WASHINGTON -- Police and FBI agents searching today for the kidnapped wife of pharmaceutical millionaire George Rosenkranz worked in secrecy in a affluent neighborhood of the nation's capital, fearful for the woman's safety.
'We don't want to jeopardize our operation or put the victim in unnecessary danger,' Assistant Police Chief Marty Tapscott told a news conference Friday night.
Edith Rosenkranz, 60, of Mexico City, described as 'elegant' and 'decent,' was abducted shortly before midnight Thursday from the reinforced concrete garage of a fashionable hotel where she was playing in an international bridge tournament with her husband.
Authorities refused to comment on a possible motive or whether any ransom demands were made.
But two Washington television stations, WDVM-TV and WJLA-TV, reported George Rosenkranz received a ransom call Friday, demanding $2 million or $3 million. WJLA also said Rosenkranz received a second call threatening to 'ice' Mrs. Rosenkranz if police did not call off their search in the area of the hotel.
'I can't confirm that,' District of Columbia Police Lt. William White said in response to the reports.
City police and federal agents armed with special equipment scoured the wooded grounds of the Sheraton Washington Hotel and the nearby well-appointed Woodley Park neighborhood, almost 24 hours after a gunman kidnapped Mrs. Rosenkranz but left another woman alone.
As the search continued Friday night, police released a composite of the suspect: 'Black male, mid 20s, approximately 27, 5-foot-8, slim.' It said the man was armed with a 'small dark-color handgun' with a 6-inch barrel that he had held in his right hand.
Mrs. Rosenkranz's husband, an international bridge expert, retired a millionaire from the Syntex Corp., the company he founded in 1944 that became pioneers of the birth control pill.
Security at the hotel was tight and police were unusually quiet. Throughout the day, the standard answer from authorities was 'no comment.'
Rosenkranz, author of five bridge books and a monthly column for a national bridge publication, sponsored a team in the Summer North American Championship of the American Contract Bridge League, which continued Friday afternoon.
The doctor's team played in a closed hotel room, while Rosenkranz remained in seclusion.
'He's been walking around all night and hasn't gotten any sleep,' Marty Bergen, a member of Rosenkranz's bridge team, was overheard telling a woman bridge player before the start of Friday's competition. The team was among the leaders.
During the police operation Friday night, officers canvassed a six-block area surrounding the hotel, showing photographs of the kidnapped woman and checking cars leaving the hotel grounds.
But authorities refused to discuss their investigation inside the sprawling hotel complex perched on a hill.
