Wednesday, March 25, 1998

Mother of freed missionary says son is doing fine

Ex-LDS member behind scheme, police are saying

 By Steve Fidel, Staff Writer 

     The mother of one of the LDS Church missionaries kidnapped in Russia and later
 released said her son is doing fine and she is waiting for a phone call from him Friday or
 Saturday.
     Police, in the meantime, are releasing more details of the kidnapping scheme, saying a
 man they arrested engineered the abduction and is a disassociated church member,
 according to Interfax News Agency.
     The man, whose name has not been released, was arrested in Saratov, a city 450
 miles southeast of Moscow on the Volga River. Elders Andrew Lee Propst, 20, of
 Lebanon, Ore., and Travis Robert Tuttle, 20, of Gilbert, Ariz., were assigned as
 missionaries there for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
     "The boys are doing just fine," said Mary Propst, Andy Propst's mother, from the
 family home in Oregon Thursday. She and her husband, Lee, only got to speak to their
 son for several minutes Sunday after learning of his and Tuttle's release. Church officials
 have kept them updated as to developments since then and have given her hope she can
 speak to her son again Friday or Saturday.
     Vladimir Terentyev, deputy chief of the regional branch of the Federal Security
 Service; and Sergei Boldyrev, head of the branch's Investigation Department, held a press
 conference in Saratov Tuesday and described the arrested man as an up-and-coming
 businessman, born in 1954, who "co-founded a branch" of the LDS Church in Saratov in
 1993. He subsequently quit the church, they said.
     According to the police officials, the suspect contacted a friend and asked him to
 invite the missionaries to an apartment being specially rented in Saratov's Solnechny
 district, Interfax reported.
     On March 19, at 8 p.m., the two American missionaries came to the apartment,
 where masked men surprised them with blows to the head using wooden sticks. Then,
 after handcuffing the missionaries, the abductors forced them into a van and drove them to
 an apartment, specially prepared in the suburban village of Dubki.
     Then, photographs of the abducted pair were taken with a Polaroid camera and a
 note with a $300,000 ransom demand was scribbled. It was passed to an unwitting
 go-between, an acquaintance of the two young men, so that he would pass it on to the
 church. Church officials were warned that if they contacted police, the missionaries would
 be killed.
     The two were reportedly hand-cuffed, blindfolded and their feet were tied while held
 captive.
     Despite the threats, the church contacted the Russian police agency on the same day
 and investigation work began immediately, according to Interfax.
     Boldyrev said the plotter of the abduction was in the first group of suspects. He was
 arrested Sunday evening in Atkarsk, a town in the Saratov region. Other reports are that a
 man and woman were arrested and that a third suspect is still being sought.
     The arrested man described at the press conference showed where the missionaries
 had been captured and where they had initially been held. The Polaroid camera, a
 photocopying machine, a gas pistol and masks were found.
     Sensing trouble, the other abductors on Sunday forced the hostages, whose eyes
 were bound shut with tape, into a car, drove them to the Sokur highway and dropped
 them off there. The missionaries returned to Saratov by themselves.
     Police said the missionaries are scheduled to fly to Frankfurt, Germany, and be
 examined by physicians, then travel to the United States and afterward return to Saratov.