Tuesday, November 9, 2010

I Was Mad at Myself' During Abduction said by Elizabeth | Elizabeth Smart

Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped at knifepoint after the Several weeks , the ordeal could have ended immediately when she met a police detective during a visit to the Salt Lake City library. 

As the officer attempted to lift the veil Smart was wearing, her alleged abductor, Brian David Mitchell, yelled that the veil was important for religious purposes and that only Mitchell was allowed to see her face. 

"I was mad at myself that I didn't say anything," she said on her second day of testimony at Mitchell's trial in federal court in Salt Lake City. "I felt terrible that the detective hadn't pushed harder and had just walked away." 

As she had in Monday's testimony, Smart, 23, spoke in a soft but steady voice as she described her horrifying nine months in captivity starting in 2002 that she said included being tethered by a cable and subjected to sexual assault by Mitchell when she was 14 years old. 

During her testimony, she ignored Mitchell as he was removed from the courtroom again for singing – this time it was the hymn "Reverently, Quietly."

Smart began by recalling how Mitchell forced her to burn her red silk pajamas because they tied her to her family, and changed her name to "Shear-Jashub," a name meaning "the remnant will return" from the book of Isaiah. 

When she asked to be called by a different name, Mitchell agreed, as long as the name was from the Bible. Smart chose the name Esther. 

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