My Story (3 page)

Coming down the mountain is pretty easy, and can be done in as little as an hour. You follow a narrow canyon that drops sharply from the east to join a well-established trail that runs for about half a mile toward the city. But although you can come down from the mountain fairly quickly, going back is much more difficult and the going is always slow. The mountain is very steep and the way is not well marked. So Brian David Mitchell was in a hurry, for he knew that on that night, it would take us many hours.

For one thing, it would still be dark. And he would have to guide me, knowing I would be looking to escape. He knew that he could make me hold the flashlight, allowing him to keep the knife at my back, but it would be awkward to move together, keeping his hands gripped tightly around my arm. Worse, he knew we could not go back up the same trail that he had used to come down. We’d have to go on the backside of the mountain. There, the mountain was very steep and, without a trail to follow, the brush and trees would be so thick we’d end up crawling on our hands and knees.

Yet it was absolutely essential that we make it back to camp before the sun was up. Before the darkness gave way to the summer light, he would have to have taken me up to where I could be hidden and no one could hear me if I screamed.

*

A little after one
A.M.
, Mitchell neared the bottom of the mountain. There, the trail widened, allowing him to move more quickly.

Everything he wore was black: black sweats, black gloves, black stocking cap and beard. All of this allowed him to blend into the darkness like the shadow of a ghost.

He balanced two military-green sacks across his back. I remember them very clearly. They were tied together with a strand of material and bounced uncomfortably as he moved. As he came off the Wasatch Mountains, the lights of Salt Lake City would have slipped into view. From my house, the valley spreads south and west, neat rows of streetlights that line up in an almost perfect grid. Brigham Young was nothing if not a visionary, and the city is designed along streets that run in neat north-south and east-west rows. To the north, an edge of the mountain to the west hides the northern portion of the valley. As he hiked down, Mitchell surely had to stop to take a break. He was not a young man. And though he seemed to be a fanatic about exercise, he suffered from poor nutrition and inferior hygiene. He and Barzee had skipped many meals, leaving him a little thin. And the alcohol and drugs he had pounded into his body would not have helped him catch his breath. But as tiring as it was to come down from the mountain, it would be much worse climbing back up. It seemed we would stop every few minutes so he could urinate and rest.

Breaking from the streambed, he would have been able to quicken his pace. Here, the lights of the city would have helped illuminate his path, and the moon wouldn’t have been so obscured by the thick trees. Just before two
A.M.
, he stood on the empty streets above the city.

He was almost to my house.

I lived on the east bench of the city, almost as high as any of the houses were allowed to be built. My neighborhood—beautiful homes, some new, some older—looked down on the University of Utah, the capital and downtown buildings, and the Mormon temple and towering skyscrapers situated around the city center.

In the darkness, it must have taken him a moment to get his bearings. But he had studied the scene many times before, and even in the darkness he knew exactly where to go.

Breaking from the foothills, the terrain is bare, with only June grass, rock, and weeds. The first of the houses lie just below the trail. A ribbon of asphalt winds down toward the city. Streetlights line the road. But at two o’clock in the morning, there would have been few, if any, cars. Mine was a quiet neighborhood. A quiet city, even. No one saw him as he hunched beside the road.

He crossed Tomahawk Drive, then dipped through an empty lot to avoid another house before turning north again, bringing himself to look down on my backyard. It backed up to a steep part of the hill and was heavy with bushes and trees. A small storage shed was positioned along the hillside, nestled among the brush. He hid his bags in the weeds, then crept down a narrow path of flat stones to step onto the grass of my backyard.

My house was dark inside. He first circled around, looking for a point of access. Finally, after making sure no doors had been left unlocked, he moved across the patio, past a row of empty windows toward the patio door. Stopping at a narrow window on the left side of the patio, he took out a knife. Long. Deadly. A serrated blade. He carefully cut the screen and pushed against the glass. Earlier in the evening, my mother had burned something on the stove and my dad had left the window open just a crack to air things out. The window pushed back on its hinges. He was able to get into the house!

Mitchell later told me that for a moment he had hesitated.

“If God wants me to do this, He will allow it,” he said to himself.

Mitchell knew that once he climbed through the window, he would be treading on very dangerous ground. From where he was on the patio, he was looking at trespassing. Criminal mischief. Attempted burglary, if the prosecutors really got on a roll. He would have claimed, of course, that he was nothing but a hungry beggar desperate to find a little food. If he’d been caught outside on our patio, he’d spend a few days in jail and nothing more.

But once he crawled through the open window, everything would change. If he was caught inside the house, especially with the knife, that would be impossible for the prosecutors to ignore.

And once he made his way toward my bedroom … that would be a
completely
different deal.

Yes, he understood the repercussions.

But he did not turn away.

The window was too high, so he leaned an iron patio chair against the wall. Standing on the chair, he shimmied through and dropped onto the kitchen floor.

The house was quiet.

No barking dog. No sounding alarm. Again, he was surprised.

If God wants this
… rolled around inside his head again.

Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked. Maybe in the kitchen? Maybe somewhere down the hall?

He moved through the kitchen and into the hallway.

The front door was on his right. A wide stair on his left. He turned. The stairway rose before him. He moved up the stairs and headed down the hall. Which bedroom was I in? In the darkness, he couldn’t tell! He reached out for the nearest door and slowly pushed it open. Soft light fell upon the bed along the wall. My little brother was sleeping there.

He quietly shut the door, then moved a couple steps farther down the hallway until he stopped outside my bedroom door.

I woke up with my little sister sleeping beside me, a dark man standing over me, and a knife to my throat. Rough hands were pressed upon my body as the stranger leaned over, his dirty beard against my face. “I have a knife to your neck,” he whispered. His voice was soft but very serious. “Don’t make a sound. Get out of bed, or I’ll kill you and your family.”

For a fraction of a moment, I was not fully awake, caught in that fuzzy place between wakefulness and sleep where your body may be reacting but your mind has not realized what is happening yet. Was I dreaming? Was this real? My mind was like molasses. Slow. Caught in uncertainty and fear.

Then I felt the pressure of the knife, cold and sharp against my throat.

“I have a knife to your neck,” he repeated. “Don’t make a sound. Get out of bed, or I’ll kill you and your family.”

I was jolted awake. I felt the sharpness of the knife as he pressed it against my skin. My heart began to race, exploding in my ears. I fought the urge to scream, glancing at my little sister in the dark. The words he had spoken seemed to echo in my ear.

I will kill you and your family!

I wanted to reach out for my little sister, to hold her, to protect her from this horrible thing. I
needed
to protect her. I froze in fear.

Seeing the shadow of evil on his face, hearing the determination in his voice, and feeling the strength of his hands, I knew that he would kill us if he had to.

From that moment forward, I never doubted what he would do. Let me be clear about that. I spent more than nine months under his control. Every day that I spent with him made me more and more convinced that this man was capable of killing. He would have stuck me in an instant. There is no doubt and never was.

I quietly slipped out of bed.

The man grabbed me by the arm. There was enough light that I could see his knife. It wasn’t a pocketknife. This was much more than that. It was long and black and serrated. Maybe eight inches long. It looked like it could cut right through me, right through my heart and bone.

I can’t describe the terror! It is simply impossible to express. Here I was, a little girl, in the middle of the night, being taken from my bed, from my own home, from what I thought was the safest place in the entire world. It was an unimaginable intrusion! Everything that I had thought, every feeling of safety or comfort, every assumption of protection, was stolen in that instant. My world spun on its head.

My mind began to race. Had he already killed my parents? Were other members of my family dead? What about my little sister, sleeping beside me in the bed? Would he harm her? Would he kill her? What could I do to keep her safe?

His hands were large and powerful as they pulled me from my bed. Holding the knife at my back, he pushed me toward my closet. All of the lights were turned off. On the way, I stubbed my toe. “Ouch!” I whispered, and he threatened me again. We passed through the bathroom. Holding me very close, the knife always at my back, he pushed me inside the closet. One of us turned the light on, but I don’t remember if it was me or him.

“Get your shoes,” he whispered in my ear.

I bent toward a pair of slippers.

“No!” he spat, pushing me toward my white running shoes. “Get those!”

My heart sank in utter horror. Was he taking me outside?

Sensing my hesitation, he leaned toward me again. “I’m taking you hostage. For ransom.”

I felt myself deflate. It seemed the very life was ready to leave my body. My throat tightened up with fear.

The light was on now and I could see his face. His long beard. His dark-brown hair. Everything he wore was dark. The terrifying knife. In every possible way, this was a very dark man.

“Grab your shoes!” he barked again. His voice was low but deadly. He was holding tightly to my arm, his fingers digging into me. I hardly noticed the pain. My body was flushing with adrenaline. I was trembling with fear.

I picked up my white running shoes, the same ones that I had worn when I had gone jogging the night before. Bending over, I started to put them on.

“No! Not now. Bring them with you,” he ordered.

He pushed me toward the bedroom door. We slowly moved out into the hall. He stayed right behind me, never more than a fraction of an inch away. The long knife was always close. “Not a sound!” he told me. “I’ll kill you and your entire family!” My heart pounded in my chest. I felt the itch of his beard against my neck. He led me toward the stairs. It was dark and quiet. None of my family was awake. Deadly quiet. Deadly darkness. I could hear the grandfather clock ticking from downstairs. He led me down the hall and pushed me past the stairs. Realizing his mistake, he forced me to backtrack, then led me down to the main hall.

Dad, please wake up!
I was praying in my mind.
Mom, can you hear me? Please wake up and save me!

“What is the quickest way out?” he whispered as we stood in the main entry.

I hesitated, feeling sick with utter fear.

He is going to take me outside, I thought. He is going to hurt or kill me!

I felt the knife against my back. Cold. Hard. I imagined the cut of the blade into my body. “The sliding-glass door behind us,” I answered, afraid that I was going to cry.

He acted like he didn’t hear me. Pushing me forward, he directed me through the kitchen, past the pantry, toward the back door. Out we went. We were on the patio now. He was always very close, controlling everything I did. He directed me across the backyard and up the hill to the side yard near the top of our property. I felt his arms tighten up around me as he pulled me to a stop. “Put on your shoes now,” he said.

“Why are you doing this?!” I cried.

He looked at me in anger. “I’m taking you hostage.”

I knelt down and pulled my shoes on. I wasn’t wearing any socks. I glanced back toward my house. It was still completely dark. I felt a yearning to rush back there. Then I felt the knife again. He pushed me up the hill. We were walking through the empty lot. Scrub oaks. Lots of dry brush and grass. He suddenly stopped me, reaching down among the weeds. Picking up the two green bags that had been tied together with a rag, he slung them over his back and chest.

The road behind my house runs up against the mountain. Reaching the top of the empty lot, we hit the road. He pushed me to the left. The road sloped gently downhill. A hedge ran along the front of the nearest house. Headlights illuminated the side of the mountain as a car came winding down the road. Immediately, he thrust me behind the bushes, pressing me toward the ground. The grass was damp. The night was cold now. As he held me close, I realized how powerful he was. Peering through the hedge, crouched just a few inches off the ground, I watched the car approaching. I saw the lights on top of the roof, then the markings on the door. A police car! It was a miracle! It was going to be okay.

“If this is the work of God, then let this police car pass without finding us,” the dark man said as he held me to the ground.

The car drew nearer, its headlights illuminating the winding road.

“If you move, I’ll kill you. If you make a sound, I’ll kill you.” He held the knife against my chest.

I watched the car pass in front of us, no more than ten feet away. The stranger seemed to hold his breath. I felt the tension in his body. The car was moving slowly. I didn’t know what to do. He seemed to sense what I was thinking and held me tighter.