"This has been a strange, hard, sometimes rewarding, but mostly painful journey," Ed and Lois Smart — the parents of kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart — write in their new book, "Bringing Elizabeth Home, A Journey of Faith and Hope."
The book is due in stores in early November — soon after Elizabeth herself is scheduled to appear on her first TV interview.
Echoing the book's title, the hourlong "Katie Couric Special: Bringing Elizabeth Home," is to be broadcast Friday, Oct. 24, on NBC.
Elizabeth, now a 15-year-old high school freshman, told Couric that she's "still pretty much the same person," and that her nine-month ordeal has made her "more compassionate for the homeless," according to the network.
Couric interviewed the teen this week at a family ranch near Salt Lake City and also talked with her parents about the police investigation and how their faith helped them during the nine months Elizabeth was gone.
"It was a miracle that we could function as a family together because these . . . types of things can wreck marriages and pull families apart, and I think we've become stronger and closer as a family," Ed Smart told Couric.
That perspective is reiterated in the Smarts' book, an advance copy of which was forwarded to the Deseret Morning News.
The book sets the stage on the first page:
"We awoke to the sound of a voice filled with fright — that of our 9-year-old daughter, Mary Katherine.
" 'She's gone. Elizabeth is gone.' "
Throughout the 205-page, $22.95 book the Smarts, with writer Laura Morton's assistance, give their account of what happened on June 5, 2002, and in the months that followed.
Interspersed are eight pages of black-and-white photos of Elizabeth and her family.
The book is written in three voices — Morton's and parts where Ed and Lois speak in the first person. Chapter 10 is titled "Ed," with the next chapter called "Lois." Two more chapters near the end carry the same titles.
"Unfortunately," Ed Smart writes, "when the investigators started looking at our family, the obvious thought was that I might be involved." Smart says that police challenged his honesty, and that the episode marked one of the lowest points in his life.
"The police were pushing me to the point of breaking — which was their goal," he says. "If they could break me, surely I'd confess. But confess to what? I had done nothing wrong."
Lois Smart explores the heartache of missing her daughter and trying to come to terms with what had happened.
"As hard as it was for me to accept, the realization that Elizabeth might be dead continued to set in," Lois Smart writes.
Fortunately, Elizabeth was found alive in Sandy on March 12.
She has her own chapter — 25 — in the new book.
"Dear World:" she writes. "I am so happy and thankful to be home with the people I love. I'm doing great."
There are parts of the book that depict how, after Elizabeth's return, the family has had to deal with "crazy" people, such as a man who showed up on their doorstep and said that he was "mentally" in the mountains with Elizabeth during the kidnapping. It turned out the man was wanted for kidnapping and assault, according to the book.
In the book the Smarts talk about everything: their dog, Ollie; what Elizabeth ate while held captive; how Ed Smart flew into an "absolute rage" when police tried to question Elizabeth after her rescue; leaks of information to the media during the investigation and search, and the impact that the leaks had on the family.
The authors describe the book in its early pages as an "opening of our pained hearts."
The TV interview, book and an upcoming made-for-TV movie, "The Elizabeth Smart Story," to air on CBS, are combining to again raise the profile of a monthslong drama that captured the attention of much of the world.
Elizabeth made her first public appearance in May during a ceremony at the White House Rose Garden for the new nationwide Amber Alert legislation President Bush had signed.
The next day, she appeared with her parents on the syndicated television program "The John Walsh Show." She played her harp but didn't speak.
Elizabeth has three brothers and a sister, ranging in age from 4 to 16. Her sister Mary Katherine, now 10, the sole witness to the kidnapping, told her parents last October that she thought Elizabeth's abductor was a homeless man they knew as Immanuel. His real name was determined to be Brian David Mitchell.
Mitchell, 50, and his wife Wanda Barzee, 57, are charged with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated burglary in Elizabeth's abduction.
The homeless couple, who say they had revelations from God, also have been charged with aggravated burglary, attempted aggravated kidnapping and conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping in a second attempted abduction — that of Smart's 18-year-old cousin, Jessica Wright — seven weeks after Elizabeth, then 14, was taken.
They allegedly kept Elizabeth as Mitchell's second wife for nine months in Utah and California.
E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com