SALT LAKE CITY — Homeless street preacher Brian David Mitchell will spend life behind bars for kidnapping 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart in 2002 to make the girl a plural wife.
U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ordered the prison sentence Wednesday after hearing attorneys debate what type of sentence the 57-year-old should receive and testimony from the now 23-year-old Smart.
Kimball said the crime was “an unusually heinous and degrading set of circumstances. A life sentence reflects the seriousness of the crime.”
Although Mitchell was singing hymns including “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Come, Come, Ye Saints” in the courtroom, Kimball allowed him to remain.
Dressed in a gray striped skirt and yellow blouse, Smart took the witness stand for about 30 seconds to confront her abductor in court for the first time since the abduction ended. Smart spoke evenly and faced him directly.
“I don’t have very much to say to you,” she said as Mitchell sat singing softly, with his eyes closed and hands clasped.
“I know exactly what you did,” Smart said. “I know that you know what you did was wrong. You did it with a full knowledge. I also want you to know that I have a wonderful life now, that no matter what you do, it will not affect me again.
“You took away nine months of my life that can never be returned. But in this life or next, you will have to be held responsible for those actions, and I hope you are ready for when that time comes.”
Smart’s father, Ed, also addressed Mitchell.
“Your perversion and exploitation of religion is not a defense,” Ed Smart said. “It is disgusting, and it is an abuse that anyone should despise. Regardless of what the defense has proposed, you put Elizabeth through nine months of psychological hell.
“I hope at some time in your life you find out what you have done is wrong. Whether it’s your time on Earth or in eternity, you’re going to have to face the guilt. . . . I hope at some point in your life you’re going to be able to repent of it.”
Prosecutor Felice Viti described how Smart’s world changed after she was abducted from the bedroom she shared with her sister, Mary Katherine.
“Ms. Smart’s world changed, changed suddenly, violently and without warning,” Viti said. “For Ms. Smart, the bogeyman under the bed and the monster in the closet became real.”
During Mitchell’s trial, Smart testified in excruciating detail about waking up in the early hours of June 5, 2002, to the feel of a cold, jagged knife at her throat and being whisked away by Mitchell to his camp in the foothills near the family home.
Within hours of the kidnapping, she testified, she was stripped of her favorite red pajamas; draped in white, religious robes; and forced into a polygamous marriage with Mitchell. She was tethered to a metal cable strung between two trees and subjected to near-daily rapes while being forced to take alcohol and drugs.
The disappearance and a massive search to find her riveted the nation, as did her improbable recovery while walking with her captor on a suburban Salt Lake City-area street on March 12, 2003.
The facts of the case have never been in dispute, but defense attorneys have said Mitchell’s actions were tainted by mental illness and long-held delusional beliefs that he had been commanded by God to fulfill important prophecies.
As he left the courtroom, Mitchell tripped slightly and fell but caught himself. Members of the Smart family smiled slightly as he left.
Mitchell has 10 days to appeal his sentence. Defense attorney Parker Douglas said the defense team is still considering an appeal. He said he had not heard much from Mitchell either way on the subject.
Wanda Barzee, Mitchell’s estranged wife and a co-defendant in the case, is already serving a 15-year sentence in a federal prison hospital in Texas for her role in the kidnapping.
Elizabeth Smart spoke outside the federal courthouse just after 4 p.m, telling reporters, “Today is the end of a very long chapter and the beginning of a very beautiful chapter for me.”
She also highlighted the cases of other missing children and said she was excited to continue working in the child advocacy arena and with her Elizabeth Smart Foundation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
