly and banal. Mitchell and Barzee constantly squabbled over her jealousy and his drinking, Smart said. He had a taste for pornography and boasted about his sexual prowess and his ability to outsmart other people.

When he talked about his "ministry," he meant panhandling, Smart added. But Mitchell often was scathing in his criticism of the people who gave him money on the street.

She said he talked constantly -- about himself. She never saw him show compassion, or give anyone else money or food. Except for concealing her identity, she said, he didn't show much concern for her or her family.

"He said that I was the apple of their eye and that they were heartbroken I wasn't there but that they would be comforted and reassured that I was in good hands," she said.

Mitchell, 57, has not been in court during Smart's testimony. As he has during every court appearance since December 2004, Mitchell closed his eyes and began singing hymns as soon as he was brought into court on Wednesday. In what has become a daily ritual, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball brought the jury in, and intoned: "Mr. Mitchell, you have a constitutional right to be here, which you now waive if you continue to sing."

In his thin, reedy voice, Mitchell went on singing about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ: "They pierced his hands and feet and side ..."

He was led from the courtroom, still singing with his hands folded as if in prayer beneath his chest-length beard. According to court records, he stops the moment he enters a room equipped with audio and video feeds that allow him to view the trial.

His lawyers don't dispute what happened to Smart but say Mitchell was insane, and therefore not criminally responsible for his actions. They speak of delusions that their client said provided revelations.

Defense attorney Robert Steele was gentle in his brief cross-examination of Smart, mainly clarifying small points about her direct testimony. Asked about a statement she gave to a forensic psychologist shortly after she was found in March 2003, Smart conceded that her memory was probably better back then. She crisply thanked the lawyer for refreshing her memory on another point.

Smart was followed by several other prosecution witnesses. The prosecution and defense agreed to what two of the witnesses had to offer, and their testimony was read into the court record as a stipulation. A waitress testified that she often served Mitchell and Barzee and saw them joined by another woman wearing a veil during the late summer or early fall of 2002. Another woman testified her husband briefly brought them home for a night or two; the women were silent but Mitchell smoked cigars and talked religion with her husband, Ada Chestnut said.

An employee of The Deseret News identified Mitchell as the man who tore down a missing persons poster of Smart in the newspaper's lobby. The witness said the man told her Smart had been found. When she disputed his statement, he said he'd read the news in a competing paper, she testified.

Detective Jon Richey testified about his encounter with three people, later determined to be Mitchell, Barzee and Smart, at the public library in Salt Lake City shortly after Smart's disappearance. He'd been called to investigate a tip that Smart was there, but said he considered it a "long shot."

The women were dressed in robes and veils and were not permitted to speak, He said he asked to look under the younger woman's veil, but the man was insistent that he couldn't. It would violate their religion, the man said,

He seemed adamant and not at all evasive or nervous, Richey told the jury. He did not appear to be mentally ill.

"My impression was that he belonged to a religion or a cult that I had never heard of," he said.

The trial recessed at the end of the day Wednesday for the Veteran's Day holiday and will resume Monday. It is expected to continue for another three weeks.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/10/uta ... tml?hpt=T2

[gwen]

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[gwen]

Elizabeth Smart Storms Out of Utah Courtroom
Smart Left After Testimony That She Chose a Baby Name in Case She Got Pregnant

Kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart stormed out of a Utah courtroom today after a psychiatrist testified that she had baby names picked out in case she became pregnant by the man who held her captive.

Psychiatrist Paul Whitehead told the court that Smart had been "chastised" by her accused kidnapper Brian David Mitchell and his accomplice, Wanda Barzee, according to The Associated Press.

"Mr. Mitchell was talking with Miss Smart about having babies to the point where Miss Smart actually picked out a name in case that happened," Whitehead testified.

As Whitehead described Smart choosing a baby name, Smart left her front row seat in the courtroom and went to a private area. Her mother quickly followed.

The federal trial of Mitchell has been roiled with controversy. On Tuesday, Mitchell was removed from the courtroom and the trial temporarily halted after the defendant appeared have suffered a seziure, collapsing in court. Mitchell returned to court again Wednesday but was removed for singing hymns and disrupting the proceedings.

Smart herself also spent three days on the stand last month, giving excruciating personal testimony that painted Mitchell as a brutally cruel, religious zealot obsessed with sex.

Speaking in a controlled voice, her words tinged with anger, Smart called Mitchell selfish and a "hypocrite" who raped her at every chance he got even while proclaiming himself to be God's servant.

The now 23-year-old woman told the jury that Mitchell talked to her during her nine months in captivity about what would happen if they were captured.

"He knew he would go to prison. But then he also said that I ... and the other wives ... would come and testify in his behalf," Smart testified. "And he said that he would be released and he would be killed and lie dead in the street for three days and then he would be resurrected and he would go on to fight the Anti-Christ."

She also spoke of being forced to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana, which disgusted her.

Smart was 14 when she was kidnapped from her bed in Utah. She has said she was forced to "marry" Mitchell in an impromptu ceremony shortly after the kidnapping and that he would often beg her for sex, angering accomplice Wanda Barzee, who was jealous of the attention Mitchell gave Smart.

During her three days on the stand, Smart was poised and unruffled as she detailed her nightmarish nine months with Mitchell and Barzee. She said that at one point she was confronted by a police officer looking for Elizabeth Smart and he wanted to look under the veil Mitchell made her wear. She was so afraid of Mitchell's death threats that she didn't speak up and was heartsick that the officer wasn't more persistent.

That officer, Det. Ron Richey, has said he was devastated to learn later that he had been looking right at Smart and didn't do more to help her.

When she was finally rescued, she initially denied her identity out of fear that Mitchell would make good on his death threats.

Barzee pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges last year and was later sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Elizabeth Smart Contributed to Her Rescue

On the stand Wednesday, Smart told the court that her kidnapper had grandiose religious illusions, referring to himself as the "Davidic King" or the "one mighty and strong," but many of the prayers he said out loud were for God to make Smart "perform her wifely duties."

In a gentle 15 minute cross examination, Mitchell's lawyer appeared to be trying to depict his client as severely mentally ill, whose extreme religious views and abusive practices indicate the depths of his insanity.

Smart said Mitchell held bizarre religious views, melding traditional Mormon philosophy with new ageism and his own doctrine that included a book he wrote, "The Book of Immanuel David Isaiah," which he made Smart read.

She said Mitchell forced her to pray for lengthy periods and said Mitchell would pray out loud for Smart to have sex with him.

"The things that he would say in his prayers were things that I would never have said," she said. "He would say, 'Please bless me,' [Smart], that I would be able to cope with my wifely duties and be able to rise to the occasion and fulfill my wifely duties. That is about the farthest thing from my prayers."

Mitchell also had his confessed accomplice Wanda Barzee make up a book of hymns and would make Smart sing whatever songs he chose.

She testified that Mitchell declared that he was the one destined to fight the anti-Christ because he was the "one mighty and strong" and the "Davidic King."

"Nine months of living with him and seeing him proclaim that he was God's servant and called to do God's work and everything he did to me ... is something that I know that God would not tell somebody to do," she said. "God would never tell someone to kidnap her at knifepoint from their bed, from her sister's side ... never continue to rape her and sexually abuse her."

Lawyer Robert Steele also had Smart describe Mitchell's belief in a healing process he called lymphology which involved touching places that hurt and "bouncing," which was jumping up and down. She said he was a restless sleeper who frequently got up during the night to bounce for several minutes, sometimes on one leg, before going back to bed.

In addition, Steele asked Smart if she ever saw Mitchell lose consciousness.

"Yes. We were in California at the time. He was in the middle of raping me and he experienced a seizure," she said calmly.

Mitchell, 57, is charged with kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines for sexual purposes. He was captured in March 2003. Barzee has already confessed and has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

She did, however, make an effort to get help when she was allowed to go to a bathroom in a Hard Rock Cafe and tried to scratch "Help" on the bathroom wall.

She also contributed to her rescue after Mitchell took them to California. She told Mitchell that God wanted them to return to Salt Lake City. She suggested he pray on it, and said he could probably kidnap another wife from a Mormon camp for girls in the area.

Mitchell supposedly prayed about her suggestion and decided to return to Salt Lake City where Smart was eventually discovered and rescued.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/elizabeth-smar ... 221&page=2

[gwen]

Elizabeth Smart Trial Update: Defense Rests After Psychologist Labels Brian David Mitchell's Beliefs "Bizarre"

SALT LAKE CITY (CBS/AP) Brian David Mitchell, currently on trial for the 2002 kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart from her Salt Lake City home, is a paranoid schizophrenic who believes he is the "Davidic King" and will rise up to fight and defeat the anti-Christ at the end of the world, according to a prison psychologist who testified just before the defense rested its case Thursday.

linical psychologist Dr. Richart DeMier was ordered by a court to evaluate Mitchell at a prison hospital in 2008 and determine if he was competent to stand trial. DeMier diagnosed Mitchell as a paranoid schizophrenic.

DeMier said he based his diagnosis on Mitchell's specific, grandiose religious delusions after reviewing thousands of pages of court and medical records, other evaluations of Mitchell, and taped interviews of Smart after she was found.

DeMier testified that the notion that Mitchell would fight the anti-Christ and be the Davidic King is a belief that "no one else shared ... that is why I came to the conclusion [that it was] bizarre," the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

"If I had interpreted [his beliefs] as non-bizarre, I probably would have concluded the diagnosis of delusional disorder," DeMier added, according to the paper.

DeMier told jurors an assessment done four decades ago as part of a juvenile court referral found Mitchell was pre-psychotic at the age of 16.

By the 1990s, he was married with a job and was a leader at his Mormon church when something triggered a change, the psychologist said.

"Within a very short time he abandons his job, is rejected by his family, is rejected by his church, starts wearing robes that he calls 'garments of humility,' stops paying bills and starts living in the woods," said DeMier, who works for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

Prosecutors are expected to spend the next few days calling rebuttal witnesses before the case gets turned over to the jury on Dec. 10.

One of those witnesses is expected to be Dr. Michael Welner, a New York forensic psychiatrist who concluded in 2009 that Mitchell was faking mental illness to avoid prosecution, also known as malingering.

DeMier was asked on cross-examination by prosecutors whether he considered that Mitchell was faking his delusions. DeMier testified that he considered the possibility initially but quickly rejected it.

"I think it's abhorrent to him, the idea that he's mentally ill...he rejects that," DeMier said, adding that accepting a diagnosis of mental illness would also invalidate Mitchell's belief system.

"He would probably consider it greatly offensive to God to abandon his beliefs," DeMier said.

Defense attorneys don't dispute that Smart, then 14 years old, was taken from her home at knifepoint on June 5, 2002, and recovered nine months later on March 12, 2003. But they've tried to build an insanity defense, claiming Mitchell is mentally ill and can't be held responsible.

Now, 23, she has testified that she was forced to enter a polygamous marriage with Mitchell, endured near daily rapes, was forced to use drugs and alcohol, and was taken to California against her will.

As he has been every day of the trial so far, Mitchell was removed from court Thursday after spending more than 20 minutes singing Christmas carols. He watched the trial from a holding cell elsewhere in the courthouse.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162- ... nContent.2

[gwen]

Jury convicts Smart kidnapper, rejects insanity defense

SALT LAKE CITY — A federal jury has convicted a former street preacher of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart more than eight years ago.

The verdict reached Friday finally brought justice for Smart and her family after the ordeal that began when Brian David Mitchell took her from her home at knifepoint and held her captive for nine months when she was 14.

Now 23, Smart testified during the five-week trial that she was forced into a polygamous marriage and endured near daily rapes.

The jury found Mitchell guilty of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for the purposes of illegal sex. It rejected the defense argument that he was not guilty by reason of insanity.

Each charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

'Predatory chameleon'
During the trial, Mitchell was removed daily from the courtroom for singing hymns and disrupting proceedings. Last week, he had a seizure in the holding room where he watches the trial on television. He spent several hours at a hospital before being returned to a jail.

Prosecutors say the 57-year-old is faking mental illness to avoid prosecution.

"He's a predatory chameleon with the cunning to adapt his behavior to serve his needs and desires at any given moment," Assistant U.S. Attorney Diana Hagen said during an 80-minute closing argument.

Hagen told jurors that Mitchell acted deliberately when he took Smart from her home at knifepoint in the middle of the night and threatened her life if she cried out for help. Mitchell was also deliberate when he forced Smart into a polygamous marriage, raped her daily and held her captive for nine months, hiding her behind long robes, a head scarf and veil, and a religious name.

"He stripped her of her clothes, her identity and her innocence," Hagen said.

Hagen said Mitchell didn't eschew mainstream society and live on the streets in the mid-1990s because of either a command from God or because a mental illness, but because he wanted to avoid work, child support payments and income taxes.

He chose when to follow his so-called revelations from God, Hagen said.

"If he chose those ideas then he can certainly choose to conform his conduct to the demands of the law," she said. "He can certainly choose not to rip a child away from her home and family, to rape and abuse her, to keep her bound like an animal, to rob her of her identity, her dignity and her childhood."

Steele disputed that Mitchell could shape his behavior to conform, since he had the delusional belief that he was above everyone else. It was a delusion that drove him to break laws starting at age 16, when he was convicted of exposing himself to an 8-year-old girl.

"It's easy to say that he's just making it up," Steele said during his hourlong closing argument. "But this is sustained, a long-term drive. He thinks he is special. This is not an overnight thing."

Outside the courthouse Steele said Mitchell was waiting for the verdict in the holding cell where he watches court proceedings each day.

"He's pretty indifferent to what is going on," Steele said.
Story: Expert analyzes religious text in Smart case

Now 23, Smart has testified that she was forced into a polygamous marriage with Mitchell after the abduction, held prisoner on a tether and forced to endure nearly daily rapes. She also said Mitchell forced her to wear hand-sewn, religious-looking robes, to use drugs and alcohol, view pornography and to go to California against her will.

Smart has attended the trial, taking a break from serving a religious mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Paris.

Mitchell's estranged wife, Wanda Barzee, pleaded guilty to Smart's kidnapping last year and is serving 15 years in federal prison.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40604990/ns ... nd_courts/

[Fashionista]

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[gwen]

Elizabeth Smart kidnapper Brian David Mitchell leaves Utah for federal prison

SALT LAKE CITY — After more than eight years in custody in the state of Utah, jail officials confirmed Wednesday that convicted kidnapper Brian David Mitchell is en route to federal prison.

Salt Lake County Sheriff's Lt. Michael Deniro, a spokesman for the jail, said Mitchell was transferred out of the Salt Lake County Jail by federal marshals Wednesday.

Though Mitchell became known for his courtroom antics, Mitchell apparently didn't cause any problems in jail.

"He has not been a behavioral problem for us during his stay," Deniro said.

He also said Mitchell's tenure in the county facility came at a low cost as "federal prisoners are fully paid for by the federal government."

The Federal Bureau of Prisons does not provide information regarding inmate movement until the inmate arrives at their designated facility. It normally takes about six to eight weeks after sentencing before an inmate is designated for a certain location.

U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball sentenced Mitchell to life in prison in May in connection with the high profile kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, who was taken at knifepoint from her Federal Heights home in 2002.

The girl recounted in court what she described as "nine months of hell" with Mitchell and his estranged wife, Wanda Barzee. The pair held the then-14-year-old girl captive and in disguise, threatening her if she attempted to escape. She testified that she was raped almost daily.

Though Mitchell was charged and convicted in federal court, he also faced six felonies including aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated burglary in the state court system.

He couldn't be transferred into federal custody until the state case was resolved, so, in July, those charges were dismissed after prosecutors said they couldn't get more than the sentence that was already handed down in federal court.

Several witnesses said Mitchell believes he is a prophet who was commanded to take Smart as his wife. His attorneys have argued that he suffers from mental illness, but jurors, ultimately, decided he still knew right from wrong.

Rebecca Woodridge, Mitchell's former stepdaughter who has visited him in jail almost weekly, has said previously that Mitchell remains firm in his conviction that he was acting according to God's will. He is committed to doing the same wherever he ends up.

"He says he's just ready to move on and do God's work somewhere else," Woodridge said.

Once Mitchell has been transported, his location can be found at: www.bop.gov/inmate_locator.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7053 ... rison.html