Jill Carroll (born October 6, 1977) is an American former journalist who worked for news organizations such as The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, and the Christian Science Monitor. On January 7, 2006 while working for the Monitor, she was kidnapped in Iraq, attracting worldwide support for her release. Carroll was freed on March 30, 2006. After her release, Carroll wrote a series of articles for the Monitor on her recollection of her experiences in Iraq. She participated in a fellowship at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and returned to work for the Monitor. She later retired from journalism and began working as a firefighter. Early life and career Carroll was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She attended Huron High School in Ann Arbor and graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1999. After college, Carroll worked as a reporting assistant in Washington, D.C., for the Wall Street Journal and worked for States News Service. Carroll then moved to Amman, Jordan as a journalist for The Jordan Times, before going to Iraq at the start of the US invasion in 2003 to report for various news outlets there. Kidnapping On January 7, 2006, Carroll, along with an interpreter and driver, traveled to the Adel district of Baghdad to interview Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni politician and leader of the Iraqi People's Conference. After discovering that al-Dulaimi was not at his office, they left and soon after were ambushed by masked gunmen. The driver, Adnan Abbas, managed to escape, but Carroll was kidnapped and her interpreter, Alan Enwiyah, 32, was shot dead and his body abandoned nearby by the kidnappers during the abduction. Carroll's driver, quoted in a story posted on the Monitors website, said gunmen jumped in front of the car, pulled him from it, and drove off with their two captives all within 15 seconds. Enwiyah, also known as Alan John Ghazi, was formerly a well-known music retailer in Baghdad. According to the New York Times, Carroll was the 36th foreign journalist to be kidnapped in Iraq since the Iraq War began in March 2003. Among the many kidnappings in Iraq, Carroll's kidnapping evoked one of the most widespread outcries. "We are urgently seeking information about Ms. Carroll and are pursuing every avenue to secure her release," Monitor editor Richard Bergenheim said in January. "I, her father