Jul 20, 2005 10:02 pm US/Eastern
Elizabeth Smart's Sister Recounts Abduction
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ―
Fearful the man would come back and take her too, Mary Katherine Smart quietly remained in bed for two hours until she got up the courage to tell her parents that her sister had been kidnapped.
"I thought, you know, be quiet, because if he hears you, he might take you, too, and you're the only person who has seen this and you have to tell them," she told Diane Sawyer in a recent interview for "ABC News/Primetime."
Mary Katherine was 9 in June 2002 when she witnessed her 14-year-old sister's abduction from their bedroom in an upscale neighborhood of Salt Lake City.
Nine months later, after widespread publicity and pleas from the family, Elizabeth was found walking in a suburb with Brian David Mitchell, a self-proclaimed street preacher who went by the name Immanuel. He had allegedly taken her as a second wife.
The night of the abduction, Mary Katherine remembers being "sort of awake."
"I saw this guy in my room, and I'm like, 'Who is he?"'
She said the man walked to Elizabeth. "He tapped her, and she's like, 'What is it?' And I guess she thought it was me."
Now 13, Mary Katherine says she doesn't know how Elizabeth remained calm as the man took her away. She says she didn't recognize the alleged abductor, and when she finally crawled out of bed to find her parents, all she could say was, "Dad, Elizabeth's gone."
It wasn't until several months later that Mary Katherine connected the alleged abductor with a homeless man who had once done work at the Smarts' home, a man who went by the name Immanuel.
"I was thinking, like, who has been to the house? And who was, like, suspicious?" she said. "And the name 'Immanuel' came into my head."
Mitchell is charged with kidnapping and other state counts and is awaiting a judge's decision on whether he is mentally competent to stand trial. His wife, Wanda Barzee, who had been with Mitchell and Elizabeth, was found incompetent to stand trial and is being treated at a state hospital. She has filed for divorce.
Mary Katherine says she rarely thinks about the abduction now. Her hope for Elizabeth: "To be happy."
(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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