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SALT LAKE CITY — Russian police are looking for a man who robbed two Mormon missionaries at knife point on Saturday, threatened to kill them and forced them to withdraw money from an ATM before letting them go.
"Elder Jeffrey Alan Owen of Coppell, Texas, and Elder Kamron Hunter Call of Moab, Utah, both serving in the Russia Samara Mission, were robbed by a man they had met for a teaching appointment in Engels, Russia," Cody Craynor, spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Sunday. "The man forcibly drove them to an ATM and demanded they withdraw cash and then let them go. The missionaries were not harmed during the incident and are safe."
Call's family learned about the incident Saturday night from their stake president, according to the missionary's father, Russ Call. The missionary spoke with his family by telephone Sunday morning.
"He felt he was protected by the Lord and that the incident turned out as well as it could have," Russ Call said. "The missionaries aren't nervous about being there. They're ready to go back to work once the police find this guy."
The suspect was known to the missionaries, Russ Call said. He had called them and invited them to bring a copy of the Book of Mormon to his apartment. After they arrived, Owen and Call taught the man and his wife for about 20 minutes before the man jumped up and started cursing and ransacked their bags.
He took their money and cameras, and his wife used her phone to look up the value of the missionaries' cameras, bags and phones. The man called friends and asked them to come over to his apartment and help them behead the missionaries, according to a Facebook item posted Sunday by Mike Call, Kamron Call's brother.
The friends refused and the man began to calm down. Russ Call said the missionaries believe he had a mental breakdown or was high on drugs.
The man forced the missionaries to walk to an ATM and withdraw money for him. As is normal for LDS missionaries, "they had hardly any money available, for good reason," Russ Call said.
"I think it was about 3,000 rubles," he said. That's about $85.
The police were very concerned about taking care of the missionaries and very thorough. They seemed to know the man.
–Russ Call, father of Kamron
The man then gave the missionaries back their phones and about 100 rubles (less than $3) so they could get a cab. The three men walked toward a cab. Owen felt impressed to keep walking, Russ Call said, and the man got into the cab while the missionaries walked away.
The missionaries were late for a baptism and continued straight there, where they told their mission president what happened. The president took them to police.
"The police were very concerned about taking care of the missionaries and very thorough," Russ Call said. "They seemed to know the man."
Kamron Call's mother, Kimberly, was in Arizona visiting parents when the family learned of the incident. She spent a sleepless night, Russ Call said, until their son could call this morning, though she knew he was safe.
The Calls are accustomed to having missionaries overseas. They have 12 children. Eight of them have served missions, all outside the United States. Kamron Call is in Russia and a sibling is in Mexico. The other six children served in Australia (two), Korea, Bulgaria, Norway and England.
Russ Call served a mission in Spain.
"My kids have been all over the world, and they've loved serving missions," he said. "They've been treated well everywhere they've gone."
Kamron Call was born in Arizona but moved with his family to Utah at an early age. He graduated salutatorian at Grand County High School in Moab.
His brother's Facebook post said the missionaries were living in the same apartment once lived in by Travis Tuttle and Andrew Propst, who were kidnapped while serving an LDS mission in Saratov, Russia, in 1998. Russ Call said the family isn't certain the apartment is the same, though they know it is in the same area.
Tuttle and Propst were held for ransom, but the perpetrators eventually released them without incident. The assailants were captured and imprisoned. "The Saratov Approach," a movie about the incident, was released last year.
The Calls said there is no indication Saturday's robbery had any connection to the movie or to the Sochi Olympics happening nearly 900 miles away.
Kamron Call continues to feel safe in Russia, his father said, "safer than he would in a lot of places in the States."
"My son says (incidents like Saturday) never happen," Russ Call said. "It was an exciting experience, but it turned out well, as it usually does for most missionaries."
