The Marietta family of hostage Jack Hensley has received confirmation that the body handed over to U.S. officials in Iraq is Hensley, a Cobb government spokesman said today.

The family was told the news the day Hensley would have turned 49, said Cobb spokesman Robert Quigley.

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A young boy watches as U.S. soldiers seal off a road to pick up a decapitated body in Baghdad Wednesday.
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The body was handed over to American authorities in Baghdad early this morning, the U.S. Embassy said.

Late Wednesday afternoon, a videotape appeared on an Islamic Web site purportedly showing Hensley being beheaded.

The blindfolded man who was killed wore an orange jumpsuit and sat in front of five masked militants dressed in black. One read a statement as they stood in front of a Tawhid and Jihad banner.

After he finished reading out the statement, the militant pulled a knife and attacked the man from behind.

In the video, the speaker said President Bush will pay a heavy price. "We have demanded the release of our sisters in return for the two hostages, the Americans, and the British. But Bush's intransigence and his disregard of the souls of his people and his refusal to save their lives will cost him a very high price which he will not forget in his lifetime."

Ty Hensley, Jack's brother, earlier today told NBC's "Today" show that Jack Hensley's wife, Pati, is "extraordinarily devastated."

He described Pati Hensley, who had clung to hope as late as Tuesday evening, as a "widow now."

In Ty Hensley's words, "What is fallen upon her is an extraordinary amount of weight. This will forever change her life and she will forever be bound by this."

The White House offered condolences to the Hensley family.

"Their strength during a difficult time is amazing. The terrorists want to shake our will, but they will not," said Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman. "It shows the true barbaric nature of the enemies we face in Iraq, that they would take innocent civilian life. They will be defeated, they will not prevail."

Meanwhile, State Department press officer Darla Jordan said department officials will continue to offer all possible assistance to Hensley's family.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this despicable act of terrorism," she said.

Former President Jimmy Carter said today he grieves for the family of slain American hostage Jack Hensley and feels for everyone involved in the Iraq hostage crisis.

Carter -- whose own term was marred by a hostage crisis -- said he was afflicted "psychologically and politically" by the experience.

He said his heart goes out to the family of Hensley -- a Marietta construction worker -- and that he is praying for them.

Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Wednesday his government does not plan to release any Iraqi prisoners in response to demands by militants who have beheaded two U.S. hostages and have threatened to kill a British captive.

Disputing an earlier announcement from his government in Baghdad that it had decided to free an Iraqi woman — evidently among those whose release had been sought by the kidnappers — Allawi said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from New York that no decision had been made to free any prisoners.

Meanwhile, the brother of the British hostage, Kenneth Bigley, recorded a message to be broadcast on Arabic language TV station Al-Jazeera urging his captors to free him in response to the expected release of the Iraqi woman.

"They need to see it on television, they need to see females walking free," said Paul Bigley. "Hopefully they will pick this up on the media and show that they have a gram of decency in them by releasing Ken."

The body turned over to U.S. authorities today was found with its severed head in a black plastic bag in Baghdad's Amiriya neighborhood, said Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman, an official with the Interior Ministry.

Ty Hensley declined to answer directly when asked if he felt anger toward his brother's captors but said he felt that despite their demands, the hostage takers always intended to kill the hostages. They never called an embassy to communicate their demands, he said.

"The terrorists wanted to kill my brother and hurt my family," Hensley said.

Jack Hensley's family had been holding out hope late Tuesday that he was still alive.

"We are still hopeful at this time that Jack Hensley is still with us," Hensley's wife, Pati, said in a prepared statement read by family spokesman Jack Haley outside the family's home in Marietta.

Hours earlier, a posting on an Islamic Web site claimed that a group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had killed a second American, presumably referring to Hensley. The posting came as the extremist group's 24-hour deadline passed for the release of all Iraqi women from U.S. custody.

The terrorists' claim could not immediately be verified.

Al-Zarqawi's group, Tawhid and Jihad, kidnapped Hensley and another American, Eugene "Jack" Armstrong of Hillsdale, Mich., along with a Briton, Kenneth Bigley, on Thursday from a home the three civil engineers shared in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood.

Late Tuesday, an expanded version of the statement saying a second American had been killed appeared on a different Web site and warned that Bigley, the British hostage, would be next to die. It contained no new deadline, and its authenticity was not known.

Haley, the Hensley family spokesman in Marietta, said the family had been in touch Tuesday with federal authorities, including the White House and State Department.

"We feel that everyone has done everything that could be done to bring Jack home," said Haley, who has known Hensley for 12 years.

Haley said that a Web site — www.jackhensley.org — had been set up by the family to share information about Hensley.

"He will be missed by all who knew him," said a statement on the site.

"While everyone who knew Jack grieves at such a senseless loss of life, it is with his daughter Sara our thoughts reside."

It is not known when the statement was posted.

Pati Hensley remained inside her home most of the day, leaving in a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car about 6 a.m. for an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" and returning about 8:40 a.m.

Cobb County police officers standing duty outside the house, at the end of a heavily wooded cul-de-sac, accepted deliveries of flowers and fruit baskets for the family.

About 4:40 p.m., the neighbors on either side of the Hensleys brought over food and soft drinks.

The family Web site included information on where donations could be sent for a college fund in the name of the Hensleys' 13-year-old daughter.

The eighth-grader was shielded from much of the television news coverage of her father's plight, Haley said. But Tuesday morning the situation — and the worst-case scenario — was explained to her.

"She has had a real rough time," Haley said.

Sara's father — 49 years old today — was a substitute teacher at several Cobb County middle schools in 2003, including Pine Mountain Middle, which Sara attends. He taught Spanish, said Jay Dillon, a school system spokesman.

Teachers and students at Pine Mountain were ready to assist the Hensley family with meals and financial support but wanted to keep their efforts low-key and private, Dillon said.

At the school, counselors have made themselves available for students.

Hensley left Marietta for Iraq in February. He worked as a project coordinator for Gulf Supplies and Commercial Services, a company based in the United Arab Emirates. Hensley's wife told CNN that his job was to assess ways to help rebuild water systems, schools, electrical grids and other facilities.

Ty Hensley said the first inkling he had of his brother's kidnapping came via a three-word e-mail Thursday from his sister-in-law in Atlanta: "Call me. Urgent."

When Pati Hensley answered her cellphone, she told him the awful news: "Jack has been kidnapped."

— Staff writers Don Plummer, Brenden Sager, Mary MacDonald and the Associated Press contributed to this report.