 Elizabeth Smart, whose 2002 kidnapping captivated Americans, told jurors Tuesday how a Salt Lake City police detective tried to see behind her veil but backed down when the man accused of kidnapping her said her face was hidden for religious reasons. And I had some blue toenail polish that my younger sister and I had painted our toenails earlier with it. Elizabeth Smart took the witness stand Tuesday morning for a second day of testimony, focusing on how Brian David Mitchell forced her to comply with his demands  even as they ventured from a mountain campsite into the public. I felt upset with myself that I hadn't done anything, that I hadn't taken a chance...." 
 
 Smart also went into the difficulties of life in California, where the trio traveled by bus. Mitchell, 57, faces life in prison if he is convicted of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. At the library, Smart detailed how close she came to being rescued when a Salt Lake City homicide detective approached the trio and asked Smart to lift her veil. He said I needed to get rid of it so there couldn't be any sort of mark or sign that I was Elizabeth Smart." Under the table, Mitchell's wife at the time, Wanda Eileen Barzee, squeezed Smart's leg _ a sign, Smart said, that she should remain quiet. "He asked if he could be a part of our religion for a day, just so he could see my face, just so he could go back (to the police station) and say, 'no it wasn't Elizabeth Smart'," she said. Mitchell refused to allow the detective to lift Smart's veil, and the detective left, Smart testified. Afterward, Mitchell sped up plans to move the trio away from Utah, so Smart would not be discovered, she told jurors. "He told me that I needed to stay next to him at all times and that if I tried to run away, I would be killed," Smart said, describing her first venture into the city. Smart said Mitchell took her to a noisy, "rave-type" party he was invited to by a grocery store employee he had befriended. "He said this is my daughter and she can't talk to you," she said. Smart also recounted Mitchell's failed attempt to kidnap her cousin in July of 2002, and his efforts to distance her from her family by making her refer to her parents as Ed and Lois. There they might find another wife for Mitchell, she told him, in Mormon girls' camps held in the mountains. The following day, Mitchell forced Smart to metaphorically sever any remaining ties with her family by burning the red pajamas she had been wearing on the night she was taken. Smart said she retrieved a safety pin from the pajamas and a piece of her shoe and put them in a three-ring binder she had at the time. When asked why she did so on the witness stand, Smart replied: "Because I didn't want to let go of my family, of my life."
– Elizabeth Smart continued her poised testimony today, explaining that she didn't try to escape captor Brian David Mitchell because he promised to kill her family if she did. The Salt Lake Tribune highlights this wrenching detail: Mitchell forced her to burn the red pajamas she had on when he abducted her, and she secretly saved a safety pin "because I didn’t want to let go of my family, of my life.” Mitchell also made her refer to her parents as Ed and Lois to try to distance the then 14-year-old from them. At another point, Smart testified that a Salt Lake City police detective approached her, Mitchell, and Mitchell's wife in the library and asked to see the girl's face under her veil, but Mitchell refused to allow it under a religious pretense. The detective, who said he was looking for Elizabeth, eventually gave up, notes AP. "I was mad at myself, that I didn't say anything," said Smart. "I felt terrible that the detective hadn't pushed harder and had just walked away." Yesterday, she told jurors of Mitchell's sexual assaults.