Sister To Testify In Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping Trial
More than eight years after the kidnapping that shocked a country took place, the trial of the man charged with the abduction of Elizabeth Smart finally began in Salt Lake City‘s U.S. District Court. After several days were spent selecting the jury, it was time for the testimonies of those who witnessed the kidnapping.
Mary Katherine Smart, Elizabethʼs younger sister, recalled before the court the night her sister disappeared. Katherine, who was only 9 when Elizabeth was kidnapped, rembered that her family followed its usual rutine that night eight years ago. They said a family prayer and Elizabeth read her a story before going to bed. The two sisters shared a bed and Katherine, now 18, said she woke up a little bit later and saw that her sister was not in bed, but in the middle of the room with a man. He had a knife and the two talked for few minutes before leaving together. The girl remembered that she was affraid that the man would take her as well, so she pretended to be asleep. After her sister and the mysterious man left, Katherine eventually made her courage and went into her parentsʼs room, telling them what had just happened.
Initially, Mary Katherine Smart said she could not identify the man that took her sister. She spent the rest of the summer with her grandmother, before returning home. And then, one night, it struck her: the man she saw that night was Immanuel, a man she had met a year earlier while shopping with her family. Immanuel was one of the names used by Brian David Mitchell, the man who is now on trial for the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart.
Katherineʼs testimony came only a day after her mother, Lois Smart, took the stand. The woman told the court how she met Mitchell in 2001 while shopping in downtown Salt Lake City. She recalled that Mitchell looked like a beggar and her children ran towards him to give him some money. Eventually Lois gave him her husbandʼs name and phone number to contact him about doing some jobs around the Smart residence. The woman remembered Mitchell to be a clean-cut, well-kept man who seemed to have run out of luck and just needed a little bit of help to get on his feet again. He never spoke of religion and didnʼt pay any special attention to Elizabeth. Lois also remebered that on the night her daughter was taken, Mary Katherine came running into her room saying that Elizabeth was gone and speaking of a scared rabbit. The family called 911 and start looking for Elizabeth. They saw that the screen on their open kitchen window had been cut, but the girl was nowhere to be found.
But the most important testimony is that of Elizabeth Smart herself. The girl, now 23, was only 14 years-old when she was taken away from her family. She described herself as a girl interested in excelling in school, who loved to read, loved to horseback ride, enjoyed running and very dedicated to playing the harp and learning how to perform with the harp. But then the nightmare began, when Brian David Mitchell came into her bedroom and, threatening her with a knife, took her away from her family. He tied her up with a cable and took her to an outdoor camp where he and his wife used to live.
There Mitchell staged a marriage ceremony and than raped the girl. He tethered her between two trees and threatened her several times he would kill her and her entire family if she tried to escape. Neverthelss his threats did not stop Elizabeth from planinng her escape, as she didnʼt want to spend another day as a ”plural wife” of the homeless street preacher and his wife. The girl began trying to win Mitchellʼs trust and thus mimicking his belief that God spoke to him and told him to prepare the world for the second coming of Jesus Christ. But this did not stop Mitchell from sexually abusing her. Elizabeth remembered that one morning she was ordered to get naked like Adam and Eve in the Garden and then forced to watch him and his wife making sex. Afterwards the man raped her again. Brian David Mitchell also forced her to drink and smoke. But eventually the nighmare ended nine moths later, when Mitchell was seen travelling with two women in Sandy, Utah, by a biker who had heard of the kidnapping on a TV show the night before. He alerted the police, who took the three in custody. And, during the questioning, the police recognized Elizabeth Smart and the girl was reunited with her family.
Despite the fact that Brian David Mitchell and his wife were arrested as Elizabethʼs kidnappers, the trial did not start untill the beginning of this month, after almost eight years of delays. In 2003, Mitchell was charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault, but the man was diagnosed with a delusional disorder and a judge declared him not fit to stand trial. He was locked up in a state hospital, refusing treatment, but earlier this year an expert witness testified that he was in fact faking the mental illness to avoid prosecution.
Brian David Mitchell was eventually declared competent to stand trial and thus his case could be brought before a jury. But it looks like it is going to be a long trial, with prosecutors expected to call as many as 22 witnesses. If convicted, Mitchell could spend the rest of his life behind bars, in a federal prison.
