She is a Sama from Sacol Island, Gerpa Usman, who was adopted by American missionaries at age 9 and brought to the US. There they changed her first name to render it phonetically correct, Gerfa, and with her new last name, Gerfa Yeatts. In America she met a half Japanese half Norwegian man, Hiko Lunsmann, whom she worked with at the healthcare corporation Health Central in Lynchburg, Virginia. Togetjer they bough a tract home in Campbell County, continued working together and had a son, Kevin Eric Lunsmann, now 14.

After having a baby she felt as if a part of her was missing, never having kept in touch with her family in Mindanao. It was shortly after the birth of her son that she took the first of what would become six trips to re-connect with her family. Finding her Sama family living a common life, but by her American-bred standards unbelievably poor, sh did the wrong thing, she began throwing money at them. In fact, the island where the kidnapping took place? 8 km off of Zamboanga City proper? She had had three inter-connecting compounds built. One was simply for her to use on visits every two or three years. The other was for her mother and siblings. Still, like many Filipino-Muslims she had a fair number of half siblings and this is where the problem lies.

One sister, Alma Jakaria of Malmawi Island off of Isabela City on Basilan had asked her for cash after Gerfa's arrival at the end of June. Gerfa only gave a relatively small amount. One day before the kidnapping Ms.Jakaria arrived with a 19 year old sold. Though it isn't being released at this point the young man is ASG, and led his pals to the island in question. After the kidnapping the Lunsmanns were sighted entering Tuburan (Basilan, not Cen.Min.) from al Barka. They are currently with the same ASG sub-faction that took them but if there is no hand over in the next few days they will be sold to Jamiri who has taken a loss on his last 4 KFRs.

Anyway, another day in paradise. My issue though is the last American KFR in Misamis Oriental 2 months ag being overlooked but more so, we have Pinoy (and others, currently 1 Japanese, 1 Malaysian, 1 Indian from UAE) being grabbed every other day. This woman gets got and the PNP Dirrector General hops on a plane within two hours. Maybe if they took all KFRs this seriously we would have far fewer...well maybe.