
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 9, 1990                   TAG: 9006090140
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: PEORIA, ILL.                                LENGTH: Short

ABDUCTED MAN'S FAMILY RAISES $60,000 RANSOM

Roy and Marge Heimdal marched into a Peoria bank Friday, clutching coffee cans stuffed with money as they concluded a fund-raising campaign to ransom their son held in South America.

In less than four days, the Heimdals raised $60,000 demanded by Maoist guerrillas who ambushed 27-year-old Scott Heimdal in a jungle in Ecuador on April 28. The kidnappers said they would kill him if they didn't get the money by Monday.

"A shiver went down my spine when they told me we had $60,000," Roy Heimdal said Friday, about 80 hours after the financially strapped family went on TV to seek help raising money.

Even as the Heimdals fought their way through a herd of reporters into the bank, strangers approached with dollar bills for their overflowing coffee cans and words of encouragement. - Associated Press

by CNB