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The interview seemed doomed from the start. Brian David Mitchell, playing the "servant-of-the-Lord" card to explain how Elizabeth Smart came to be taken captive, while a Salt Lake City detective and an FBI agent were trying to provoke him into straight talk.

It was March 12, 2003, the day Mitchell and Wanda Barzee were taken into custody and Smart was freed from nine months of torment. The questioning was videotaped, and prosecutors had it played Monday during Mitchell's federal trial.

As has become customary, he entered the court singing and was sent to another room. His attorneys are pursuing an insanity defense.

On the tape, Mitchell is asked how old Smart was. "She's 18," he says. (She was 15.)

"Why should I believe that?" Detective Cordin Parks asks.

"Because the Lord has said she is such," Mitchell replies.

Parks asks if Mitchell had sexual intercourse with her, and Mitchell replies, "I am my own attorney. I'm defending myself, correct?"

Then he seems to catch himself, and returns to his script: He did not kidnap Smart at knifepoint, take her to a campsite in the mountains north of Salt Lake City, stage a "marriage" and rape her, as she has testified.

Rather, Mitchell says, "The Lord God delivered her."

Clearly frustrated, Parks and the FBI's Jeff Ross get tougher.

"You're under arrest for aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault on a minor," Parks says. "You can spend the rest of your life in prison. It may not be important to you, but you'll never see Wanda again."

Replies Mitchell: "It mattereth not what you said to me. The Lord said, 'Get thee behind me, Satan.' "

That back and forth continued for two hours as Ross and Parks became more aggressive and, at times, foul-mouthed.

"You are a fraud, sir. A hypocrite and a fraud. Take that smile off your face, because we know your bull——," Ross says. "Did God tell you to have sex with her?"

"Your questions are immaterial," Mitchell replies. "God told me to take her as my wife."

It went on like that for nearly two hours. At the end, Ross was shaking Mitchell's chair when he wouldn't reply. Then the video stopped abruptly, and the prosecution called another FBI agent.

George Dougherty had watched the interview that day, and then took his own turn with Mitchell.

He said he was not confrontational, but rather told Mitchell he had read his religious manifesto and had some questions.

As he would do for three more interviews, Mitchell answered questions calmly if cautiously, Dougherty said. In one thread, the agent asked that if Smart was to be Mitchell's wife, was there a marriage ceremony? Yes, Mitchell replied. Was the marriage in front of God?, Dougherty asked. Yes, Mitchell said.

Was it consummated? Yes.

Several minutes later, Dougherty said, Mitchell grinned at him and said, "That was pretty good. You got me to say something I didn't want to say."

At the end of Monday's questioning, Dougherty was asked about Mitchell's mental state. Had Dougherty interviewed mentally ill people? Yes, he said. Was Brian Mitchell mentally ill?

No, he said.

"The others would speak, but I couldn't make sense of what they were saying," he said. "Brian Mitchell knew what he wanted to say. He wouldn't answer questions unless he wanted to."

Mitchell's defense team will question Dougherty on Tuesday.

Peg McEntee is a columnist. Reach her at pegmcentee@sltrib.com.