WASHINGTON -- A millionairess who was kidnapped from an international bridge tournament and freed unharmed 48 hours later said Sunday her captors threatened to kill her if ransom demands were not met.
Edith Rosenkranz, 60, of Mexico City, was freed 'safe, secure and healthy' about 10 p.m. EDT Saturday near the Ellipse, a grassy park between the White House and the Washington Monument, said Norman Zigrossi, special agent in charge of the FBI's Washington office.
Authorities quickly arrested Glenn Wright, 42, Orland Tolden, 25, both of Houston, and Dennis Moss, also known as Eddie Jackson, 26. They face charges of kidnapping at an arraignment Monday morning and were held in the District of Columbia Jail, officials said.
Authorities said Wright had participated in the tournament and may have known Mrs. Rosenkranz and her husband, industrialist George Rosenkranz, a noted bridge expert and author of five books on the game. Zigrossi said months of planning preceded the kidnapping.
Mrs. Rosenkranz, appering somewhat shaken, told a news conference 17hours after her release that the abductors said 'they would probably kill me' if ransom demands were not met.
'He (one of the suspects) told me he was going to let me out and to stand for five minutes and my husband was going to pick me up,' Mrs. Rosenkranz said of her release, adding she was told, 'don't look back.'
Mrs. Rosenkranz had been held at an undisclosed location outside the city, Deputy Police Chief Isaac Fullwood said.
Authorities said they made two ransom drops late Saturday -- one apparently requested by the kidnappers to test whether they were being watched. Zigrossi refused to disclose how much money was involved, but one police official said it was 'an elaborate amount.' News reports put the ransom a about $1 million.
'The motive is money,' Zigrossi said. 'They selected her because the family had money to pay the ransom.'
Rosenkranz, founder of the Syntex Corp., a pharmaceutical company, based in Palo Alto, Calif., which led in the development of the birth control pill, said the incident has strengthened his 'faith in God and my faith in people. Instead of having an expression of fear, I have a feeling of relief that these situations can be controlled.'
The Rosenkranzes were competing in the Summer North American Championship of the American Contract Bridge League at the Sheraton Washington Hotel, where Mrs. Rosenkranz was abducted Thursday night.
The tournament was in its 10th and final day Sunday, and play continued uninterupted except for a brief pause as word of her release swept the hotel.
'Everybody just stopped playing,' Henry Francis, publisher of the league's newsletter, said Sunday. 'Some of them smiled, some of them cried. Some of them, enemies for years, were smiling at each other.'
Robert Bonomi, a spokesman for the league, said the nearly 8,000 participants had expressed no desire to interrupt competition because of the kidnapping.
It was not the first emergency the bridge tournament had spanned: Play continued after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and 'the tournament was interrupted but not canceled' when President John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Bonomi said.
Francis described Wright as 'a pretty good bridge player. But he appears to have been inactive' for about two years.
Bonomi said Wright 'is a known bridge player to people in Houston. He did play in a tournament in Houston in June.' He is a 'life master-ranked player.'
Mimi Hagerdon, a bridge player from Houston, said Wright used to play bridge, but dropped out four or five years ago. She said players 'were surprised we saw him' when he showed up at the tournament.'
Rosencranz was contacted several times by the kidnappers, Fullwood said.
'He was instructed to make the dropoff. He did it,' traveling in a cab to the drop off site at a nearby Virginia hospital. The kidnappers were unaware that Rosenkranz was kept under 'complete surveillance,' Fullwood said. Authorities said an earlier drop was made, apparently to test police surveillance.
A team formed by Rosenkranz in the tournament continued playing, but without the doctor.
Bonomi said tournament rules require a player to take a set number of deals in every match.
'When a player misses an entire day, like he did, I don't believe he's eligible to return. I also don't believe he's interested in returning,' Bonomi said.
