After years, the FBI finds the remains of an American woman in Afghanistan

Cydney Mizell, an aid worker teaching English in southern Afghanistan, disappeared in 2008, kidnapped after running off the side of the road and believed dead for 15 years.

Members of her family, who had left few other details about the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, wondered if they would ever learn her fate.

Jan Mizell, her younger sister, said she would tell people, “Someone out there knows what happened to my sister. They just don't talk.”

But about a year ago, Ms. Mizell, 64, who lives south of Seattle, received news from the FBI: Agents had collected small bone fragments from Cydney in Afghanistan and would try to bring back all of her remains.

The recovery of Cydney Mizell ends a terrorism case that long stymied investigators and became one of the oldest kidnappings the FBI has worked on in Afghanistan. It also demonstrates the complexity of tracking down hostages, especially in a country where the United States no longer has a presence, and underlines the difficulty of finding the bodies of those lost abroad.

The FBI did not make the discovery public at the time, but confirmed in a statement Saturday that Ms. Mizell's remains had been “recovered and repatriated to her family.” The effort involved FBI agents in the District of Columbia, as well as intelligence community officials who are part of the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, which focuses on hostage situations.

So far, no one has been charged in Ms. Mizell's kidnapping and murder. But a former US official with knowledge of the case said the Taliban were most likely behind the kidnapping and had hoped to exchange her for one of their members held in the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

In Afghanistan, Ms. Mizell worked for the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation, teaching English at Kandahar University and embroidery and sewing at a girls' school. according to a 2008 statement. She loved music, including singing and playing piano and guitar.

Jan Mizell said her father learned of his daughter's disappearance in late January 2008. A shopkeeper, she recalled, had witnessed the kidnapping and described how Cydney and her driver had been forced off the road and taken hostage by a group of armed men.

The kidnappers used Ms Mizell's mobile phone and repeatedly called the aid agency over several days. Only shortly afterward did the kidnappers indicate that Cydney had been killed, Jan Mizell said, although they provided few other details.

Ms Mizell's father died in the months after his daughter was abducted.

Over the years, Jan Mizell occasionally heard about the case from the FBI. She received a letter from the Obama administration warning her about changes it had made to hostage recovery efforts after families complained about haphazard communications and conflicting information from the government. Under President Biden, the administration invited her to two video conference calls with Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. Ms Mizell said the calls were for victims of terrorism and their families to ask questions about how the government is handling these types of investigations.

Ms. Mizell said the FBI received several tips, but nothing came of it. After receiving information about the possible whereabouts of her sister's remains, the FBI made a major effort to solve the case. In 2021, the government installed a reward of up to $5 million for information about Cydney Mizell, including her “location, recovery and return,” and published the message in several languages.

“I was shocked and impressed that this effort was made,” Ms. Mizell said of the effort to find her sister.

Ms Mizell said the reward appeared to lead to a breakthrough, with someone stepping forward with the bone fragments. DNA taken by FBI agents in 2008 from Ms. Mizell and her father confirmed it was Cydney.

The government then took steps to locate and bring home her entire skeletal remains, including having the bones brought through a third country. Ms. Mizell said two FBI agents escorted the remains, draped in an American flag, back to the United States in April 2023.

A copy of the autopsy report the FBI gave her showed that her sister had been shot in the head and her skull had been crushed. Officers also presented her with an urn containing ashes and an American flag. The agents also returned the personal diaries Cydney kept during her time in Afghanistan.

“Without the officers we would still be in a big black hole of nothingness,” Ms Mizell said.

In October, Ms. Mizell's family held a memorial service at a Baptist church in Tacoma, Washington, where her father was once a pastor. Dozens attended the service, including FBI agents. The American flag Mrs. Mizell had received was on display.

Her family expects to finally receive an official death certificate.

Mrs Mizell said her sister, who would have turned 66 next month, tried to improve the lives of those around her.

“She was dedicated to loving and helping people around the world, especially supporting women and girls in desperate situations,” she added.

Other kidnapping cases continue to frustrate the FBI. In Afghanistan, investigators are still trying to track down the perpetrators Paul Edwin Overby Jr., an author who officials say was last seen in May 2014 in the city of Khost while researching a book. He had hoped to interview the leader of a militant network when he went missing. And so was Ryan Corbett, from Western New York arrested by the Taliban in 2022 after a business trip to Northern Afghanistan.

Kitty Bennett research contributed.