U.S. officer found

last updated 8 January 2015

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

An Air Force major who disappeared from her base in Kyrgyzstan for three days said she was kidnapped. Maj. Jill Metzger told Kyrgyz police that she was abducted while on a shopping trip in the capital, Bishkek. She reappeared at a house in a town 15 miles away, where Russia has an air base. Residents of the house said Metzger’s feet were bleeding and she seemed to be in shock. But Kyrgyz police were skeptical of her story. “It seemed to me that her testimony was little believable; she was confused in her evidence,” said local police chief Batmirza Dzhailobayev. He said his investigation was incomplete because U.S. Embassy officials whisked Metzger off to a military hospital hours after her reappearance. Metzger is now reunited with her husband of four months, an Air Force captain, in Germany.