Elizabeth Smart Testifies Publicly for The 1st Time

Now 21, Elizabeth Smart's testimony will be used to determine whether Brian David Mitchell is mentally competent to face federal kidnapping charges. Mitchell has twice been found incompetent for trial in state court. For the first time Smart revealed how her kidnapper raped her daily, and used religion as a justification.

Elizabeth Smart's testimony included this horrific statement: "Any time that I showed resistance or hesitation he (Brian David Mitchell) turned to me and said, 'The Lord says you have to do this, you have to experience the lowest form of humanity to experience the highest.'"

Elizabeth Smart said that Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee, chained her to a tree at a campsite in a remote canyon in the mountains behind their house. She testified that she was raped daily, sometimes more than once.

Elizabeth Smart was rescued nine months after her abduction when a motorist spotted her walking through a suburb with Brian David Mitchell and his wife.

Last year, Brian David Mitchell was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor. However, he has been uncooperative with regards to mental health testing, and the judge in this hearing, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball, used this as justification for Elizabeth Smart to testify on her opinions of his mental competency, saying Smart's testimony may finally help the court settle differences in the findings of experts who have evaluated Mitchell.

Brian David Mitchell is said by some to have wanted Smart as a polygamous wife. He may have taken her to fulfill a religious "prophecy" he laid out in a 27-page manifesto drafted in April 2002.