"Security firm" paid the families of those kidnapped in Iraq about a half-month's salary

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http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/31755

<snip>Whenever he came home, "I begged him not to go back," she said. "I begged him nonstop."

She said the couple talked often about what would happen if he was killed or injured. But they never considered what unfolded on Nov. 16, 2006, when she got a phone call from a close friend, Cara Mearns-Thompson, who broke the news of the kidnapping.

"I told her, 'I'm coming over,' " Mearns-Thompson said. "Usually, I would ask. But that night, I said, 'Keri, I'm on my way.' "

Johnson-Reuben immediately turned on the TV and heard the grim news. Her legs got weak. She fell to the floor and "just cried and cried and cried," she said.

Months later, she's an emotional wreck. "I still don't sleep or eat (much), because when I eat, I wonder if he's being fed," Johnson-Reuben said.

She is haunted by a phone conversation with Paul four days before the kidnapping.

Johnson-Reuben said he told her that a man dressed as a police officer at a checkpoint had threatened to kill him. What troubled him most, he told her, was the look in the man's eyes. "He said it was terrifying," she said. "And Paul doesn't scare easily."

The stress has also taken a financial toll. In July 2006, she quit her job with Hennepin County juvenile probation, leaving her and her teen-age son dependent on her husband's income.

Since Paul disappeared, she's worked nearly a dozen shifts at a women's shelter and also a few days helping a disabled woman. But she said she couldn't stick with either.

Early on, Crescent, the security firm, paid the families of those kidnapped about a half-month's salary. But Crescent has gone out of business.