Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan – A U.S. servicewoman who reappeared as mysteriously as she vanished gave confused accounts of her three-day absence and refused to make further statements after consulting with the U.S. Embassy, a Kyrgyz police official said Monday.
Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger, who had been stationed at the U.S. base in Manas, outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, disappeared Sept. 5 while on a shopping excursion in the city. She resurfaced Friday night when she knocked on the door of a house in Kant, about 15 miles outside Bishkek, and claimed she had been kidnapped.
Metzger was flown out of Kyrgyzstan within a few hours of her reappearance and was admitted Sunday to a U.S. military hospital in Germany. The Air Force issued a statement saying she was in good condition and was expected to return to the U.S. by the end of the week.
Kyrgyz authorities have said her swift departure could impede their 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.
“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-looking 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 AP. She said that Metzger was dressed in clothes that appeared to be several sizes too large for her.
“Who had seized her, why and where they had held her all this time, she couldn’t clarify,” Ivashenko said.
Ivashenko said there was blood on Metzger’s feet and that she said she had walked a considerable distance.
Metzger was serving a four-month stint with the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing at Manas.
She phoned her parents in Henderson, N.C., early Saturday to let them know she was safe, The News & Observer newspaper of Raleigh reported.
