Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger Missing in Kyrgyzstan (UPDATE: Found Alive)
Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger, 33, disappeared Tuesday after being separated from a group of servicemen while visiting a department store in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Local police rule out a kidnapping; however, one just does not vanish from a department store.
A U.S. military spokeswoman said Thursday that nothing has been ruled out in the disappearance of an American servicewoman who vanished two days ago, even though the local police chief said she was not kidnapped.
“I rule out the theory that the U.S. citizen may have been kidnapped,” Interior Minister Murat Sutalinov told reporters. He said that police had received no demand for ransom.
However, Capt. Anna Carpenter, a spokeswoman for the U.S. military base in Kyrgyzstan where Metzger is stationed, said “nothing has been ruled out.”
On Thursday The Pentagon formally declared Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger missing.
The Pentagon on Thursday formally declared Metzger missing, a status officially known as “duty status whereabouts unknown,” and disclosed that her normal duty station is Moody Air Force Base, Ga., as a member of the 347th Mission Support Squadron. It said she was on temporary duty in Kyrgyzstan but offered no other details.
Military: Nothing ruled out in officer’s disappearance
Investigators continues to look for missing Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger. Metzger and another US servicewoman were recorded on a security camera on Tuesday afternoon as they entered a department store.
Metzger and another U.S. servicewoman were recorded on a security camera on Tuesday afternoon as they entered the TsUM department store in central Bishkek. She separated from her companion three minutes later, he said.
In the next three hours, two calls were placed to her cell phone but neither was answered; records show that the phone was in the area of Bishkek’s bus station when one call was placed, but was in another neighborhood for a later call, Jangarayev said.
Jill Metzger Update: Kyrgyz Police Consider All Angles
“Police are considering all angles in the case of the missing officer, including personal reasons,” a service spokesman said.
After examining the department store’s videotapes and a list of the officer’s cell phone calls, investigators established that she spent about 10 minutes in the store before leaving through the central entrance. She then made two local calls before her phone was switched off at 8 p.m. local time.
BREAKING: U.S. Air Force major found Alive in Kyrgyzstan
Thank God, Maj. Jill Metzger was found alive. Her family must be overwhelmed with joy.
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – A U.S. Air Force officer who disappeared earlier this week in Kyrgyzstan was found alive and returned to the American air base in this Central Asian nation, a U.S. military official said early Saturday.
Maj. Jill Metzger, 33, was located by Kyrgyz law enforcement agents in Bishkek, the capital, where she had last been seen before vanishing during a shopping excursion Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the U.S. base at Bishkek’s airport, Capt. Anna Carpenter, told The Associated Press.
Metzger was found on the side of the road with her head shaven, her father-in-law, Kelly Mayo, said in a telephone interview with the AP from Colorado Springs, Colo.
Missing Air Force Major Found Alive; Jill Metzger Reports She Was Kidnapped Two Days Ago In Kyrgystan
What really happened and how she was abducted. She was abducted by 3 young men and a woman.
Metzger said she had been abducted by three young men and a woman in a minibus and held in a rural area 30 miles from Bishkek, Suvanaliyev told The Associated Press, citing local police in Kant, where he said she approached the first house she came to. He said she looked exhausted and her hair was dyed.
That account differed somewhat from one given by Metzger’s father-in-law, Kelly Mayo, who said in a telephone interview with the AP from Colorado Springs, Colo., that Metzger was found on the side of the road with her head shaved.
Maho said she had also been beaten. “I know she’s coherent, and whoever had her let her go,” said Mayo. “We’ve got her back. Praise the Lord.”
Suvanaliyev said the people who took Metzger in when she knocked on their door called the police.
Mayo said the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations notified the family Friday afternoon but were given few details. He said his son, Air Force Capt. Joshua Mayo, was elated after being told about his wife.
“I can’t even describe it. He’s just beside himself, just unbelievable joy,” Mayo said.
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