For the past three years, Father Christiaan Kappes has been studying in Athens on behalf of the Vatican, but on Saturday he began frantically calling his family to tell them about escalating violence involving his friend and translator, Ioanna Lekakou.
Father Kappes told his family that Lekakou had been involved in a dispute with her family over her inheritance and that she was no longer safe.
"He said that her family is out to get the money that she inherited and they are going to stop at nothing to hurt her in order to get this money," said Nadia Charcap, Father Kappes' sister.
By Monday, Virgil Kappes said his son told him that he was also being threatened. The last time Virgil Kappes heard from his son was when he called from the US Embassy.
"When he got there he says, 'Now, I have to leave this building. I want you to know that I love you. If you don't hear from me again, I will be dead,'" Virgil Kappes said.
Virgil Kappes said the Embassy didn't offer his son protection, but on Thursday a spokeswoman for the US State Department said that wasn't what she had been told by Embassy officials.
"He did not, himself, request safe haven. While a consular officer was on the phone with one of his family members, discussing options to ensure his safety, Mr. Kappes, himself, got up and departed the embassy," State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said during a news briefing Thursday.
Virgil Kappes said he was the family member on the phone at the time his son allegedly left. He said an Embassy official told both he and his son that they couldn't do anything.
"(They said) 'We can't help you,' I said, 'Can you get me a phone book? I want to call the police and get police here.' (they said) 'We can't do that,'" Virgil Kappes said. "This is a US citizen in fear of his life and they said, 'No we aren't going to do this'?"
Since that conversation, all the Kappes family has known is that a priest with Father Kappes' church dropped him off at the Athens airport and also dropped off Ioanna Lekakou at a different time in hopes that they could take separate flights to the United States. Neither one boarded a plane.
"I haven't lost him yet, but to be in fear of never seeing your closest friend again is very difficult," Charcap said.
Now, after four days, Charcap said she is hearing a new story from the US Embassy. She said she spoke to an official that said her brother may have returned to the Embassy later in the day on Monday, which would have been after he was dropped off at the airport. Charcap said the embassy official also told her that her brother appeared angry with Lekakou, paced around the Embassy and then left again.
Charcap said the US official then suggested to her that the two may have run off together.
"(My brother) would not do that," Charcap said. "For me to even sink to the level of believing some politician over in Greece who is supposed to look out for his welfare, who turned him away in his time of need and is now changing his story and saying that my brother is being irate and just really mad at Ioanna and that, 'He must have just run off and who knows what happened?' I don't believe it and until you show me surveillance and you show me, then I'll believe it."
Charcap said she's concerned because it reminds her of the last thing her brother told her during their final conversation.
"He said, 'Nadia, they're going to kill Ionna and they're going to blame me, and they're going to make it look like some type of lover's quarrel,'" Charcap said. "He was like, 'Whatever they tell you, it is not true.' So that's the part that has me so emotional."