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Freed Man Gets Warm Welcome Home

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 13, 2008

LAKEWOOD RANCH - After more than 5 1/2 years as a hostage of Colombian guerrillas, forced to march for hours while chained and to sleep on the floors of drug labs and under rats nests, Keith Stansell is finally home.

Stansell slipped into his parents' three-bedroom Edgewater Village home Saturday afternoon, saying only that he wanted to spend time with the family members at his side, including his two teenage children who live in Sarasota.

He arrived on a private jet from San Antonio, Texas, where he was receiving medical care after a daring rescue two weeks ago. He spoke briefly to media in Texas, asking for another six weeks of privacy.

The lives of Stansell and 14 other hostages were put on hold Feb. 13, 2003, when their drug-surveillance plane crashed in the Colombian jungle and they were captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Stansell and his the two Northrop Grumman Corp. colleagues had been the longest-held U.S. hostages in the world until the rebels were tricked into giving them up. In San Antonio, Stansell was reunited with his family, including his children from a previous marriage, 16-year-old Kyle and 19-year-old Lauren, who are both from Sarasota.

His Colombian fiancee traveled to meet him in Texas along with their 5-year-old twin boys, Nicolas and Keith, who saw their father for the first time. Patricia Medina was pregnant when Stansell's plane crashed. He later learned in captivity that she had given birth to twins. She told Colombia's RCN Radio in an interview broadcast that she and Stansell plan to get married.

Sarasota-Herald Tribune

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