Ooh Rah!
A retiring FBI agent was sent off with a surprise visit from a kidnapping victim he rescued 22 years ago. That man is now a corporal in the U.S. Marines.
Friday was going to be a special night for FBI Special Agent Troy Sowers regardless of what happened, as friends and colleagues gathered in Knoxville, Tenn., to thank him for more than two decades of working in law enforcement. Then his fellow agents surprised him by bringing out a very special guest — U.S. Marine corporal Stewart Rembert, a kidnapping victim Sowers rescued at the beginning of his FBI career.
“I wanted something very simple, I asked for coffee and donuts. They shocked me,” Sowers said on video posted by the FBI. “I’m extremely proud for him.”
The Fed and the Leatherneck last saw one another in 1997 when Sowers, who’d been on the job for two months, was working a kidnapping case in Washington State. Agents had gotten a tip that led them to a suspect they pulled over in her car. Sowers decided to check out the motorist’s home, where the suspect’s 13-year-old daughter broke down and confessed her mom knew the whereabouts of the missing baby.
Authorities including Sowers found the 9 lb., 5 oz. newborn in a cardboard box behind a convenience store and brought him to safety. The kidnapper, who had posed as a doctor and stolen baby Rembert from the hospital, was sentenced to a decade behind bars.
“I was happy to tell him that I’m living a good life, and I’m going to continue living a good life,” Rembert said at Sowers’ retirement party. “His efforts that day, and all of his efforts since, made a difference.”
Sowers played it cool, but admitted he at first needed a moment to regain his composure at the surprise reunion.
“This case was something I remembered throughout my career,” he said.
