American Man Kidnapped in Honduras

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras —  A retired American police officer was kidnapped and possibly killed in northern Honduras, a U.S. Embassy official said Monday.

Thomas Franklin Giblin, 64, was pulled from his unfinished beachfront home outside Puerto Cortes on the Caribbean coast Saturday night, embassy spokesman Carlos Bakota said.

Giblin’s Honduran girlfriend, 24-year-old Leticia Lopez, also was kidnapped but escaped. She later told authorities that four men with machine guns were holding Giblin and demanding a $50,000 ransom.

But Bakota said police have recovered “a significant amount of evidence” suggesting that Giblin’s kidnappers probably killed him moments after his abduction.

A former officer with the Connecticut State Police, Giblin lived in Belize for 12 years and owned a casino and several homes there. He moved to Honduras in February.