Posted on 09/11/2006 7:37:08 PM PDT by NCjim
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- A Kyrgyz police official said Monday that a servicewoman from North Carolina who reappeared in mysterious circumstances after going missing for three days gave confused accounts of her absence and refused further statements after consulting with the U.S. Embassy.
Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger, who had been stationed at the U.S. base outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, disappeared last Tuesday while taking part in a military shopping excursion in the city. She resurfaced Friday night when she knocked on the door of a house in Kant, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) outside Bishkek, and claimed she had been kidnapped.
Metzger, who was raised in Henderson, N.C., was flown out of Kyrgyzstan within a few hours of her reappearance and on Sunday was admitted to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. There was no immediate word on what she was being treated for or how long she would remain in hospital; officials had previously said she did not appear to have suffered serious injury during her disappearance.
Kyrgyz authorities have said her swift departure from the country could impede the investigation, because they wanted to question her further to clarify her account. According to investigators, Metzger said an object with a note saying it was a bomb was placed in her pocket in a Bishkek department store and that she was kidnapped after following the note's instructions on where to go.
"It seemed to me that her testimony was little believable; she was confused in her evidence," Batmirza Dzhailobayev, head of the Kant police department, told The Associated Press on Monday.
"After she spoke with somebody from the embassy, she categorically refused to give testimony. Then people from the U.S. Embassy took her away," he said.
Dzhailobayev noted that although Metzger had told police that her abductors had stolen her necklace, she was still wearing an expensive-appearing wedding ring.
Also Monday, a resident of the house where Metzger appeared said that the 33-year-old major was clearly in distress.
"Our first impression was that the woman was severely drunk ... (but) there was no smell of alcohol and we then understood that she was in shock," Svetlana Ivashenko told The AP. She said that Metzger was dressed in clothes that appeared to be several sizes too large for her.
Ivashenko said Metzger was speaking only in English, which neither she nor her husband understand, so they awoke their daughter to try to help understand.
"Who had seized her, why and where they had held her all this time, she couldn't clarify," Ivashenko said. "As she told all this, she didn't weep - she just sobbed and held her head."
Ivashenko said there was blood on Metzger's feet and that she said she had walked a considerable distance. She also said the right side of Metzger's face appeared to be badly bruised, although Dzhailobayev said "it was my impression that there were no bruises on her face."
I hope she's okay.
Shopped till she dropped?
I wonder if she was drugged?
I wonder if we'll ever get the true story of what happened. I'm beginning to doubt it.
But hey, I'm sure that if instead of piece in that corner of the world there was instead lots of shooting, and chaos, with smoke, and dead bodies lying around, and screaming, and no access to showers....
That she would be JUST FINE....!
piece = PEACE. sorry...
I have wondered all along if she had been drugged, possibly even before going into the store or perhaps at the time that she thought someone had put something into her pocket. She really doesn't seem like the type of person to run off and come up with a weird story, and unless she had a truly dramatic nervous breakdown that could account for it, perhaps her behavior was the result of having been drugged.
I don't know if we'll ever find out, of course, but it is certainly a strange story.
Could I buy a vowel, please?
MS or diabetes.
This is not the first time this happened to an AF Maj in that area. We had one locked up here. Only he waited to get back home after a START inspection before he went on a long walk.
Your doubts will be upheld. I read a piece where it was stated that "The Air Force" was "talking" to her. OH You betcha!! OSI will have an orgasm over this case!
Why? It's got 3.
Well, to tell the truth, I don't see any need to crucify her publicly if, as I suspect, she went bonkers and then went AWOL.
But IF this is the case, I sure hope they ease her out of the service quietly. As I said on another thread, too many lives depend on the reliability of commanding officers to play games if they are not reliable.
As you suggest, she may have had a breakdown, or, as others say on this thread, might be drugged or ill.
I am glad, at least, that the people in the house she approached were kind and civilized. Many would turn away an incoherent, injured foreigner, but they rescued her.
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