Where's Jill ??

[deep]

Air Force woman missing from Kyrgyzstan mall

POSTED: 10:28 a.m. EDT, September 6, 2006

(CNN) -- A U.S. Air Force officer is missing after a trip to a shopping mall in Kyrgyzstan, a U.S. military statement said Wednesday.

Maj. Jill Metzger, with the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing, was last seen shopping at the Zum Shopping Center with others from the Manas Air Base when she disappeared on Tuesday, the statement said.

"Major Metzger was last seen wearing a green sweater and blue jeans," the statement said.

"She has blonde hair and blue eyes. She is in excellent athletic condition."

Military Web sites describe Metzger as a top-flight marathoner.

An article about a race in May at Manas Air Base on Hilltoptimes.com calls Metzger a "two-time Air Force Marathon champion." Hilltoptimes.com is a Web site with news about personnel from Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

The Web site for the Air Force Marathon at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio shows Metzger as the top female in the 2004 race and top military female in 2005.

A task force made up of U.S. military personnel, U.S. Embassy personnel and local officials are trying to find her, the statement said.

The U.S. military has used Manas Air Base in the former Soviet republic since 2001 to support operations in Afghanistan. The U.S. and Kyrgyzstan approved a deal in July for continued U.S. use of the base.

 

[the iron horse]

First I have heard of this deep,

I hope she is safe and well.

 

[Carek1230]

This is both sad and frightening to happen.

 

[deep]

Investigators continued their search for Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger, 33, who disappeared Tuesday after being separated from a group of servicemen while visiting a department store in Bishkek.

"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."

Metzger graduated in 1991 from Northern Vance High School and was the first female to letter in four varsity sports -- track, soccer, basketball and volleyball. In 2003, she was stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany when she won the women's division of the U.S. Air Force Marathon.

Metzger's father, John Metzger, said in a telephone interview from his home in Henderson that the family was waiting and praying for good news.

"We've got a prayer chain all the way across the nation, and it's our hope that God will return her safely," said Metzger.

Interior Ministry spokesman Nurdin Jangarayev told The Associated Press that 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.

"This is worrying because it could mean that her phone was in someone else's hands or that she was unconscious and could not reply," he said. The ministry, which oversees the police, is also trying to establish the holder of a phone she called about 45 minutes before she was last seen, he said.

 

[JCOSTER]

pray shes okay....

 

[deep]

[No message]

 

[deep]

Family in Springs relieved that AF officer found alive

By Julie Poppen, Rocky Mountain News
September 9, 2006

An Air Force officer who disappeared this week in Kyrgyzstan was found alive and was returned to her base, bringing joy and relief to her husband in Colorado Springs on Friday.

Maj. Jill Metzger, 33, was found by Kyrgyz law enforcement agents in Bishkek, the capital, where she had last been seen Tuesday while shopping.

Her husband, Air Force Capt. Joshua Mayo, whose pulse had been elevated since his wife's disappearance, was having his health checked at the Air Force Academy when he got the news.

Metzger had been beaten, had her head shaved and was dumped on a city street, Mayo said.

Kyrgyz authorities notified base officials at 1:15 a.m. today Bishkek time.

Metzger knocked on the door of a house in a town outside the capital early this morning and told residents she had been abducted, Deputy Interior Minister Omurbek Suvanaliyev told The Associated Press.

Metzger said she had been seized by three young men and a woman in a minibus and held in a rural area 30 miles from the Central Asian nation's capital.

Mayo said he practically ripped the monitoring equipment out of the wall when he heard the news. He ran outside into a sea of support with plenty of hugs and handshakes.

"I pretty much collapsed in the parking lot and just cried," Mayo said. "She doesn't look right. She looks really bad. She's swollen and bloody."

Metzger was dehydrated and is being debriefed by Air Force investigators, he said.

"Psychologically, she's having a hard time. She's scared. But we can deal with this. Hair grows and psychological wounds heal. We're just really happy, really thankful."

Mayo, 26, said he still wants nothing more than to hold his wife, whom he married only 10 days before her deployment in April.

The two have a honeymoon planned in Jamaica this month.

Mayo went on emergency leave from his base in Panama City, Fla., to be with his family in Colorado Springs while the events of the past week unfolded. Metzger, 33, was only three days shy of returning to the U.S. when she was abducted.

Mayo's father, Kelly, 47, who is retired from the Air Force, expressed huge relief at the news.

"It's indescribable. In my entire life I've never felt like this. It's a miracle. Praise the Lord."

Metzger was scheduled to fly to Georgia, where she planned to meet her husband.

A former resident of Henderson, N.C., Metzger was serving a four-month stint at the base in Kyrgyzstan with the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing.

Her normal duty station is Moody Air Force Base in Georgia as a member of the 347th Mission Support Squadron.

Initially, Kyrgyz authorities said that Metzger had not been kidnapped because they hadn't received a ransom note.

Her family was upset by the suggestion that she may have left voluntarily. Metzger's father is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, and she is committed to the service, Mayo said.

"She's highly decorated and well-respected," he said.

 

[Carek1230]

Wow. Good she was released.

 

[verte76]

Whew! I'm glad she's safe and free.

 

[tiny dancer]

Wonderful news to hear.