Family of hostage praying that reports of killing are false

<p>Hostage Jack Hensley's wife said a body has been found in Iraq and the construction's worker family was holding out hope that reports of his killing were false.</p><p>"We do not have confirmation as of now that the body that has been found is Jack Hensley. We are still hopeful at this time that Jack Hensley is still with us," Pati Hensley said in a statement read by family spokesman Jake Haley on Tuesday outside the family's home in Marietta, Ga.</p><p>Hours earlier, a posting on an Islamic Web site had claimed that an al-Qaida-linked group in Iraq had slain a second American, presumably Hensley. The posting came as the militant group's 24-hour deadline passed. It had demanded the release of all Iraqi women from U.S. custody.</p><p>Hensley, who would have marked his 49th birthday Wednesday, had been taken hostage by a militant group five days earlier.</p><p>HASH(0x2867df0)</p><p>"Jack is the friend that everybody wants to have," Haley said. "He's always there for you. The world has lost a great human being."</p><p>Several other friends stook with Haley outside the Hensley home and answered questions.</p><p>Ken Cole, a 19-year friend of the victim, was asked is there was anger because none was being heard.</p><p>"There is, but it's not productive," Cole said. "These people who did this have their own agenda. Jack's agenda was to help the people of Iraq."</p><p>Earlier in the day, Hensley's wife had appeared for the second time on American TV shows to plead for her husband's return.</p><p>"My daughter would like her father back and I'm willing to do whatever it will take to get him here," Hensley told ABC's "Good Morning America."</p><p>The family received a call from the White House earlier Tuesday, Hensley family spokesman Jake Haley said. Haley said they spoke to Bush's chief of staff.</p><p>"They said they were doing everything they can," Haley said during a brief statement to reporters outside the Hensley home. "It was nice to hear from them."</p><p>Outside the family's modest ranch home, guarded still by police who do not allow reporters to approach the house, a trickle of family friends came to give condolences earlier in the day. Even they were not allowed inside and were greeted at the end of the driveway by another family friend.</p><p>After the reports cames that Hensley had been killed, a neighbor delivering food _ a tray wrapped in tin foil _ walked into the home.</p><p>Neighbors and friends said they were told not to talk to the news media.</p><p>Hensley was abducted Thursday in Baghdad along with Eugene Armstrong and a British man, Kenneth Bigley. Their captors, a militant Islamic group called Tawhid and Jihad, demanded the release of female prisoners from American jails in Iraq.</p><p>Armstrong was beheaded Monday, and his body has been recovered by Americans, an official in Washington confirmed.</p><p>The Hensley family, his wife and 13-year-old daughter, was waiting for word on Hensley's fate, hoping he can be spared through diplomacy.</p><p>"I'm making another attempt at pleading with these captors to please open communications with us again so that we can perhaps come to some agreement on what it is exactly they want and perhaps how those needs can be met," Pati Hensley told CNN Monday night.</p><p>Hensley's brother, Ty, has not spoken with reporters in Atlanta. But he told his hometown newspaper in Rock Hill, S.C., that Jack Hensley was an ideal older brother who used to drive him to school and coach his tee-ball league.</p><p>"He is a very happy person with a big smile," Ty Hensley told The Herald newspaper. "He is a good all-around person. He's a well-liked individual."</p><p>Ty Hensley said he first got word of his brother's kidnapping through a three word e-mail Thursday from his sister-in-law in Marietta: Call me. Urgent.</p><p>Since then the family has been surrounded by police and FBI agents. Classmates of Hensley's daughter, Sara, sent notes of encouragement Monday, but even those had to be turned over to a Cobb County police officer instead of given personally to the girl inside.</p><p>___</p><p>Associated Press Writer Rawya Rageh in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/9/160388