Pretty crazy stuff. I guess this comes as no huge surprise all things considered, but it sort of confirms the worst. She sounds reasonably well adjusted given the circumstances. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20309630,00.html For the first time since she was abducted from her Salt Lake City bedroom seven years ago, Elizabeth Smart on Thursday provided details about her nine-month ordeal with her accused kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell. She described being drugged, tied to a tree and raped as often as four times a day. Smart was prepared to meet Mitchell face to face in a federal court, but that never happened. Yet before Smart was called to the stand, her alleged abductor, Mitchell, began singing a Mormon hymn as he entered the courtroom at 9 a.m. Judge Dale Kimball ordered him to stop, but he refused and was immediately sent to a holding cell to watch the proceedings via a television monitor. In his absence Smart, 21, calmly recounted her time with Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. She told U.S. Attorney Brett L. Tolman that Mitchell raped her daily, beginning June 5, 2002, the night she was abducted from her home at knifepoint. "He placed his hand on my chest," she recalled of the night Mitchell allegedly entered her bedroom and took her away, "and then put the knife up to my neck. He told me to get up quietly and if I didn't then he would kill me and my family." Ritual Wedding She continued: "He was whispering, but it was still loud enough it could wake someone. He was dressed in sweats, sweatshirt, stocking cap, tennis shoes." Mitchell led her into a camp in the woods three miles behind her house, she said, then took her into a lean-to where Wanda Barzee tried to force her to bathe. "She eventually just proceeded to wash my feet and told me to change out of my pajamas into a robe type of garment," Smart recalled. "And when I refused, she said if I didn't, she would have Brian Mitchell come rip my pajamas off. I put the robe on ... he came and performed a ceremony, which was to marry me to him. After that, he proceeded to rape me." Religion and Sex Smart told the court that she was tethered to a tree by a cable except when she was being raped by Mitchell – sometimes four times a day. "Of your nine months with him, what was his dominant focus?" asked U.S. Attorney Tolman. "Sex," replied Smart. Mitchell has twice been found incompetent for trial in Utah state court, so Smart's testimony that he kidnapped her for sex, not because of religion, is critical to the federal case. "Did he speak to you about religion?" asked Tolman her. "He used religion to get what he wanted," said Smart. According to her testimony, Mitchell provided her with drugs and alcohol to lower her resistance. Smart said that she once became sick when Mitchell forced her to drink too much alcohol, and he forced her to lay face down in her vomit all night. He also showed her p*rnography, she said. She described the self-avowed prophet as "evil," "manipulative," "greedy" and "not close to God." He Called Her Augustine According to Smart, Mitchell changed her name to Augustine and forced her to go without food for days at a time. She said she attempted to fight Mitchell's sexual attacks once by biting him. "He said if I did that, he would never have sex with me again and I would be the most miserable woman in the world," she testified. "He said that but it didn't stop him." Smart's parents, Ed and Lois Smart, were on hand to hear the painful testimony. They have said they never pressed her for details about her ordeal. Smart leaves on a mission to France next month for the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Her testimony will be used during Mitchell's federal competency hearing on Nov. 30.
It's horrific,but not surprising. She is a very brave and strong young woman. May God,save us all from these evil people.
Here is the full transcript of her testimony: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13462888 It sounds like it's pretty important to the case that they prove that this guy isn't just a religious nutjob and/or crazy. He's already been ruled unfit to testify twice, but from her testimony she's pretty much saying he's very intelligent and well spoken in private and/or when things are safe, but when confronted with a dangerous situation or some kind of authority or whatever, he turns on the "nutjob" act with the singing and everything. This guy needs to go down.
This sounds like something that would happen in big love. This is specially troubling: "He used religion to get what he wanted," said Smart.
I'm sorry for bringing this up.... but the whole dichotomy of "he used religion to get what he wanted" coupled with Smart's continued religious inclination is just weird (or surprising) to me.
Why? She has faith in God (I guess, don't know much about her) and witnessed someone abusing religion. Why should one impact the other? Don't most people who believe in some sort of religion know that there are those who abuse their religion to varying levels of perversion?
Man this story freaks me out having a little girl ... Regarding Elizabeth Smart ... My current Wife (then girlfriend) was working by herself at a pager store in Lakeside, CA (some would say an area outside San Diego with a little racial tension) and we were talking on AIM. Then she started freaking out because she was saying there was an Arab family with a little girl in front of her store and these Skinheads were eyeing them down and harassing them. She was worried they were going to do something. Eventually everything calmed down and she said they got away. A month later or so, Elizabeth Smart is found, and pictures from that day when they were in front of my wife's place of employment were all over the news and it turned out that the kid was Elizabeth Smart.
Props to Elizabeth Smart for having the strength to publically testify with her abductor in the same room.
One thing I was wondering about the Smart case and the Jaycee Dugard case is that in both situations the abductors were married and their wives fully cooperated with them. I'm wondering what these women must think while they are helping their husbands kidnap, rape and torture teenage girls?
she may not be chasing religion...she may be chasing God. i don't find it strange because it's akin to my views...though nowhere close in degree, to be sure.
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It seems kind of strange she never got pregnant, and never tried to escape even when alone if she was raped four times a day.
