Elizabeth Smart told yesterday of her "indescribable fear" at being kidnapped at knife-point from her Salt Lake City home as a 14-year-old.
"I was woken up. There was a strange man's voice and something cold across my neck," Ms. Smart told a court in Salt Lake City. "I remember him saying '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 your family.' I thought I was having a nightmare. It was indescribable fear."
Ms. Smart, now a 23-year-old college student, testified during the opening day of the trial of Brian Mitchell, a homeless handyman accused of kidnapping her in 2002. She spent nine months in Mr. Mitchell's custody before she was rescued after passersby recognized her walking with Mr. Mitchell and his wife.
In their opening statements, Mr. Mitchell's lawyers said there was no argument about the facts of the case, but the why remained to be plumbed.
Parker Douglas told the court Mr. Mitchell believed that God was giving him direct commands -- ordering him to give up his children for adoption and to take multiple wives, including Ms. Smart.
He said Mr. Mitchell had been mentally disturbed since his early teens. "He becomes cruel and sadistic in his treatment of his mother and siblings," People magazine reported the lawyer saying.
"His life is marked by an intense set of beliefs and intense reactions to other people... It's a pattern, a search for deep connection... a belief that he has found something that gives him a certainty or a meaning in life."
Taking the stand a little later, Ms. Smart testified how she awoke one night in June 2002 to feel a knife at her throat and a strange man in her room as she slept beside her sister.
"He said he was taking me hostage, for ransom," Ms. Smart told the court, according to The Associated Press.
She recounted how she was marched up a hill to an encampment where Mr. Mitchell's wife, Wanda Barzee, was waiting. Shortly afterwards, a fake marriage took place, after which Mr. Mitchell raped her repeatedly.
"I remember asking him if he realized what he was doing, and he said he did," she said, according to a report on CNN.
"And I remember saying that if he let me go right now, we wouldn't press charges on him. And he said he knew exactly what he was doing and he understood the consequences of his actions."
Ms. Smart was spared having to see her abductor yesterday as he was removed from the courtroom for repeatedly singing hymns.
read more:Elizabeth Smart tells of kidnap terror
