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SALT LAKE CITY — Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping and recovery, and subsequent trial of Brian David Mitchell, captured national, even worldwide attention. It is a story KSL News has covered intensely for nearly a decade.

Many Utahns became emotionally involved, watching the Smart family's anguish turn to joy, and then feeling confused at who was arrested and horrified during the trial of Brian David Mitchell.

Early on the morning of June 5, 2002, Ed and Lois Smart alerted police that their 14-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, had been kidnapped from their Salt Lake City home.

"Both myself and my wife are just praying that something will happen and we'll find her," Ed Smart told reporters.

Hundreds volunteered to search the hills above the house, flyers went up throughout the city, and then the case drew national media attention.

Nine months later, on March 12, 2003, Utahns who had watched "America's Most Wanted" spotted a curious threesome in Sandy, dressed in white robes.

"When I took a closer look at her, I recognized her as possibly resembling Elizabeth smart," Sandy Police Officer Troy Rasmussen said in a 2003 interview.

The joyous family reunion then became a community celebration.

Soon, attention turned to the arrest of her accused captors: Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. Several times, they were declared incompetent to stand trial.

Barzee was forcibly medicated and on November 17, 2009. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In November of 2010, Elizabeth Smart interrupted her Latter-day Saint mission to testify against Mitchell, calmly telling a chilling story of daily rape.

On December 10, 2010, Mitchell was convicted and Elizabeth Smart spoke. "It is possible to move on after something terrible has happened," she declared.

Elizabeth Smart's focus now is a new initiative: teaching children to fight back against their kidnappers. "If we could cut down all kidnappings by 50 percent, what a miracle that would be," she said in an interview conducted shortly before Wednesday's sentencing.

Mitchell's sentence will likely keep him rotating through the federal prison. Elizabeth Smart says she will return to BYU to complete her degree this fall.

Email: cmikita@ksl.com

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