Elizabeth Smart begins testimony at kidnapping trial

On her first day of testimony, the 23-year-old told the court how her harrowing ordeal began eight years ago when she awoke with a knife at her throat.

Smart testified yesterday that Brian David Mitchell came into her room in the middle of the night and told her to come with him or he would kill her. A few hours later Mitchell used a Mormon religious ritual to marry Smart in a tent in the hills outside the city, and then raped her, she said. She was 14 at the time. Mitchell was removed from court yesterday for singing hymns. A state trial against him was thrown out when a judge ruled he was mentally incompetent, but a federal trial has gone ahead. Mitchell frequently took Smart out in public, her face covered with a veil, and nine months after she was kidnapped two motorists recognized her.