Ms. Rager struggled under the grasp of her assailant, but he placed the barrel of his handgun between her eyes. The hoodlums shrouded her head in a sack and wrapped duct tape around her wrists and ankles. She and her husband were thrown into the back of the SUV. She was later abandoned by the roadside, but he was taken away.

On the ground was a note addressed to “Sra. Jayne’’ with instructions on how to communicate with the abductors by e-mail. “Chills raced through my body,’’ Ms. Rager told Marie Claire magazine in 2009. “No one ever spelled my name correctly, with the ‘y.’ These men had done their homework on us.’’

During the seven months that followed, Garcia Valseca was confined to a small box, beaten regularly, and fed meagerly. He was shot in the left leg and left arm, and three of his ribs were broken.

Ms. Rager worked with Mexican authorities and kidnapping consultants to rescue her husband. The abductors wanted $8 million. They had assumed Garcia Valseca had inherited his father’s substantial fortune. Ms. Rager told reporters she and her husband were comfortable but not wealthy.

As the months passed, the abductors sent her bloodstained notes from her husband in which he begged her to help him. He wrote that he felt she had given up on him.

“All the trust and all the love started turning into the opposite,’’ Garcia Valseca told The Washington Post in 2009. “It’s like they were pulling out of my heart all the love of my life.’’

Ms. Rager and the kidnappers finally agreed on a ransom. She sent them a duffel bag loaded with $100 bills. The couple never disclosed the amount, but it was less than $1 million.

On Jan. 24, 2008, Garcia Valseca was freed. He showed up at their home weighing 90 pounds. The couple moved to the Washington area and started new lives in the Maryland suburbs. The perpetrators were never arrested.