ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) – In the three years since American aid worker Warren Weinstein was kidnapped by militants in Lahore, Pakistan, his family has existed in a strange, sad limbo.
His wife, Elaine Weinstein, keeps their home in suburban Rockville tidy and recently had the back deck resurfaced, but she won’t paint or redecorate without her husband. Their daughter, Jennifer Coakley, mentioned the other day that she would be riding the Metro subway, and Coakley’s 6-year-old son asked if his grandfather would be on the train.
Holidays and birthdays are the worst – the occasions when, no matter where his globe-trotting career took him, Weinstein would be home.
Weinstein, who turned 73 in July, was abducted on Aug. 13, 2011, four days before his seven-year stint in Pakistan was scheduled to end. It’s believed that he’s being held in a mountainous region near the Afghan border where the Pakistani military is fighting extremists. His captors have released four videos of him, most recently last Christmas.
Since then, his family has received no substantive updates. He has a heart condition that requires medication, along with high blood pressure and asthma. His family is worried that his health could fail or that he could be mistakenly killed by Pakistani forces. Still, Elaine Weinstein, 71, said she is confident that she’ll see her husband alive again.