Golding also said Mitchell returned from California with his wife, Wanda Barzee, and Elizabeth in March 2003 — nine months after the girl's abduction at knifepoint — knowing he would be caught.

"It was his time to face the inevitable," Golding said.

Golding also rejected prosecutors' suggestions that Mitchell sang religious hymns in the courtroom so he wouldn't have to sit through the proceedings. Mitchell was ejected from his competency hearing earlier in the day after he sang "High on the mountaintop a banner is unfurled." Atherton allowed the hearing to continue without him.

"That's the way he thinks," Golding said. "He thinks in terms of hymns."

Mitchell, who was removed twice for breaking out into song after the hearing started Wednesday, also sang during interviews with FBI agents and routinely sings in jail, Golding said.

"Our view of the proceedings is that the defendant seems to be quiet until he gets into the courtroom," said Deputy Salt Lake District Attorney Kent Morgan.

Golding said, however, it's a reflection of Mitchell's deteriorating mental state.

"He has a long history of tension, which has gotten into the psychotic spectrum," he said.

Mitchell, 51, and Barzee, 59, are charged with kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, aggravated burglary and attempted aggravated kidnapping in the 2002 abduction. He's also charged in the attempted abduction of Elizabeth's cousin seven weeks after Elizabeth's kidnapping.

Barzee, who has filed for divorce, has been ruled incompetent to stand trial, and is being treated at a state facility.