Judge: Smart's Alleged Abductor Fakes Mental Illness

Brian Mitchell ruled competent to stand trial
By Will McCahill,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 1, 2010 8:13 PM CST
Judge: Smart's Alleged Abductor Fakes Mental Illness
Brian David Mitchell, the alleged kidnapper of Elizabeth Smart, is seen in a 2006 photo.   (AP Photo)

The man charged in the 2002 kidnap and rape of then-14-year-old Elizabeth Smart has been faking mental illness and is in fact competent to stand trial, a Utah judge ruled today. Nothing “impedes his rational and factual understanding,” Dale Kimball writes of Brian Mitchell, 56. “It is great, it is the beginning of the end,” Smart’s father tells ABC News, “and this time Mitchell is going to have to face the music.” A trial date could be set this month.
(More Elizabeth Smart stories.)

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