Utah Jury Finds Elizabeth Smart Kidnapper Guilty

Eight years after her 2002 knifepoint abduction, Elizabeth Smart smiled Friday as a Federal jury in Salt Lake City, Utah,  convicted her deranged kidnapper Brain Mitchell for subjecting her to "nine months of hell."

"I hope that not only is this an example that justice can be served in America but that it is possible to move on after something terrible has happened," Smart said.

Mitchell abducted the then-14-year-old Smart from her Salt Lake City bedroom at knifepoint on June 5, 2002,  and threatened  to kill her if she screamed for help. Smart, now 23, testified during the five-week long trial that she was immediately forced into a polygamous marriage with her deranged captor.

Mitchell, now 57, subjected her to near-daily rapes - sometimes four times a day - while forcing her to drink and take drugs, she recounted. He also kept her leg bolted to a cable attached to two trees to prevent her escape.

Smart, who was joined by her parents for the jury's verdict, was rescued on March 12, 2003 when she was spotted walking on a street in Sandy, Utah, with Mitchell and his real wife.

She flew home from a Mormon mission in Paris, France to relive what she remembered as "nine months of hell."

The defendant, after his insanity defense failed, sang hymns with his hands folded while the verdict was read.

Prosecutors insisted the suspect's crazy act, which caused the case to be delayed for years by fights over his mental competence, was a ruse.

Mitchell could face up to life in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 25, 2011. However, a judge also could impose an unspecified, lesser sentence, prosecutors said.