Elizabeth Smart Steps Down From Stand, Paints Brian David Mitchell as Brutal Zealot

Nov. 11, 2010— -- When Elizabeth Smart stepped down from the stand, ending three days of excruciatingly personal testimony Wednesday, she had painted her accused kidnapper as a brutally cruel, religious zealot obsessed with sex.

Speaking in a controlled voice, her words tinged with anger, Smart called Brian David Mitchell selfish and a "hypocrite" who raped her at every chance he got even while proclaiming himself to be God's servant.

"I'm always impressed by her grace, her dignity, but most of all her courage," John Walsh of "America's Most Wanted" told "Good Morning America" today. "She's been waiting to get on that witness stand for years."

The now 23-year-old woman told the jury that Mitchell talked to her during her nine months in captivity about what would happen if they were captured.

"He knew he would go to prison. But then he also said that I ... and the other wives ... would come and testify in his behalf," Smart testified. "And he said that he would be released and he would be killed and lie dead in the street for three days and then he would be resurrected and he would go on to fight the Anti-Christ."

She also spoke of being forced to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana, which disgusted her.

Smart was 14 when she was kidnapped from her bed in Utah. She has said she was forced to "marry" Mitchell in an impromptu ceremony shortly after the kidnapping and that he would often beg her for sex, angering accomplice Wanda Barzee, who was jealous of the attention Mitchell gave Smart.

Already paranoid, Smart said, Mitchell was greatly disturbed by a newspaper article -- the only one she was ever allowed to see during her time in captivity -- that featured a picture of Walsh and a report that "America's Most Wanted" was looking for her.

Walsh said Mitchell's reaction was why he has worked so hard to pursue criminals and protect children.

He called Mitchell a "low-life creep" and said Smart's testimony proved she's not a victim, but a survivor.

During her three days on the stand, Smart was poised and unruffled as she detailed her nightmarish nine months with Mitchell and Barzee. She said that at one point she was confronted by a police officer looking for Elizabeth Smart and he wanted to look under the veil Mitchell made her wear. She was so afraid of Mitchell's death threats that she didn't speak up and was heartsick that the officer wasn't more persistent.

That officer, Det. Ron Richey, has said he was devastated to learn later that he had been looking right at Smart and didn't do more to help her.

When she was finally rescued, she initially denied her identity out of fear that Mitchell would make good on his death threats.

Barzee pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges last year and was later sentenced to 15 years in prison.