Like many of you I have been following the Trial of Brian David Mitchell, the man notorious for kidnapping Elizabeth Smart. Her story is one of the greatest stories of survival I have ever read.
Not many people I know think anything but highly of Elizabeth Smart. Her ability to survive the harshest of circumstances amazes me. It is especially amazing that she was only 14 years old at the time.
Over the last few weeks I have spent a lot of my free time reading any of the transcripts I could find. Many nights as I would ride home Stephanie would be stuck driving in silence as I finished reading the transcripts for the day.
I found testimonies by Mitchell's father and wife to be rather interesting. They gave insight into the mind of a person who is unmistakably self-serving.
Obviously the most insightful testimony of all was Elizabeth Smart's own. Only her testimony really relayed the information of what happened over the course of her 9 month abduction. I found myself at times crying at my computer as she mentioned again and again in what appeared to be a very matter of fact manner that "then he raped me," which was all too often followed up with a short statement followed up by "then he raped me again."
Descriptions of the threats which she lived under appalled me. And yet she still managed to find a way to survive long enough to be found. All too tragic is the fact that so many times when a child is abducted they are only ever found postmortem.
Elizabeth ultimately helped orchestrate her own rescue. When they were contemplating where to go after San Diego Elizabeth cunningly used Mitchell's own desires for more young girls to her own benefit and managed to convince him to return to Utah. A couple of weeks later and she was back in the arms of her family.
I know that this story is oft repeated in the news. I just wanted to throw my two cents at it. Though I was not involved in any way this story effected me so much that I have to put it here.
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