Family Welcomes Home Former Rebel Hostage

It wasn't until she saw her nephew getting off the plane and waving that she knew the five years of waiting and wondering were over.

The joy began around 4 p.m. July 2, when Charlotte Walden of Plant City got a phone call from a friend in Lakeland. That friend, Lucy Diamond, said the words Walden and the rest of Keith Stansell's family and friends had spent nearly 2,000 days waiting to hear: He had been rescued from leftist guerrillas in Colombia.

Walden is Stansell's aunt and the sister of his mother, Jane May Stansell. From the time she heard her 43-year-old nephew and two of his co-workers were kidnapped Feb. 3, 2003, by the rebels until she saw him on a live CNN broadcast after midnight July 3, she said the family's days were filled with wonder and prayer.

The reality got even better July 13, when Walden finally met with Stansell during a lunch at Lakewood Ranch with Stansell's father and stepmother, Gene and Lynne, and other friends and relatives.

Walden said she didn't have anything planned to say to him; the emotionally charged words just naturally came out.

"He hugged me real big and said he missed everyone," she said. "We were both crying. It was wonderful. I could finally really believe he was home."

Walden, who was born in Coronet and raised in Plant City, said although Stansell grew up in Miami and his family now lives in the Bradenton area, he often visited her, his Uncle David and his four cousins at their Palm Drive home - far from the rebel-held Colombian jungles.

Stansell and co-workers Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes were U.S. military contractors whose drug-surveillance plane went down in the thick forest.

They were held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - known as FARC - which planned to release them only in exchange for hundreds of rebels in prison.

During the time he was held, Walden said the only information she got about Stansell was from his parents, who received occasional updates from government officials. She said a segment on "60 Minutes II," filmed five months after his capture and aired November 2003, was how she learned many of the details of what happened.

"That was really the first solid news we knew about it. I thought we'd never see him alive again, and we said many, many prayers," she said.

The three former hostages were freed when Colombian spies tricked the leftist rebels into releasing them with kidnapped presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. After they were secured, they spent 10 days of treatment in Houston at Brooke Army Medical Center, before being flown to their hometowns.

Before boarding a plane in San Antonio, Texas, Stansell said other hostages still being held by FARC shouldn't be forgotten.

"Remember that today, for the first time, we're going home. There's family members that are waiting for us," Stansell said. "Just imagine if you hadn't seen your family in 51/2 years."

Walden said her nephew said he didn't discuss the ordeal much and said he was going to take some "family time" off for a while. She said she doesn't know whether he'll ever go back to Colombia in the same job capacity, but for now, she was happy with him just where he was.

"It's just wonderful. I could finally believe he was home," she said.