Wife Of Slain American Hostage Recounts Terrorist Negotiations

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WJZ) -- Talking with terrorists.

The inside story of how a wife from Maryland negotiated with terrorists halfway across the world, hoping to free her husband.

The story unfold last on 60 Minutes.

Warren Weinstein was kidnapped at gunpoint in 2011.

His wife of 46 years, Elaine Weinstein  started negotiating with his captors who demanded $4 million.

Although she said she didn't have the money, "but if I needed $4 million I would have come up with it -- it's my husband's life."

The FBI sent a team of negotiators to her Rockville, Maryland home.

The kidnappers rejected her counter offer and the negotiation continued with messages like these:

"If you send the money, we free him. If you not sending the money, so then we kill him and we send you the death video of Warren," the kidnappers said.

"I never held life and death in my hands and I am telling, I held his life in my hands," Elaine said.

The back and forth with the terrorists went on for almost 4 years.

In that time, WJZ's Vic Carter met with Elaine and her daughter in their Montgomery County home.

"A gentle kind man who needs to be home with his family," they said in the interview.

Elaine eventually paid a much smaller ransom, but learned Warren had been transferred to another terrorist organization.

As they continued to call her from payphones in northeast Pakistan, she warned the U.S. government that a drone strike could kill her husband -- and that's exactly what happened/

"I want to express our grief and condolences to the families of two hostages, one American Dr. Warren Weinstein," President Obama said.

Then kidnappers then demanded money for her husband's body.

She chose instead to live with his voice and videos, even as painful as it to listen to.

"I'm still married to him," she said.

The White House, FBI and CIA declined to comment to 60 minutes.

READ MORE: 60 Minutes Interview

The FBI now has a new unit to work on hostage situations and share information with families of those being held.