Wife Comes Home Alone Two-Month Search For Sign Of Hostages Turns Up Nothing

After two months of traveling from India to Kashmir to Pakistan and back, Jane Schelly still has no word from her captive husband, Don Hutchings.

No acknowledgment from the little-known guerrilla group, Al-Faran, that captured the Spokane psychologist and three other Western tourists 14 months ago.

No clues of their whereabouts.

No sign if they’re even alive.

But Schelly, a Spokane teacher, continues to hope Hutchings and the others are alive and will be released someday.

At a Spokane press conference Monday, she stoically recounted her travels from country to country, meeting with government leaders and talking with Kashmiri villagers who might have seen the captives.

Then she broke down.

“I have not given up hope,” she said as tears welled. “I love and miss Don very much and long for the day I will see him again.”

She hopes a message somehow can get to the captives to be strong, endure and help one another.

“I know that you can call on that inner strength and resolve to get you through the toughest of any situation.”

Hutchings and Englishmen Keith Mangan and Paul Wells were kidnapped July 4, 1995, while traveling in Kashmir, a mountainous state in northern India. Dirk Hasert of Germany was kidnapped a few days later.

Al-Faran, a previously unknown group, demanded that India free several political prisoners in exchange for the Westerners’ release. The Indian government refused.

There has been no contact with the hostages since November. A rebel captured this year by the Indian army claimed the four had been killed and buried near a Kashmiri village. The government searched the area, but found nothing.

Rumors crop up regularly that the hostages have been sighted alive somewhere, but all are unconfirmed.

Schelly and Julie Mangan, wife of a British captive, visited the village where the hostages reportedly were buried. It’s a big area, Schelly said, and the fact that no bodies were found isn’t conclusive.

Because they were escorted by Indian army and government officials, she didn’t expect villagers to come to them with new information at that time.

But she hopes that visit will encourage someone who knows something about the hostages to pass it on to a religious leader or village chief.

Buoyed by friends and family, and conversations with former hostages like Terry Waite of England, Schelly continues to hope. Hostages in Beirut were held for years with little or no word, she said. Until she receives proof to the contrary, she will believe they’re alive.

The 41-year-old teacher left India last week and will begin her physical education classes at Arlington Elementary School in two weeks. But if there’s any word of the hostages’ fate, “I’ll be there (in Kashmir) in a heartbeat.”

People who hear of the hostages’ plight often ask what they can do to help. Schelly said she believes the American government is doing everything it possibly can - the problem is the rebels aren’t responding.

“More letters or more phone calls to Congress or the State Department aren’t going to change that,” she said.

The ordeal has taught her a lesson about life: “You certainly need to value family and friends and the time you spend together. Life passes us by so quickly.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 color)