Locals discovered a 29-year-old man, Travis Timmerman wandering around barefoot near south of Damascus, Syria, on Thursday. It was later learned that Travis was freed from a Syrian prison by rebel forces.
According to Forbes, authorities in Missouri and Hungary reported Pete Travis Timmerman missing in June and August earlier this year, noting his last sighting in Budapest on May 28.
Timmerman later explained that he embarked on a pilgrimage to Damascus and was detained by Syrian officials after surviving three days without food or water in a mountainous area near the Lebanese border.
Who is Travis Timmerman?
Travis Timmerman is a Missouri native who graduated with a finance degree from Missouri State University in 2017 and later earned a law degree. He worked briefly for the Goldberg Law Group in Chicago between 2020 and 2021 before returning to his hometown of Urbana, Missouri.
In talks with CNN, the firm’s Managing Partner Michael Goldberg called Travis Timmerman:
"A super nice guy who had moved to Chicago for the job, Goldberg said, also describing him as pretty smart.”
Stacey Gardiner, Travis Timerman's mother told NPR News that he returned to his hometown Urbana to pursue writing about nature and his Christian faith, attending church regularly.
Travis, despite limited financial resources, traveled to Budapest to focus on writing and aiding others, according to Stacey. Before losing contact, he informed her that his journey might make communication challenging. Later, she discovered he had traveled to Lebanon, and was then located in Syria.
In an interview with CBS News, Timmerman revealed he had been imprisoned in Syria for several months after illegally crossing the border from Lebanon. He explained his trip to Syria was motivated by 'spiritual purposes.' On Monday, two armed men broke down his cell door, leading him and others to attempt an escape towards Jordan.
When speaking to news outlets about his time in the Syrian prison he noted that 'it wasn't that bad':
“I was never beaten. The only really bad part was that I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I wanted to. I was only let out three times a day to go to the bathroom,”
How was Travis Timmerman found?
According to a video posted by CBS News, Syrian locals had posted a video of Travis Timmerman lying down on a pile of mattresses while the people who found him explained that he was an American prisoner who had been locked up in the regime's most notorious jails.
According to the CBS News report, Timmerman had been in prison for 7 months after crossing Syria's border illegally while on a Christian pilgrimage.
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Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the dominant group that overthrew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, announced Thursday that Travis Timmerman had been released by their forces. The group expressed a willingness to collaborate with U.S. officials to assist in locating other Americans missing in Syria, according to a report by The New York Times.
According to CNN World, the interim Syrian government also said that efforts to retrieve journalist Austin Tice who has been imprisoned in Syria since 2012 are also underway.
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