The woman’s friend, a naturalized Israeli originally from the UK, had reported her missing a day earlier after the two were attacked. She, too, had been bound and stabbed, but managed to escape her assailants, according to police.
Israeli Police spokeswoman Micky Rosenfeld identified the slain woman as Christine Logan. He said she was American but had no further details on her age or hometown.
Logan’s friend, Kaye Susan Wilson, told police the two had been hiking in a nearby forest when they were assaulted by two Arab men. She, too, was bound and stabbed, but managed to escape her assailants, according to police.
After Wilson reported the incident, police launched a large-scale hunt by police and the military in the wooded hills outside Jerusalem before locating Logan’s body, which apparently had been moved, early Sunday.
Around midday, Israeli police raided a hospital outside the nearby West Bank town of Bethlehem in search of suspects, believing the assailants might have been injured in the struggle.
“I saw there were... jeeps and lots of soldiers surrounding the hospital,” said Edmund Shehadeh, director of the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation.
He said the troops wanted a list of patients and interviewed some doctors and nurses during the half-hour investigation. No arrests were made.
Police remained silent over a motive for the crime. The discovery of the stabbed and bound body, however, reinforced the possibility that militants may have been involved, police said.
The US Embassy had no information on the case, saying only that it was in touch with Israeli authorities.
The killing occurred just ahead of Christmas — a peak tourist season for Israel and the Palestinians. Israel’s Tourism Ministry declined comment.
Police said there were no signs that Wilson had been sexually assaulted or robbed.
Dr. Yuval Weiss, director of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, told Army Radio he expected Wilson to be released within several days.
Police said Wilson told them she managed to escape her assailants by pretending she was dead. Afterward, she made it to a parking area where other people alerted authorities.
This would not be the first time that hikers were attacked and killed.
In the 1990s, four Israeli hikers were killed in two separate attacks in the West Bank.
