Family, friends rejoice at the good news

Because of the many false reports, many people didn't believe Carroll was free.
By PETER GRIER
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
The evening of March 29, Katie Carroll went to a party with some of her friends. Earlier that day, she had gone on the Arab satellite television network, Al-Arabiya, to plead for her sister's life.
When she got home that night, Katie imagined -- as she had before -- how great it would be if the phone would ring, and she would answer it, and it would be Jill, and this would all be over.
Just like that.
At 5:45 a.m. March 30, Katie was awakened by a ringing phone. She rolled over, looked at the caller ID, and saw that someone in Iraq was trying to reach her. In an instant, she knew.
They say that dreams come true, but seldom in life is it given to any of us to have such a perfect moment.
She grabbed the phone. "Katie, it's me," said the voice on the other end of the line. "I'm free." Jill and Katie both started to cry.
Getting the word out
As the Carroll family's chief communicator, Katie immediately launched into contact mode, calling people on a predetermined list, working from the East Coast toward the West as the sun rose.
She didn't have to call her parents. Jim and Mary Beth Carroll got their own wake-up calls from Jill.
At the Monitor's headquarters in Boston, the news spread quickly. Editors began looking through the happiest of their premade plans, "Carroll Release Logistics."
In Cairo, staff writer Dan Murphy was having lunch with a journalist colleague. He and Scott Peterson had begun rotating in and out of Baghdad every few weeks. A friend from Reuters sent him an instant message: "Congratulations on Jill being free."
Murphy didn't believe it. After all, over the course of the past months, he'd had nine or so false reports of Carroll's freedom. He called back and told his friend nothing had happened. "No, man," his friend insisted, "we're just snapping it out of the States. 'The Christian Science Monitor confirms. ...'"