God bless you Jonathan Cote.

Rest in peace.

A year-and-a-half of waiting has ended with anguish for family and friends of a former University of Florida student who was abducted in Iraq in 2006 while working for a private security firm.

The body of Army veteran Jonathon Cote, 25, was recovered last week and identified Wednesday by the FBI. Cote's father, Francis Cote of Getzville, N.Y., said Thursday he still does not know how his son died.

"Was he strong? Did they feed him? Was he starved to death? What are those things that happened to him?" he asked during a news conference in New York.

Autopsy results are expected in six to eight weeks. Cote's mother, Lori Silveri of Aventura, could not be reached Thursday for comment.

Florida fraternity brothers mourned Cote's passing, recalling an adventurous young man who was older than his years. Cote had served as a paratrooper in Iraq before enrolling at UF in August 2005. Fellow students gravitated toward his outgoing personality and realized he "wasn't your average freshman," friends said.

"He had this confidence — he had seen and done it all by then," recalled Dane Eagle, who was Cote's "big brother" in the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, someone Cote could go to for advice and support. "He ended up being more my mentor than me to him."

Cote, a native New Yorker, began studying accounting at the Gainesville campus, but by the end of the school year decided college life didn't provide the excitement and sense of duty he craved, said fraternity president Matt Sloan. So he decided to return to Iraq, this time serving with the private security firm Crescent Security Group, to make extra money that would help him pay for his schooling.

"He felt guilty. He was in paradise — at UF in beautiful weather, with beautiful girls — but it gnawed at him that there were people still over there," Sloan said. "He felt an obligation to those still serving."

Cote was making plans to return to UF when we was kidnapped in Iraq with three other Americans and an Austrian on Nov. 16, 2006. Suspected militiamen, wearing Iraqi police uniforms at a fake checkpoint, ambushed a convoy of trucks they were escorting on a highway near the southern border city of Safwan.

The Cote family suspects the Crescent employees were set up, perhaps by disgruntled Iraqi Crescent workers angry over their pay and treatment. The Iraqi employees working with Cote had failed to show up for work the day of the ambush, the father said.

He also suspects the hostages were tortured and passed among groups to the highest bidder.

"But in the end, I think they just got tired and decided that America is going to pay for us being there. And Jon was one of those that paid the price."

Cote and other Crescent captives appeared in two videos released by the unidentified kidnappers in the months immediately following their abduction. In one, Cote, dressed in civilian clothes, said: "I can't be released until the prisoners from the American jails and the British jails are released."

Still, family held out hope Cote still lived, creating a Free Jonathon Cote! Web site.

Fears for the abductees' safety were heightened in February when five severed fingers were delivered to U.S. authorities in Iraq. DNA tests revealed that each was taken from one of the Crescent employees, including Cote.

The other hostages appeared to have been killed two to six months ago, Cote's father said Thursday. Jonathon's body was covered with dirt, as if he had been buried.

"The only thing you think of is, these guys are just criminals and don't have any conscience. I mean, how do you do this to people?" he asked, his hands gripping the podium.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Jonathan's family and friends. Words cannot express how sorry we are at the loss of this beautiful young man.

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