A close friend of the American ‘pilgrim’ Travis Timmerman has revealed his bizarre final location before he was found in Syria – while saying he has an ‘incredible’ story to tell once he’s back on US soil.
Kayle Owens said the 29-year-old traveler’s last-known location was the Baptist Church in Budapest, Hungary, on May 28, 2024.
Timmerman said he had been traveling through Syria via Lebanon on a Christian pilgrimage when he was seized by murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
But he was freed along with thousands of other prisoners when rebels overthrew Assad in a seismic moment for the war-torn Middle Eastern nation on Sunday.
Timmerman’s school friend Owens, 30, revealed his final location in a heart-wrenching Facebook post in September while appealing for help tracking him down.
She told DailyMail.com on Thursday that the Missouri native’s return felt like ‘a Christmas miracle’. ‘We are overjoyed to hear that he has been found,’ Owens said.
‘He has an incredible testimony to share when he’s ready. We’ve been praying tirelessly for his safe return, and those prayers have been answered. We can’t wait to have him back home.’
In her September 18 Facebook post, Missouri-based Owens pleaded for help finding Timmerman. ‘I’m reaching out with a heavy heart, and we truly need your support,’ she wrote.
A close friend of the American ‘pilgrim’ Travis Timmerman (pictured) has revealed his bizarre final location before he was found in Syria – while saying he has an ‘incredible’ story to tell once he’s back on US soil
Timmerman had been traveling through Syria on a Christian pilgrimage when he was seized by murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces. (Pictured: Timmerman in Damascus)
Kayle Owens, 30, in Missouri said the 29-year-old traveler’s last-known location was the Baptist Church in Budapest, Hungary, on May 28, 2024
‘Our close friend from high school, Travis Timmerman, has been missing since June 2, 2024.
‘His last known location was the International Baptist Church in Budapest, Hungary, on May 28, 2024. We’re desperate for any help or resources that could lead to his whereabouts.’
Owens also revealed that Timmerman’s family had been dealt a double-tragedy when he went missing, as his stepfather had also been diagnosed with leukemia.
She said his mother, Stacey, was ‘carrying an unimaginable load’ and needed financial and emotional support for her husband’s treatment and aid finding her son.
‘We’re very blessed that he is safe, that he is good, that he is protected,’ his sister, Pixie Rogers, also told NBC News.
Rogers added that she’s ‘not sure what his thinking was’ in going to a conflict-ridden nation. ‘I wouldn’t think he’d do something like that.’
She said the family knew Timmerman was planning to travel to the Czech capital of Prague before making his way to Hungary.
His mother, Stacey Collins Gardiner, said he wanted to write and learn more about God during his adventure.
Travis Pete Timmerman, a U.S. citizen who went missing in Syria, speaks to press after being found following the fall of the Assad regime in Damascus, Syria on December 12, 2024
Timmerman is from Missouri, and described himself as a ‘Christian pilgrim’
When he was found, Timmerman was initially believed to have been American journalist Austin Tice, who has been held in Syria for the last 12 years.
Tice was kidnapped while reporting on the Syrian Civil War, these reports were quickly dismissed after he gave an interview.
In a video interview with Al Arabiya, Timmerman, wearing a dark gray hoodie with no shoes, said he heard torture on a ‘daily’ basis in Assad’s detention centres.
He told CBS News that he was released from prison after seven months by two armed men who broke down his prison door with a hammer on Monday.
‘My door was busted down, it woke me up,’ Timmerman said. ‘I thought the guards were still there, so I thought the warfare could have been more active than it ended up being… Once we got out, there was no resistance, there was no real fighting.’
He said he had been making his way out of the prison he was being kept in following Assad’s fall last week.
Timmerman said he left the prison with a large group, and was heading towards Jordan before he ended up in the Syrian town of Al-Dhiyabiya.
He said he ‘had a few moments of fear’, and still hadn’t processed the fact that he was now a free man.
He told CBS: ‘I still haven’t really thought about that. I’ve been more worried about finding a place to sleep each night since then. So I’ve been working, really.’
An undated picture of Travis before he was taken into Syrian custody
Timmerman said he left the prison with a large group, and was heading towards Jordan before he ended up in the Syrian town of Al-Dhiyabiya
He said in his interview with Al Arabiya that ‘it was mostly young men’ who he heard being tortured while imprisoned, adding that he ‘never heard a woman scream’ while he was incarcerated.
He said that despite this, he was personally treated well.
‘I was fed, I was watered. The one difficulty was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted. I was only let out three times a day to go to the bathroom. Other than that, I was not beaten. The guards treated me decently.’
A video released by Syrian rebels showed Timmerman sleeping in a house in the town of al-Dhiyabiya. In the video, Timmerman could be seen lying on a mattress under a blanket in what appeared to be a private house.
An unidentified rebel appeared to confuse him with American journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing for the last 12 years after Assad’s forces kidnapped him while he was reporting on the Syrian Civil War.
He also claimed that Timmerman had been tortured by Assad’s henchmen, which the American later denied.
The rebel said: ‘In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful, [here is the] American journalist, We don’t even know what his name is.
‘A brother found him [in] Al-Dhiyabiya in the early hours of this morning, they found this American person.
‘After the Americans lost him for seven months in the prison system, [Assad’s] ungodly [guards] were torturing him in Sednaya – This journalist is now safe and among his family.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol said in a bulletin that he had gone missing from Budapest
Timmerman was found in the town of Al-Dhiyabiya, southeast of Damascus
‘We have been treating him well Good. We brought the doctor and he is cured, praise be to God, Lord of the world.
‘[The doctor] checked his health completely.
‘They found him in the orchards. He was naked and barefoot. [Here is a] message to all the world – This man was at the criminal at the hands of the gangs of Assad, who do not recognise neither humanity nor human rights, will be delivered safely, God willing to the people of America.’
Timmerman is one of thousands of prisoners who have been released in the wake of the fall of the Assad regime over the weekend.
Assad was notorious for overseeing torture in Syrian prisons. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that nearly 60,000 people were tortured and killed in his prisons.
