Families of Couple Missing in Peru Hopeful, Skeptical About Reports They've Been Found Alive

[Jeff Dunsavage]

Peru's top tourism official says an American couple who went missing on a bike trek through Peru has been spotted "safe and sound," but the families of Jamie Neal and Garrett Hand remain skeptical.

Jamie and Garrett are heading upstream in a small boat on a jungle river, said Jose Luis Silva, Peru's minister of tourism and commerce. But even as authorities trumpeted the news, Garrett's mother said in a statement that she won't believe it until she hears directly from her son.

"We have not heard from them since January 25, nor have they accessed bank accounts since that time," mother Francine Fitzgerald said. "We have only the worst to consider as to why."

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