Carl and Marsha Mueller maintain hope their daughter who was abducted by ISIS whilst working in Aleppo, Syria in 2013, can still be found alive and well. In February 2015 ISIS claimed Kayla, who had traveled to the Turkey-Syria border in 2012 to work for the Danish Refugee Council, had been killed by a Jordanian air strike. The terror group then released three photographs of Kayla’s covered body – only showing her face.
In an emotional TV interview, Mr Mueller believes the photos released by the terror group to portray Kayla’s death in 2015, are not clear evidence to prove she is dead.
Mr Mueller told the US talk show Today: “They [the government] never takes one piece of intel and acts on it. They have to have at least two, maybe three before it’s actionable.
“They never take intel from a terrorist group as factual.
“The only thing they based Kayla’s death on is one, ISIS said she was dead and two, the photos. We’ve had those photos looked at by people… they’re not so sure.”
Mr Mueller said he has spoken to Yazidi girls who have managed to escape ISIS captivity and indicated the photographs may have been staged.
He added: “They would make the hostages do those death photos. We’d been warned about that.”
The harrowing story of their daughter comes after US President Donald Trump announced a special operations team had killed the leader of Kayla’s captor Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at the weekend.
The mission was named after the Arizona-born Kayla, and Mr Trump said al-Baghdadi died alongside three of his children, detonating an explosives-laden vest when he fled US forces into a dead-end tunnel during the attack in northwest Syria.
In the emotional interview Mr Mueller said the evil ISIS leader had raped his daughter several times during her time in captivity.
He added: “It’s not second hand what happened to Kayla. He did those things. She was with him for a short period of the time she had been held but he raped her many times.
“She was held in a house where they would tell her to ‘get ready, he’s coming’.
“One of the Yazidi girls that escaped she said when she would come back from that she would go to her bed and just get under the covers and cry.”
The heartbroken father insists there is a 99 percent chance his daughter has been killed but cannot get full closure until there is clear evidence.
Mr Mueller added: “Ninety-nine percent of that, my hope, is that Kayla truly is with the Lord and Saviour… he’s come through at such wonderful times for us when we were just losing hope but something always would happen.
“We did get the three photos, but Kayla was completely covered. All you could see was her face. It’s horrific to look at them, she looks lifeless to me, but then we started getting these messages saying she wasn’t gone and don’t be surprised if ISIS did this.
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He added: “I’d like to thank those brave soldiers and compliment the president on that successful mission. Amazing, amazing job.”
Mr Trump described al-Baghdadi, who had led the jihadist group since 2010, as a “sick and depraved man and now he’s gone”.