Three weeks in chains: the story of Elisa Levy (9 photos)

“I just hoped it was a dream,” the girl later told her story. This could only happen in a terrible nightmare. But everything that happened to her was in reality.





Eliza, a 24-year-old American at that time, was not a refined young lady, but she also knew about the existence of the other side of life. Her father, James Levy, grew up in the US on Long Island but fell in love with her mother during a Peace Corps trip to Ecuador in the 1980s. Afterwards, the couple's four children received dual citizenship of both countries.



Ecuadorian jungle

Elisa is a brave adventurer who grew up in the Ecuadorian jungle, and her parents founded the environmental group Altropico to try to save the endangered rainforest that surrounds their home.



The Levis, Eliza's parents

The girl traveled a lot around the country, worked, and by the age of 24, Elisa returned to Ecuador and worked as a volunteer at Altropico. One day, Levi received a call from a man who introduced himself as a local resident who wanted to start a bird breeding project in a nearby town.

Eliza agreed to help if the man would send a driver to pick her up, and on Saturday, October 17, 2009, one of her brothers drove the girl to the meeting point. They were already waiting for her there. In a minute something stabbed in the subconscious. And Eliza asked her brother to write down the car number, and then got into the Isuzu Trooper and drove away with a friendly driver.



There was nothing unusual about the journey until the driver stopped to pick up two people on the side of the road. After which the picture quickly changed: one of them put a gun to the girl’s neck and forced her to climb into the trunk.

He said: “Don’t move, don’t scream, if you help, nothing will happen to you.”

Handcuffed, gagged and under a blanket, Elisa drove for over an hour on a terrible road before the car stopped and the man who claimed to be starting a bird breeding project walked up to the car and yanked Eliza out of the trunk.

By this time it became clear that there was no project. It was a kidnapping carried out by those who mistakenly believed that, thanks to her father's connections to the United States, her family was rich and could pay a hefty ransom for her release.



Eliza was taken into the thicket of the forest, where a makeshift tent was discovered, and chained to the tree closest to her.

The Levy family was well aware that their home, located near the Colombian border, was in a region that was characterized by high crime at the time. But they could not even imagine that this could affect them.

After the kidnappers contacted Eliza's family, the horrified parents had to decide whether to trust the police and call the authorities or handle the kidnapping themselves.

They decided to turn to Unase, a special police anti-kidnapping unit made up of 100 special agents trained to track down kidnappers and assist families in ransom negotiations. The American Embassy quickly got involved.



While the authorities were listening to the conversations, the kidnappers finally voiced their ransom demand to the family over the phone. They wanted a million dollars.

Taking into account the available cash, the maximum loan amount that the parents planned to take, and cashing out the funds from the pension accounts of James’s sisters and brothers, the maximum would have been 150 thousand. There was no question of a million.

One day followed another. Negotiations continued. And the girl remained in the same position - chained to the tree. Eliza had a book in her backpack, which she read over and over again. And she carefully went through the brightest moments of her life in her memory to avoid clouding her mind.

At night, when the criminals were sleeping, she would talk quietly with her mother, imagining that she was nearby.



Elisa Levy

Together with the leader of the group, Eliza was almost constantly guarded by two men who, in accordance with the classics of the genre, portrayed the bad and good cops. One calmed the girl and brought foodthe tastier one, the second one threatened violence and death to her relatives.

As the weeks passed, the kidnappers' frustration grew. They told Eliza that she might be sold to a more dangerous group and threatened to cut off her finger.

After about 18 days of captivity, Eliza remembered that she had several old pins at the bottom of her backpack and took advantage of the moment when the guards left her alone to try to unlock the lock at her feet using the pins. She managed to open the lock, but she did not know where she was and was afraid to run.

I climbed the trees that were nearby and tried to figure out where I was.

, - said the girl.



The kidnappers turned out to be common criminals

According to Eliza, when she tried to weigh the risks of a possible escape, she thought she heard her mother’s voice telling her: “Don’t risk yourself. Don't try to escape, just wait a couple of days."

Was it self-hypnosis or intuition? Unknown. But Eliza decided to wait a little longer. And for good reason. On Saturday, November 7, 2009, she was suddenly awakened by armed men with flashlights.

Eliza was scared, believing that these were rebels from another group who wanted to take her away and turn her life into a complete nightmare. But these were policemen. The car number, which she asked her brother to write down, helped the group find Eliza.

Just a few hours later, Eliza was finally reunited with her happy family:

It was the best thing that ever happened to me, just being able to see them. That was all I needed, all I wanted – just to be with my family.



Elisa Levy

In the years following her traumatic abduction, Eliza continued her conservation work to preserve the very ecosystem in which she once spent three terrifying weeks.

Even in these nightmare stressful conditions, she admired the beauty of the forest. And she said that if she had a choice, she would prefer to be in the forest rather than indoors.

Eliza survived this terrible ordeal largely due to her fierce determination, creative thinking and ability to maintain a positive attitude even in such difficult circumstances.