Elizabeth Smart kidnapping trial

Note: Read a transcript of Elizabeth Smart's testimony here: sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50632966-76/smart-viti-yes-award.html.csp

Note: Read the testimony of Mary Katherine Smart by clicking here: sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50632306-76/smart-cook-elizabeth-yes.html.csp

Elizabeth Smart on Monday told a packed Salt Lake City courtroom how she willed herself to survive nine months of captivity and sexual assaults at the hands of Brian David Mitchell.

now 23, Elizabeth told jurors what her life as a 14 year old was like before Mitchell took her from her Federal Heights home on the night of June 4, 2002.

"I was interested in excelling in school," she said of herself at the time. "I loved to read, loved to horseback ride, enjoyed running, I was very dedicated to playing the harp and learning how to perform with the harp."

but that all changed, Elizabeth testified, when Mitchell used a cable to tether her in an outdoor camp where he and his wife hid her from the world. soon, she said, he began raping her.

"He had succeeded in taking me up to his camp, he had threatened me and tethered me between two trees like an animal, and at that point I felt like it didn't matter," Elizabeth told the court. "I felt like because what he had done to me, I was marked, I wasn't clean, I wasn't pure, I wasn't worth the same…I felt like I could take the risk of being killed and try to escape."

yet a time came when Elizabeth said she changed her mind.

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"I started to think about my family, my parents, what my life had been before," she testified. "It didn't matter what happened to me, my parents would always love me, no matter what he did to me. That couldn't be changed, that I was still a person of worth…no matter what it took, I would live, I would survive. I would do everything he told me to do to keep my life and my family's life intact."

Elizabeth began her testimony just after 11 a.m. Monday and continued until court concluded for the day at 2 p.m. she will continue her testimony when court resumes Tuesday morning.

Elizabeth was the third witness to testify, following her mother, Lois, and her younger sister, Mary Katherine.

Mitchell was removed from the courtroom prior to opening statements in his trial Monday. He had entered the courtroom singing "In Memory of the Crucified," before U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball ordered him removed to view the proceedings remotely.

Lois Smart told the court she met Mitchell in 2001 as she was shopping in downtown Salt Lake City. Her children, she said, urged her to give the apparently down-on-his-luck Mitchell some money. Lois Smart testified she gave Mitchell her husband's name and phone number to contact about doing odd jobs at the Smart home.

"He looked like he was a clean-cut, well-kept man who needed some help to get along with his life," Lois Smart said of her impression of Mitchell.

Mitchell didn't mention religion or pay special attention to Elizabeth, she said.

"I thought he was a man down on luck. He just lost his job, looked young enough that maybe he had a family, people he was responsible for," Lois Smart said.

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Elizabeth Smart kidnapping trial

captivity, david mitchell, elizabeth smart, sexual assaults, testimony, viti