A Salt Lake City judge sentenced Brian David Mitchell to life in prison Wednesday for the 2002 kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. Smart, now 23, addressed Mitchell directly after the sentencing, telling him “I know you know exactly what you did… you took away nine months of my life that can never be returned, but in this life or the next, you will be held responsible for those actions.” Mitchell, a former fundamentalist Mormon street preacher, broke into then-14-year-old Smart’s home and abducted her. With his wife, Wanda Barzee, Mitchell held Smart captive, sexually assaulting her for nine months while wandering through Utah and California. Defense lawyers had asked for a lighter sentence because of Mitchell’s mental illness, but Judge Dale Kimball called the crime “unusually heinous.”
