The Story of Elizabeth Smart

06

Chapter Six-Mary Katherine

My younger sister, Mary Katherine, remembers being wakened by a nudge. But she figured it was just me and drifted back to sleep. Seconds later, she was jolted fully awake when she realized that I was climbing out of bed. Opening her eyes, she saw a stranger standing there! Taking her older sister. Holding a long knife to my chest!

A large, uncovered window let some light into the room, shadows of darkness cast by the stars and the moon. Mary Katherine watched what was happening through half-open eyes, pretending to be asleep, her heart racing in her chest. The man stayed very close to me, pushing me toward the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” she heard me ask. The answer was too muffled to really understand. Hostage? Maybe “hitchhike”? She didn’t know what he said. But she did pick up on “kill” and “your family,” and was even more terrified. She watched as I moved toward the bathroom, the stranger right beside me. The door shut. Light seeped into the bedroom from underneath the door. Very muffled voices. A few minutes passed. The light went out. The door opened. Quiet footsteps. A floorboard creaking. The sound of muffled movement in the hall.

And then quiet. Deadly quiet.

Mary Katherine was utterly petrified, frozen stiff with fear. And how could she not be! She was a nine-year-old girl who had just witnessed her older sister being taken from her bed by a stranger with a long beard and a knife, a man who had hissed and pulled and held her so close that she could not get away!

It was just too much to manage.

My nine-year-old sister lay underneath her covers, too terrified to even move. She hardly dared to breathe. She was in a deep state of shock, completely numb with fear.

An agonizing amount of time passed. She didn’t sleep. The grandfather clock chimed downstairs. Still, she didn’t move. More time passed. How long, she didn’t know. The shadows traced the movement of the moon across her bedroom wall. The clock chimed again. She poked her head out from the covers. Starlight and moonlight filtered into the room. Yellow. Dull. She reached across the blankets to the left side of the bed. The sheets were flat and cool. I was not there.

Finally, in a moment of courage, she grabbed her baby blanket, pulled it over her head, and bolted toward my parents’ room.

It was a few minutes before four in the morning.

I had been gone for hours.

*
Some question how Mary Katherine could have delayed telling our parents that I had been taken. What could she have been thinking! It was the obvious thing to do!

And yes, it might be obvious … if you are an adult and have the benefit of understanding the situation. And yes, it might be obvious if, at this moment, you don’t feel overwhelming fear.

But Mary Katherine was a child who had just had the most traumatic experience of her life. She thought that her own bedroom, inside her house, with her parents and brothers sleeping all around her, her older sister at her side, was the safest place in the world that she could be. She knew that her father always locked the doors and windows before he went to bed. She knew they had a security system. Yet a stranger had overcome all of these safety measures and gotten into their house. Then he had found his way into their bedroom. How did he even know where they slept? Once inside their room, he had pulled her older sister from her bed! He had threatened to kill her. Threatened to kill their entire family. He was holding a long and terrifying knife! Her older sister had gone without fighting!

How could any of this be?

Was someone with him? Were other killers inside the house?

It didn’t make any sense!

The only thing she knew was that she feared for her life.

And we have to keep in mind that she was just a little girl!

Adults think differently. We are rational. And we now have the benefit of hindsight, knowing what really happened on that night. We know that Brian David Mitchell had already taken me from the house, that he could no longer threaten my little sister. We know my parents had not been killed or injured, that they were sleeping in their bed.

But these things Mary Katherine didn’t know.

Lying underneath her covers, she had to wonder: Was the bad man still in the house? Was he lurking in the hall? He had said that he would kill our entire family. Were they dead already? If she ran into our parents’ bedroom, what horrible thing might she find there? Had he killed other members of our family? Was she alone inside a house where everyone else was dead?

It is impossible for us to appreciate the terrible fear she must have felt.

We also should remember that she was hardly the first one to go into shock after having experienced an overwhelming crisis. It is common. There are even examples of men in combat who have frozen up in fear, unable to do the task that they were trained to do. Sometimes they shut down, losing their ability to function in almost every way; mentally, emotionally, physically. Which is why their training is so important. Chaos leads to panic. Panic leads to fear. Fear can be debilitating to the point where the mind and body may shut down. During these times of gut-wrenching panic, a soldier’s training and preparation is supposed to kick in to protect them.

But Mary Katherine had not been prepared for such a life-and-death situation.

She was just a little girl.

*

Having gathered her wits about her, Mary Katherine finally raced into our parents’ bedroom, running to my father’s side of the bed. She spoke but didn’t manage to wake him, so she moved to my mother’s side.

“Elizabeth is gone,” she said in a quiet voice, her baby blanket still draped over her head. My mother opened her eyes. Mary Katherine had said it so softly, so matter-of-factly, that my mother didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t unusual for me to move into another room to sleep. Sometimes I would sleep downstairs on the couch or maybe on the floor in one of my brothers’ rooms. Surely they would find me there.

Hearing their voices, my dad sat up on his side of the bed.

“Elizabeth is gone,” Mary Katherine said again.

Mother sat up now, her face growing concerned.

“You won’t find her. A man came and took her.” She hesitated. “He had a gun,” she mistakenly concluded.

Both of my parents were instantly terrified. Something in the simple way Mary Katherine had said it made them realize that something was very wrong. And neither of them could ignore the look of utter fear upon her face.

My father raced to check the other upstairs bedrooms. Not finding me, he ran down the stairs to the main floor. My mother followed. Mary Katherine stayed right next to her, unwilling to leave her side. They searched frantically, my father running through the rooms in the front of the house. Hoping to find me sleeping on the couch, my mother turned on the lights in the family room. Of course I was not there. She fought a building panic. Turning to her right, she moved into the kitchen. Mary Katherine ran along beside her, never more than a step away. Mom turned on the kitchen lights and looked around. The smell of burned potatoes still lingered in the air. But there was something more now. Other smells. Damp grass. Canyon winds. The smells of the outdoors. Her eyes went straight to the cut screen.

Then she stopped, moving her hand to her mouth. Looking at it, she felt her heart freeze like a brick of ice inside her chest.

She knew instantly what it meant.

She let out a scream, yelling, “Call 911!” My dad came racing into the kitchen. My mom’s face showed nothing but fear and utter disbelief. Dad stopped in the middle of the kitchen and followed her eyes. He saw the open window. He saw the knife cut in the screen.

Mary Katherine’s words seemed to hang in the air between them.

Elizabeth is gone. You won’t find her. A man came and took her. He had a gun.