For a year and half, Mueller’s family in this idyllic town has lived with the knowledge that the Islamic militant group ISIS is holding the 26-year-old American aid worker.
Publicly, they kept silent about her plight, with her captors threatening to execute her if the family spoke out.
But on Friday, ISIS claimed that Mueller had been killed in a building that was hit during a Jordanian airstrike on Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in Syria.
“Friday was a dark day,” said Todd Geiler, a longtime friend of the family. “Punched a hole through you. A big hole.”
Still holding out hope
But ISIS offered no proof to back up its claim, other than an image of a building in rubble.
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“I am in solidarity with the Syrian people. I reject the brutality and killing that the Syrian authorities are committing against the Syrian people,” she said in a video posted online.
In 2012, Mueller went to Syria with the Danish Refugee Council and Support to Life humanitarian agency.
She fell into the hands of hostage takers in August 2013 in Aleppo, Syria, her family said, after leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital.
Her family heard nothing until 10 months later, when ISIS got in touch with its ransom demand.
“You have no control. You have to abide by the rules,” Geiler said of the situation. “It was a living hell, and it has been a living hell for the family, and it is today.”
CNN’s Kyung Lah contributed from Prescott, and Jethro Mullen wrote from Hong Kong. CNN’s Ben Brumfield and Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report.
