SALT LAKE CITY — Brian David Mitchell, the convicted rapist and kidnapper of Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday, FOX News Channel reported.
Mitchell had earlier waived his right to be present in the courtroom during the sentencing, but he entered the room approximately 30 minutes after the hearing began, singing “O come, O come, Emmanuel,” the Deseret News reported.
Smart, 23, addressed Mitchell directly at the hearing.
“I don’t have very much to say to you,” she said, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. “I know exactly what you did. I know that you know what you did was wrong. You did it with a full knowledge. I also want you to know that I have a wonderful life now, that no matter what you do will it affect me again.”
“You took away 9 months of my life that can never be returned, but in this life or next, you will have to be held responsible for those actions, and I hope you are ready for when that time comes.”
Ed Smart, the victim’s father, told Mitchell he had put Elizabeth through “nine months of psychological hell.”
“Whether it’s your time on earth or in eternity, you’re going to have to face the guilt,” Ed Smart said, according to the Tribune. “I hope at some point in your life you’re going to be able to repent of it.”
Outside the courthouse, Elizabeth Smart expressed gratitude “to everyone that ever prayed for me, that ever searched for me, that ever put in time thinking about me, that made an effort to bring me home,” and she urged listeners to pray for children who are still missing.
“I am so thrilled with the results that came out today, the life sentence — I couldn’t be happier,” she said, beaming.
“Today is the ending of a very long chapter and the beginning of a very beautiful chapter for me,” she added later.
The 57-year-old Mitchell was found guilty in December 2010 of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity.
Smart, then 14, was taken at knifepoint from her parents’ home in Salt Lake City on June 5, 2002, raped on a near-daily basis and transported to California and back over a nine-month period.
She was found alive on March 12, 2003 when an alert biker who had heard about the kidnapping on “America’s Most Wanted,” spotted her in Sandy, Utah, about 18 miles from her home, in the company of Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. She was dressed in a gray wig, sunglasses and veil.
Barzee pleaded guilty to federal charges of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor and is serving a 15-year prison sentence.
Mitchell’s attorneys had argued their client should not receive a sentence longer than suggested guidelines, which call for a 30-year minimum, saying Barzee shared culpability with her husband, the Tribune reported. They also asked US District Judge Dale Kimball to take Mitchell’s mental history into consideration.
Prosecutors, however, said Mitchell was responsible for orchestrating the kidnapping.
During Mitchell’s five-week trial, his defense team argued he was not mentally fit to stand trial. Questions over his sanity were the subject of lengthy pre-trial hearings, delaying the proceedings for years.
He was removed from court daily for disrupting proceedings by singing hymns.
Prosecutors argued Mitchell obstructed justice by feigning mental illness, the Tribune reported.