Parents of James Foley Exchanged Emails With Terrorists, Hopeful For Negotiation

The parents of slain journalist James Foley said this week that they considered negotiating with the Islamic State terrorists who murdered their son after receiving a string of "hopeful" emails that indicated they may spare Foley's life.

Speaking on NBC's "Today," a tearful John and Diane Foley said members of the Islamic State had been sending them emails since December, perhaps in an attempt to negotiate with Foley's family from Rochester, New Hampshire. John Foley told "Today" hosts that although the most recent email, sent by the captors over a week ago, threatened execution, he found it "hopeful" that they were still interested in communicating and possibly wanted to negotiate.

"I underestimated that point," Foley said of the execution threat. "I did not realize how brutal they were."

A graphic video uploaded to YouTube earlier this week showed Islamic State terrorists in an unknown region of the Syrian desert beheading Foley, a photojournalist who worked for the GlobalPost and Agence France Presse before he was kidnapped by the jihadist group in 2012.

As more details emerge about Foley's death, some security officials from the U.K. have suggested that the man speaking in the video and performing the gruesome execution was originally from Great Britain, as he spoke in a British accent.

British Prime Minister David Cameron decried the captors as "barbaric and brutal" who performed an act of murder "without any justification."

Another recent revelation suggests the captors requested the U.S. pay a ransom of $132 million for the journalist's release, which the U.S. reportedly refused to pay.