Part 6 • Reciting Koranic verses
(Page 4 of 5)
(P.G.) Murphy and Peterson weren't investigators in the law-enforcement sense. They never visited the scene of the kidnapping, as that Baghdad neighborhood was now too dangerous. (Neither did the FBI investigators, who were not allowed to leave the safety of the US-controlled Green Zone without an armed military escort.)
But for almost three months, the two reporters made finding Jill their primary job.
In a way, they became scholars of kidnapping. Dan created a database and drew diagrams of which groups had claimed responsibility for holding which hostages and when, to look for connections. They strategized with the British security firm, the Iraqi police, and the US Embassy's Hostage Working Group in the Green Zone. They were told aspects of the FBI and US military efforts, but never given the full picture. So, they sifted through cases that might be analogous to Jill's, to see who had been released and who hadn't. They looked for things that people on the outside had done that might have helped.
In one instance, the friends of a kidnapped Australian put up posters in the neighborhood where the crime had occurred, pleading for his safety. Murphy and Peterson decided to take that idea and supersize it. They mapped out a three-stage media plan, starting with advertisements in newspapers, then moving to radio news and television public service announcements (PSAs).
Their theme was "Jill Carroll loves Iraq and loves Iraqis. She needs your help. Please help free Jill Carroll."
Each step built on the previous one. The TV spots - produced with the invaluable help of CNN Baghdad staffers - used the voices of Iraqis themselves ("Oh, she was like a sister to me") with pictures of Jill in her hijab, quotes from Mary Beth, and, in one, 30 seconds of the Sunni politician Adnan al-Dulaimi calling for her release.
And Iraqi television news directors were generous with donated time.
The point was to get people who might know something to come forward with information. But the Monitor Baghdad Boys knew they were walking a thin line. They wanted to keep Jill in Iraqi minds, as a sympathetic character -- making it harder for her captors to kill her. But they didn't want to be too loud or make her too hot a property. That might raise any ransom demand through the roof. Or, worse, it might cause her kidnappers to believe that they needed to get rid of her, fast - and that death was their best option.
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