Israeli police said the body of a female tourist who they feared was kidnapped by Arab assailants while hiking with a friend outside Jerusalem was found Sunday morning.
The woman has been identified as Christine Logan, a visitor from the United States. Ynet has learned that her body was found in a wooded area, between bushes, a few hundred meters from the road connecting Beit Shemesh and Moshav Mata. Police suspect she was carried to the bushes by the assailant or assailants.
Logan’s friend, identified as Kaye Susan Wilson, a 46-year-old tour guide, was also found bound with her hands behind her back Saturday in a mountainous area outside Jerusalem, bleeding from multiple stab wounds. She was hospitalized in Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital critical condition. On Sunday hospital officials said she had regained consciousness and that her condition has stabilized.
Blood found on boulder in search area (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)
Speaking to Ynet Sunday morning, Wilson, not yet aware of her friend’s death, recounted the incident. “Christine and I walked down a path in order to climb a small hill. We sat there, and two Arabs passed by and asked ‘Do you have any water?’ I said, ‘I wish.’ I felt something was wrong. I turned to (Christine) in English and told her something doesn’t feel right and that we should return to the path.
“I pulled out a small knife from my pocket – a women’s knife – and we began heading back. I saw that they (Arabs) weren’t around, and I told her, ‘Wait a second, I’ll check to see where we are.’ Suddenly I heard a noise. It happened so quickly – they came and attacked us. One of them pulled out a very long knife – like a bread knife with a sharpened edge,” Wilson added.
Search teams, Sunday morning (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)
“I was very scared, but my friend became hysterical. I told her to be quiet, but she told them, ‘Take the money, take everything,’ and they took everything. One of them took the Star of David necklace off my neck like a gentleman, and then they stabbed me 12 times. They came to kill. Nobody walks around with a knife like that for no reason. He stabbed me, but I sensed the knife did not penetrate my heart. I pretended to be dead; I thought they were waiting for someone else to come so I waited a few minutes and then threw myself onto a slope, my hands tied behind my back, and there was something covering my mouth,” Wilson recalled.
“I found myself between the bushes, and I didn’t know if they had left already. I just wanted to sleep and felt as though I were about to collapse, but I knew I could not fall asleep. I managed to walk away and made my way to a parking lot, where a strange thing happened. An Israeli vehicle arrived and parked 10 meters from me. (The driver) was looking straight at me, but I couldn’t yell so he continued driving. I had to walk another 20 meters, then I saw children; I turned around so they would see that my hands were tied, and they called the police.”
A massive manhunt for Logan was launched after Wilson was discovered. Hundreds of police officers and volunteers, accompanied by soldiers from special IDF units, searched every cave and pit in the area.
During the overnight search, a police official told Ynet, “It doesn’t look good. The woman has been missing since 4:30 pm and is feared dead. If she were fine we would have found her by now.”
During the search the army set up roadblocks and inspected vehicles travelling to the West Bank. Choppers and a number of drones also assisted in the search.
No arrests have been made as of yet. “So far we have searched a number of areas. The first was near the injured woman’s car, where blood stains, hairs and signs of a struggle were found. Unfortunately, these signs could not lead us to the assailants’ possible escape route,” a senior Border Guard officer said.
“The woman (Wilson) was agitated and had trouble speaking, and refused to tell us anything beyond her first name,” one eyewitness from the town of Mata, who summoned rescue forces, told Ynet.
“Her clothes were dirty and showed signs of a struggle.”
Yair Altman, Aviel Magnezi and AP contributed to the report
