Desperate Housewife? Kidnap Victim? Or Both?

A wealthy health care executive came home one night in September to find a terrifying note from his wife, Quinn GrayQuinn Gray. The 37-year-old housewife and mother of two had been abducted from her Florida home.

"There are three men holding me right now and they want $50,000 cash," Gray wrote. "Do not do anything stupid. NO COPS!"

Authorities say the 25-year-old mechanic charged with trying to extort thousands from Gray's husband wasn't her captor — but her accomplice and lover. Despite that her husband has stuck by his wife's side.

Gray said she went along with her captor's demands, eventually having audiotaped sex with him. Gray says she wasn't scheming, but went insane and started to believe the kidnapper's claims that her husband wanted her dead.

St. John's County Sheriff David Shoar.

The new intrigue has everyone from TMZ.com to Oprah WinfreyOprah Winfrey's producers nosing around this exclusive community to seek salacious details of a pretty young blonde's downfall.

Gray's Facebook page has photos of her husband and two daughters. Her interests were fairly typical: She likes the TV show "Lost," biking and rapper Flo Rida. She drove a Mercedes wagon and read books like Eckhart TolleEckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now."

The ordeal began the night of September 4, when Gray's husband, 38-year-old Reid Gray, discovered his wife's note at their four million seaside mansion.

Reid Gray called the St. John's County Sheriff's Office and started a search that ended up including the FBI. The sheriff's office ended up spending a total of $90,000 on the investigation.

The next day, as sheriff's officials set up a command center for the investigation, Reid Gray received the first of six calls from his wife. According to a report Quinn told her husband drop the $50,000 at a Chik-Fil-A restaurant. But when he drove to the area, Quinn called again and said he had screwed up because police were seen nearby.

Two days after the note was found, Quinn Gray's mother dropped the $50,000 at a beach restaurant, only to have a group of college kids pick up the money. They called police, afraid they were in the middle of a drug deal.

The next day the case took an odd turn. An agitated Quinn walked right up to deputies at a local mall. She was taken to the FBI office in Jacksonville, where she told agents that her kidnapper worked for a loan shark who wanted her husband to pay up.

Detective Kevin Kerr and others were skeptical, noting Gray appeared to be making up the story as she went along.

During another interview Quinn changed her story. She claimed she had been sexually assaulted and that she was crazy then and was just doing what she was told to do.

She gave police three details. She said her abductor's name was Jasmin and that he drove a white Volkswagen Jetta. She also told investigators about the warehouse where she was held.

Detectives found Jasmin Osmanovic driving out of the warehouse in his Jetta. He eventually wrote his version of events in an affidavit.

"I met Quinn Gray about a month and a half ago. We met at a gas station," wrote the young man. He described going to her house and listening to her talk about her marital problems and her issues with drinking — she had nearly split up with Reid Gray and had gone to rehab at a Minnesota clinic. Her husband had affairs, according to her, and she was wondering if he wanted her dead.

On Labor Day weekend the two spent time together — but he didn't know right away that she was plotting the kidnapping. They went to a hotel, where he left her alone several times, which means she could've left at any point.

Osmanovic touched on one piece of evidence. It was an audiotape he and Quinn made that weekend. Osmanovic's live-in girlfriend found it and gave it to officers. The recording captured the sounds of Gray and Osmanovic having sex, plotting the kidnapping and talking about mundane things.

"He is not a dumb guy. He is a very smart guy," Shoar said. "He wanted some proof and reassurance in case she tried to hang him out to dry."

Osmanovic was charged with extortion and is now being held at the St. John's County Jail. Gray was also charged with extortion and is being treated at a psychiatric facility.

Osmanovic's lawyers won't comment. Neither will Gray's lawyers, citing a pending gag order in the case. Earlier in the week, however, the lawyers went on national TV to talk about Gray's long history of mental illness and how she started to identify with the kidnapper.

"Not one e-mail, not one text message, not one cell phone record — there is nothing that supports (authorities') contention that it's a faked kidnapping," said lawyer Mark Miller. About the audiotape he says that it is "an audio recording of a woman who has been kidnapped, abducted and is being raped."

Interestingly, Gray's husband — the owner of a home health care company who detailed the couple's long, painful history of marital infidelity during hours of police interviews — is standing by his wife. He is not seeking a divorce.

"I love my family," Reid Gray wrote in a statement to the media. "And will do whatever I can to make sure that Quinn receives all of the help and support that she needs."