SALT LAKE CITY — Taking the stand for the first time since she was snatched from her girlhood bedroom seven years ago, Elizabeth Smart testified Thursday that her captor raped her three or four times a day, kept her tied up with a cable around her leg, and threatened to kill her if she tried to escape.
Asked by a prosecutor to describe Brian David Mitchell, the self-described prophet accused of holding her captive for nine months, Smart replied: “Evil, wicked, manipulative, stinky, slimy, greedy, selfish, not spiritual, not religious, not close to God.”
Smart, now a 21-year-old college student, gave her horrifying account in federal court as part of a proceeding over whether Mitchell is mentally competent to stand trial.
Smart testified that within hours of her 2002 kidnapping at knifepoint, she was led away to a secluded mountain campsite and in a quickie ceremony became the polygamous “wife” of the older man.
“After that he proceeded to rape me,” Smart said.
She said Mitchell showed her pornography and plied her with alcohol and drugs to lower her resistance to his sexual advances.
Once, Smart said, she tried to fight Mitchell off by biting him.
On the stand for nearly two hours, Smart was poised, her voice never wavering. She did not come face-to-face with Mitchell. He was removed from the courtroom for disruptive behavior — singing hymns — before Smart arrived, and watched the proceedings from a holding cell.
Smart was 14 when she was abducted from her bedroom in the middle of the night. In a surprising turn that transfixed the country, she was rescued in March 2003 after a motorist spotted her walking the streets of a Salt Lake City suburb with Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee.
Smart testified that in the days immediately following the kidnapping, Mitchell held her captive with a 10-foot cable bolted to her leg and tethered to a line stretched between two trees. She said Mitchell threatened to kill her if she yelled or tried to get away.
Smart said Mitchell would rape her three to four times a day. There was some respite — usually when Barzee became upset over Mitchell’s relationship with Smart — but it never lasted, Smart said.
Mitchell is charged in state court with kidnapping and sexual assault. Smart said she believed Mitchell always knew that he could be punished for her kidnapping and understood how the court system worked.
She said he gave her an alias — Augustine Marshall — and told her what to say to police if they were ever questioned. He also bragged about skirting previous accusations of sexual abuse and fooling others, Smart said.
Never in nine months did Mitchell appear confused or out of control, Smart testified: “He was a very capable, intelligent human being.”
