Elizabeth Smart on her rape and captivity: I felt 'dirty, filthy, worthless'

Terrifying: In a moving speech, she revealed her fears that she would be killed by her captor

Elizabeth Smart credits her mother’s love with giving her the strength to endure the horrific abuse of a homeless sicko.

In a moving speech, the 24-year-old Smart described the first time details of her rape and captivity by a drifter 10 years ago.

“I’ll never forget how that made me feel, how dirty and filthy and worthless,” Smart, a victims’ advocate, told a gathering of lawyers and judges in Palm Beach, Fla., Friday.

“I thought, ‘It would be better if he just killed me.”

At that moment, Smart said, she was inspired by a message her mother had given to her when she came home from school one day after getting bullied.

“She said she’d always love me,” Smart recalled. So “I decided to do everything in my power to be reunited with my family.”

Her captor, Brian Mitchell, was sentenced to life in prison for the kidnapping.