Elizabeth's younger sister to appear on 'Primetime'

Mary Katherine Smart, the younger sister of Elizabeth and the only witness to her abduction, will publicly tell her side of what happened for the first time this week.

Mary Katherine was interviewed about three months ago by ABC News' Diane Sawyer. Locally, her segment will air 9 p.m. Thursday on Channel 4's "Primetime Live."

"It's a piece they're doing on little heroes," said Ed Smart, Mary Katherine's father.

The segment tells the stories of about four or five children who were put in horrible situations but ended up being the heroes, Smart said.

Mary Katherine, now 13, was 9 years old when a man entered the bedroom she shared with Elizabeth during the early morning hours of June 5, 2002. She pretended to sleep as the mysterious man ordered Elizabeth out of bed and forced her to leave with him.

Mary Katherine could not see the man's face, but she heard his voice, and four months later, it came to her in a flash where she'd heard that voice before.

Mary Katherine told her parents a man who had done roofing work on their house, a man who went by the name of Immanuel, had taken her sister. He was later identified as Brian David Mitchell.

Elizabeth was found March 12, 2003, in Sandy along with Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. Mitchell is awaiting a decision from 3rd District Judge Judith Atherton on whether he will be declared competent to stand trial. Barzee was ruled incompetent to stand trial.

"She's a little hero to us in our family. We feel very grateful and blessed for her to remember what she did and stick to her guns," Ed Smart said. "The comments she made and things she said, she never changed during the whole thing. From day one until the end she was the same."

Smart told the Deseret Morning News Monday that he went through a gamut of emotions listening to his daughter being interviewed by Sawyer about that night.

"I've never talked to Mary Katherine the way Diane did. It was interesting to me, what Mary Katherine had to say," he said. "To hear her side of it, to me as a father, I hadn't previously (heard) all she had to say. I had not heard that story the way she told it."

Smart struggled Monday to come up with a way to describe what he was feeling while the interview was taking place. He said it was tough to listen to and re-live the ordeal, but he was also very proud of what his youngest daughter did.