Cops Find Missing Georgia Mom, Where Tell Husband Where She Is

ATLANTA April 14, 2011 — -- Missing Georgia woman Wazineh Suleiman, the mother of five young children who disappeared nearly a week ago, is safe and has asked police to not tell her husband where she is hiding.

"The case of Wazineh Suleiman is closed. She is in a safe location. She is alive, she is well. She does not wish at this time to let anyone know where she is," Bartow County Sheriff Clark Millsap said at a press conference.

Sources told ABC News that Wazineh Suleiman is afraid of her husband and police have agreed to not tell the husband, Abed Suleiman, her location.

Millsap said that no criminal charges will be filed in the case.

The sheriff declined to answer questions, but said, "Anything that's going on in her residence is her business and her husband's business. Why she left is her business, not ours. Our main concern was to make sure she is safe,"

Wazineh Suleiman's husband, Abed, and her parents briefly appeared at the press conference, but left before it started. They merely said that she was safe.

Abed Suleiman later said as he returned home that he would talk to the press after he is reunited with his wife. The woman's mother said she had not yet spoken with her daughter.

Abed Suleiman had said that his wife left Friday night to rent a movie from Walmart and never returned. Surveillance video showed that Wazineh Suleiman never entered the Walmart. Abed Suleiman had just returned from a canceled hunting trip in Kentucky with his friend Jason Seritt when he found his wife had disappeared.

Before Wazineh Suleiman surfaced, her husband, Abed Suleiman, was questioned for three hours Wednesday night by police.

"I was a suspect ... and they wanted to totally rule me out. They kind of already did that. They just wanted to iron out all the wrinkles and they did that," Abed Suleiman told ABC Affiliate WSBTV as he left the sheriff's office Wednesday night.

Police received a phone call from a sheriff in another part of the state around midnight alerting them that Wazineh Suleiman was safe.

Wazineh Suleiman's friend contacted her husband to let him know that she was alive and safe, police said. The identity of that friend has not been revealed.

Abed Suleiman's hunting buddy, Jason Seritt, said that Wazineh Suleiman owes everyone an apology.

"She put us through all this hell and everybody pointing fingers and saying we did this and we did that," Seritt said.

He said that he never saw the couple argue in the three years he's known them.

"They seemed happy every time I was around them," Seritt said. "He's a real good guy. He'd give anybody the shirt off their back. He'd give her any and everything that she wanted."

Abed and Wazineh Suleiman exchanged heated text messages following her disappearance. In the text messages, Wazineh Suleiman cursed at her husband and threatened to throw the phone out the window, Abed Suleiman said.

"There were two text messages where there was profanity used. We are very religious, very religious...Wazineh would never, ever, ever...talk to me like that or text me like that. She never has and I was saying something is not right," Abed Suleiman said Wednesday.

There is no record of domestic violence between the couple.

Abed Suleiman told ABC News Wednesday that he treated his wife like a queen.

No History of Domestic Violence

"My wife is my life," he said. "Anybody that know us, a lot of people look at us and say these guys are a perfect couple and a perfect family."

For a short time last year, Wazineh Suleiman lived with her family in Israel for two months. She had recently gotten her first job, working at one of her children's schools.

Wazineh Suleiman married Abed when she was 17. The devout Muslim couple had recently found themselves in deep financial trouble. The couple is more than half a million dollars in debt to more than 50 creditors, according to a federal bankruptcy court . They filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in August, the court documents show.

Police had found Wazineh Suleiman's abandoned SUV in an empty parking lot 12 miles from the Walmart where was supposed to have gone to rent a movie.

Abed Suleiman had gone to Kentucky Friday on a hunting trip with a friend but returned to Georgia when he realized he'd confused the dates for when hunting season begins, he said.

"I pulled into the driveway and my buddy said, 'Hey, your wife's truck is not there.' I look over and my jaw just dropped," Suleiman said Tuesday. "I was in shock. That doesn't make sense. She just doesn't leave without telling me."

He said he found his kids watching television.

Bankruptcy court documents show the Suleimans were behind on mortgage payments on two rental homes in Florida and another in Georgia. They moved from Florida to Cartersville, Ga., about two years ago, police said.

When they filed for bankruptcy Aug. 11, 2010, the couple said they had made a little more $29,000 that year in income. The couple claimed they owned assets worth more than $600,000 but owed creditors $1,242,280.22, according to court documents.

Liens had been placed against their home and one of their vehicles, the documents show. Abed Suleiman has worked as a pharmacist, according to his Facebook page.

Wazineh Suleiman is a devout Muslim who usually wears a head scarf. Her husband has used images of her with no headscarf in missing person posters, hoping someone will recognize her. He said she would not have left on her own.

The sheriff also doubted that she was a runaway, saying he doubted she left on her own.

"It's dealing with a 30-year-old woman that kind of stepped away from five kids and then we found her vehicle abandoned yesterday so it escalates a little bit more than just a missing endangered person," he said.

There is no history of domestic violence between the couple while they've lived in Bartow County, police said. The couple moved from Florida to Georgia about two years ago, police said.