Street preacher found guilty of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart – Reuters
(Reuters) – A homeless street preacher was found guilty on Friday of kidnapping teenager Elizabeth Smart, whose shocking abduction and nine-month ordeal gripped much of America more than eight years ago.
A federal jury in Salt Lake City convicted Brian David Mitchell, 57, on two counts: kidnapping and transporting a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in sexual activity.
The self-styled prophet, who had been ejected from court daily for disrupting the proceedings, loudly sang the hymn, “He Died, the Great Redeemer Died” in the packed courtroom as the verdicts were read.
Smart, now a young woman of 23 who testified during the six-week trial about her abduction at knife-point, rape and captivity in graphic detail, exchanged smiles with her mother, Lois in the front row of the courtroom gallery.
Mitchell’s step-daughter, Rebecca Woodridge, sobbed.
Prosecutors said Mitchell kidnapped Smart from her Salt Lake City home on June 5, 2002, when she was 14, with the intent of forcing her to live as his young bride.
Mitchell, whose attorneys mounted an insanity defense, faces life in prison when he is sentenced on May 25.
“The beginning and ending of this story is attributed to a woman with extraordinary courage and extraordinary determination, and that woman is Elizabeth Smart,” Acting U.S. Attorney Carlie Christensen told reporters outside the courthouse.
“Her ability and willingness to recall the graphic details of her nine-month captivity, and she did it with candor and clarity and truthfulness, I think moved all of us,” Christensen said. “She is a remarkable young woman.”
Smart’s abduction in the middle of the night, from the bed she shared with her sister, made international headlines and a nine-month search for the missing teen was covered exhaustively on U.S. news programs.
In dramatic testimony during the prosecution case, Smart testified that Mitchell kidnapped her at knifepoint, marched her several miles into the foothills above Salt Lake City and raped her in a make-shift encampment.
She described her time as Mitchell’s captive as “nine months of hell” in which she was at first kept chained by the ankle to a tree and raped nearly every day, often repeatedly. Smart was rescued on March 12, 2003 after passersby spotted her walking with Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on a street in the Salt Lake City suburb of Sandy.
Barzee, 64, pleaded guilty in November, 2009 to conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping and is serving a 15-year prison term. She cooperated with prosecutors in the case.
(Reporting by James Nelson, writing by Dan Whitcomb, editing by Greg McCune)
Via: Street preacher guilty of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart | Reuters.
