I Got Ur Kid..buried Alive Pay Me

[deanmine]

1968

After the grand opening of Marco Island on January 31, 1965, the Marco Island Development Corporation, a joint development venture between the Mackle Brothers and the Collier family was going gangbusters. By 1968, with lot prices averaging $10,300, land sales were totaling $11 million, while the sale of homes had reached $3.5 million. The value of Deltona stock, the Mackle Brothers’ company, had climbed from $12 per share in 1963 to $20 per share by the start of 1968 and was providing a return of 12% after taxes!
By early 1968 the three Mackle brothers, having finished the dredging of the area east of Castaways and Greenbrier Streets, moved their dredge south into the future Landmark waterway by cutting through SR 92 (the future San Marco Road) east of Buttercup and Robin Courts. With the incredibly high occupancy rate at the Voyager Hotel, the decision had been made to develop this area of the Island next. Before long, the old road to the tracking station became Landmark Street as the large Landmark Waterway was cut out of an old swamp. By the fall of 1968, the dredge cut a channel north of Winterberry Drive and was moving toward Roberts Bay. Meanwhile, the funding of the high span Marco Bridge, having been secured by future bridge tolls, was under construction and scheduled to open the following year, 1969. Things were going fabulously and the three Mackle brothers Frank Jr., Elliott, and Robert dominated the Florida development world as owners of a $65-million dollar empire.
All of this excitement slammed to a halt in the early morning hours of December 17, 1968 when the Mackle family received grim news: Robert Mackle’s 20 year-old daughter Barbara Jane had been kidnapped in Atlanta, Georgia. Robert’s wife Jane had traveled from Coral Gables to visit Barbara, a student at Emory University, and they both moved into a nearby motel so that Barbara could recover from the Hong Kong flu that was spreading through the campus and study for her final exams. A man who identified himself as a detective knocked on the door of Room 137 of the Rodeway Inn at 4 a.m. and said he had information about an auto accident involving someone in a white Ford, suggesting it could be Barbara’s boyfriend Stewart who had been hurt. Mrs. Mackle opened the door to confront a masked man carrying a shotgun and a smaller person wearing a ski mask. They burst through the doorway, bound and chloroformed her, quickly seized Barbara in her red and white nightgown and put her into their car and drove off. Mrs. Mackle was able to free herself enough to call for help. Soon the police arrived.
Barbara, meanwhile, was driven northeast of Atlanta by two people: a man and a smaller person she thought was a boy. She was told to be quiet and ask no questions about where she was going or what would happen to her. In a wooded area 20 miles north of Atlanta where she was allowed out of the car, she faced a pre-dug hole and a coffin that she was ordered to enter. She pleaded with her captors and told them that she would do anything if they would just not kill her or put her in the box.
She repeated over and over: “I’ll be good.”




Barbara was told that she would live if she cooperated; chloroform was put over her mouth and she was forced to lie in the box, as Polaroid photos were taken of her holding a hand-lettered sign that read “Kidnapped”. The top was screwed down and she could hear the sounds of freezing dirt being shoveled on top of her. Within a few moments, she lay buried alive with eighteen inches of earth between her and freedom.

Her kidnappers told her in detail that her tomb was equipped with sufficient food and water (which was laced with sedatives), a blanket, a sweater, a fan, two vent tubes that went to the surface to provide air, sanitary supplies, and a small light. In addition, she was given a long typed note that told her about a ransom being demanded and that she would be freed no later than Christmas: this was eight days away.

These are the typed survival instructions left in the capsule by the kidnappers for their victim Barbara Mackle:

DO NOT BE ALARMED. YOU ARE SAFE.
YOU ARE PRESENTLY INSIDE A FIBERGLASS REINFORCED PLYWOOD CAPSULE BURIED BENEATH THE GROUND NEAR THE HOUSE IN WHICH YOUR KIDNAPPERS ARE STAYING. YOUR STATUS WILL BE CHECKED APPROXIMATELY EVERY 2 HOURS.
THE CAPSULE IS QUITE STRONG, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BREAK IT OPEN. BE ADVISED, HOWEVER, THAT YOU ARE BENEATH THE WATER TABLE. IF YOU BREAK OPEN A SEAM YOU WOULD DROWN BEFORE WE COULD DIG YOU OUT. THE CAPSULE INSTRUMENTATION CONTAINS A WATER SENSITIVE SWITCH WHICH WILL WARN US IF THE WATER ENTERS THE CAPSULE TO A DANGEROUS DEGREE.
YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON THE AIR DELIVERED TO YOUR CHAMBER VIA THE VENTILATION FAN. THIS FAN IS POWERED BY A LEAD-ACID STORAGE BATTERY CAPABLE OF SUPPLYING THE FAN MOTOR WITH POWER FOR 270 HOURS. HOWEVER, THE USE OF THE LIGHT AND OTHER SYSTEMS FOR ONLY A FEW HOURS COUPLED WITH THE HIGHER AMPERAGE DRAIN WILL REDUCE THIS FIGURE TO ONLY ONE WEEK OF SAFETY.
SHOULD THE AIR SUPPLIED PROVE TO BE TOO MUCH YOU CAN PARTLY BLOCK THE AIR OUTLET WITH A PIECE OF PAPER. A MUFFLER HAS BEEN PLACED IN THE AIR PASSAGE TO PREVENT ANY NOISE YOU MAKE FROM REACHING THE SURFACE: IF WE DETECT ANY COMMOTION WHICH WE FEEL IS DANGEROUS, WE WILL INTRODUCE ETHER TO THE AIR INTAKE AND PUT YOU TO SLEEP.
THE FAN OPERATES ON 6 VOLTS. IT HAS A SWITCH WITH TWO POSITIONS TO SWITCH BETWEEN THE TWO AVAILABLE CIRCUITS. SHOULD ONE CIRCUIT FAIL TURN TO THE OTHER.
THE BOX HAS A PUMP WHICH WILL EVACUATE ANY ACCIDENTAL LEAKAGE FROM THE BOX WHEN YOU TURN THE PUMP SWITCH ON TO THE “ON” POSITION. THIS PUMP USES 15 TIMES AS MUCH POWER AS YOUR VENTILATION FAN (7.5 AMPS); YOUR LIFE SUPPORT BATTERY WILL NOT ALLOW USE OF THE PUMP EXCEPT FOR EMERGENCY WATER EVACUATION.
THE LIGHT USES 2.5 TIMES THE AMPERAGE OF THE AIR CIRCULATION SYSTEM. USE OF THE LIGHT WHEN NOT NECESSARY WILL CUT YOUR BATTERY SAFETY MARGIN SUBSTANTIALLY. IF YOU USE THE LIGHT CONTINUOUSLY YOUR LIFE EXPECTANCY WILL BE CUT TO ONE THIRD OF THE WEEK WE HAVE ALLOTTED YOU BEFORE YOU ARE RELEASED.
YOUR CAPSULE CONTAINS A WATER JUG WITH THREE GALLONS OF WATER AND A TUBE FROM WHICH TO DRINK IT. BE CAREFUL TO BLOW THE WATER FROM THE TUBE WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED DRINKING TO AVOID SIPHONING THE WATER ONTO THE FLOOR WHEN THE TUBE END DROPS BELOW THE WATER LEVEL.
YOUR CAPSULE CONTAINS A BUCKET FOR REFUSE AND THE PRODUCTS OF YOUR BOWEL MOVEMENTS. THE BUCKET HAS AN ANTIBACTERIAL SOLUTION IN IT: DON’T TIP IT OVER. THE LID SEALS TIGHTLY TO PREVENT THE ESCAPE OF ODORS. A ROLL OF WAX PAPER IS PROVIDED – USE IT TO PREVENT SOLID WASTE FROM CONTAMINATING YOUR BED. KOTEX IS PROVIDED SHOULD YOU NEED IT.
BLANKETS AND A MAT ARE PROVIDED. YOUR WARMTH DEPENDS ON BODY HEAT SO REGULATE THE AIR TO PREVENT LOSS OF HEAT FROM THE CAPSULE.
A CASE OF CANDY IS PROVIDED TO FURNISH ENERGY TO YOUR BODY.
TRANQUILIZERS ARE PROVIDED TO AID YOU IN SLEEPING – THE BEST WAY YOU HAVE TO PASS THE TIME.
THE VENTILATION SYSTEM IS DOUBLY SCREENED TO PREVENT INSECTS OR ANIMALS FROM ENTERING THE CAPSULE AREA. YOU RISK BEING EATEN BY ANTS SHOULD YOU BREAK THESE PROTECTION SCREENS.
THE ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS BEHIND THESE SCREENS ARE DELICATE AND THEY SUPPORT YOUR LIFE. DON’T ATTEMPT TO TOUCH THESE CIRCUITS.
WE’RE SURE YOUR FATHER WILL PAY THE RANSOM WE HAVE ASKED IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK. WHEN YOUR FATHER PAYS THE RANSOM WE WILL TELL HIM WHERE YOU ARE AND HE’LL COME FOR YOU. SHOULD HE FAIL TO PAY WE WILL RELEASE YOU, SO BE CALM AND REST – YOU’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

Barbara lay there scared, bracing and pushing with all of her strength. She screamed and pounded at the walls as hard as she could hoping someone would hear her. Meanwhile she was left in total darkness when the light died in three hours.
The kidnappers had chosen the wrong family to anger, as Robert Mackle and his brothers were close, personal friends of President-elect Richard M. Nixon. In fact, they had built for President Nixon one of the penthouse units at their second ‘high rise’ condominium on Marco’s beach, Sunset House. It was decorated in the classic blue and white colors of the presidency. Instead, President Nixon selected another of their developments, Key Biscayne, as the base for his winter White House.
The nation’s most famous crime fighter, J. Edgar Hoover, took personal charge of the FBI, mobilizing units throughout Florida and Georgia while launching massive investigation and search efforts. In the meantime, Florida’s U.S. Senator George Smathers, agreed to coordinate the information supplied to the Florida State Police.
A ransom message was delivered: the kidnappers wanted $500,000 in old $20 bills delivered to a spot along Biscayne Bay. Robert Mackle immediately raised the money, put it in a large suitcase, and left it where instructed just south of Miami along the bay. At 5 a.m. a local resident, hearing an outboard motor and concerned about the rash of burglaries at the time, called the local police. They arrived, totally unaware of the kidnapping, and spotted two individuals carrying baggage. Upon seeing the police, the two dropped everything and ran, dashing through the yard of Herbert and Emily Savage, who now live on Marco Island. In a strange coincidence, Herb worked for Deltona, as the architect of the famed Marco Beach Hotel and Villas and of the Mackle-built homes being constructed in all of their developments including Marco Island.
Meanwhile, the kidnappers escaped and the police recovered two bags: one was the suitcase containing the $500,000 in cash while the other had scuba gear in it.
Word got out that Robert Mackle’s daughter Barbara, age 20, had been kidnapped in the early morning hours of December 17, 1968. Everyone in Florida and throughout the nation who knew of the Mackles was shocked and paralyzed. Their concern and fear during the early Christmas season of 1968 paralleled the emotions felt 36 years earlier when the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped and then found dead.
On Marco Island, in the Mackle brothers’ brand new development, no one could talk or think of anything but the kidnapping. It was as if a local child had been taken. All radios were turned on for the latest words; prayers were said and everyone was desperate for any good news.
After the bungled attempt to pick up the ransom monies of half a million dollars in $20 bills, the police found that the kidnappers had used a Boston Whaler stolen from the University of Miami Institute of Marine Sciences. In a nearby blue Volvo the police also found information on the two kidnappers as well as a photo showing Barbara Mackle holding a sign that said, “Kidnapped”.
The FBI quickly identified two suspects: Gary Steven Krist, a 23-year old escaped convict from California, who had grown up in Alaska; Ruth Eisemann Schier, a 26-year old biology researcher at the Institute, who was from Honduras.
Robert Mackle, worried that the kidnappers might think the police arrival at the pick up point was an ambush, put an ad in the Miami Herald for the kidnappers and got a call at 10:35 p.m. providing a new money drop location. Meanwhile, alarmed at the close call, Schier boarded a bus heading west to Austin, Texas for a planned rendezvous with Krist and their departure for Europe.
The second drop off succeeded. Krist got the money and drove north to West Palm Beach. There, using a fake name and $2,240 in $20 dollar bills, he purchased a 16-foot motorboat with plans to head west across Florida, 155 miles through the Okeechobee Waterway toward Ft. Myers, and then to cross the Gulf of Mexico to get to Texas for the planned rendezvous.
The marina owner, alerted by the national news and suspicious of a bearded man paying with only $20 dollar bills, called the police immediately after Krist towed the boat away. The FBI issued warrants for Krist’s and Schier’s arrests.
Nearly 15 hours after the ransom pickup, Krist called the FBI office in Atlanta and left a tip that Barbara’s burial site was near Duluth, Georgia. Teams of agents combed the woods until they spotted the ventilation tubes and dug with their bare hands until they uncovered the box containing Barbara Mackle. Late in the afternoon of December 20 she was rescued. After having spent 83 hours in dark, cold confinement, Barbara was in remarkably good spirits. She was finally freed: dehydrated, stiff and 10 pounds lighter. Barbara was flown in her father’s private jet back to Miami to be reunited with her family. In a short press interview she said she was treated humanely and felt “Absolutely wonderful”.
Meanwhile, Krist had covered over 100 miles traveling west by water across the state, and had gone through the St. Lucie Canal and across Lake Okeechobee; but shortly after Krist left the Caloosahatchee locks, the suspicious lock tender didn’t believe Krist’s story about the boat’s registration being lost, and finding out that he had repeatedly used the same story at all prior locks, called the police. Krist motored past Ft. Myers and then north out of the Caloosahatchee River into Charlotte Bay at the mouth of the Peace River. Soon police boats and helicopters were in hot pursuit, so Krist beached the boat and fled on foot into the mangroves on Hog Island. After 12 hours, with the island surrounded by FBI agents and police, Krist was finally handcuffed and caught by two Charlotte County deputies who had stalked him. In his pockets was $17,000, with an additional $480,000 found in the boat by FBI agents. With those sums, along with the $2,240 paid for the boat, only $760 was missing. Ruth Schier was still at large and became the first woman in history to make the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.
On December 27 Time Magazine published the first of two stories entitled ‘The Girl in the Box’, with the followup story published on January 3, 1969. Richard Nixon met with Barbara and suggested that she write a book about her experiences.
Seventy-nine days after the kidnapping, a destitute woman identified as Ruth Schier was arrested in Norman, Oklahoma. She no longer looked like the bright University of Miami graduate student studying marine science, but instead was a scared and impoverished woman trying to apply for a job as a carhop. She was transported back to Georgia for trial, where Krist was already in jail preparing for his trial.
Craig Woodward moved to Marco Island in 1968 and has practiced law in Collier County since 1980. For many years Craig has led a history tour of the Island for the Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Marco program. He also has a home in Everglades City and has a deep interest in local and Florida history. The Coastal Breeze News is delighted to feature his regular columns on Collier County history, to provide ‘essential information’ for new and old residents alike.

With Barbara Mackle safe and in good condition after spending 83 hours buried alive in the woods near Duluth, Georgia, attention immediately turned to the kidnappers: Gary Steven Krist, a small time Alaska crook who had escaped from jail in California, and his accomplice, Ruth Eisemann Schier, a bright, petite graduate student. Everyone wanted to know: who were these people? Why they had done this heinous crime and would they now pay for it?
Krist, who had grown up in Alaska, started stealing at age nine. By 14 he was convicted of auto theft and put in a juvenile facility in Utah. In August of 1963 Krist, age 18, was back in jail in California for attempting to steal another car. As he sat in jail, he planned the perfect crime: to locate and abduct a young heiress. He worked out issues like how to communicate with her family and where to hide her while waiting for the money, and concluded that burial underground was a brilliant solution.
Three years later he was married with a son, and back in jail again in Tracy, California for another car theft. He broke out of prison by scaling a fence and running quickly.
The family moved to Boston where Krist, with a very high IQ, an invented identity and the innate ability to defraud, got a job as a research assistant at MIT. When an opportunity arose, Krist moved his family to Miami and soon picked up a mistress by the name of Ruth Eisemann Schier. Shortly afterward, around the end of November 1968, his wife Carmen took the family and headed back to California. Meanwhile Schier, who spoke Spanish, German, English, and French signed up for Krist’s get-rich-quick scheme and the couple planned on living as fugitives in Europe.
At the Mackle trial, Krist tried unconvincingly to persuade the court psychiatrist that he was insane, acting as an egomaniac and claiming to be “a superior human being”. Meanwhile Schier tried to use the excuse that she was blindly in love with Krist. She was sentenced to seven years, was paroled after four years and deported to Honduras.
The Georgia prosecutor sought the death penalty for Krist: he got a life sentence and was probably spared the death penalty because of Barbara Mackle’s testimony, later written in her memoir, “I know that I did not want Krist to be executed. For one reason, it was he who called (the FBI to free me).”
In 1972 Gary Krist wrote a 370-page account of his life entitled, ‘Life: The Man who Kidnapped Barbara Mackle’ and tried to escape prison in a garbage truck. By the mid-1970’s he turned into a model prisoner, attended classes to be come an EMT, and started working in the prison hospital. Knowing he was eligible for parole after only seven years in prison, Krist also started cultivating a relationship with the chairman of the Georgia Parole Board, Tommy Morris.
“There is nothing in our files to indicate Gary Steven Krist is violent or dangerous,” Parole Board Chairman Morris told the New York Times. “If he does commit a crime, it won’t be a crime of violence.”
Saying he might become a missionary, Krist, at age 33, walked out of prison on May 14, 1979 – ten years and five months after the kidnapping of Barbara Mackle. As proof of the adage that truth is stranger than fiction, Krist decided to go to college and on to medical school. However, there was a slight problem since Krist was on parole as a convicted felon. Chairman Morris helped Krist to get a pardon, and after Krist finished college in Alaska, he went to medical school in the Caribbean. He married his prison pen pal, Joan Jones, and graduated medical school in the mid-1990s. He got jobs in Haiti and then in West Virginia, Alabama, and Connecticut but each time, when his criminal history became known, he lost his job. In 2001 Dr. Krist got his last medical positiion in a rural town in Indiana, where they were aware of his background, but had no local doctor. This lasted only until the nearby Evansville paper published a story on the Mackle kidnapping.
In November of 2005, Dr. Krist and his wife’s son rented a sailboat in Mobile Bay and sailed to South America, purchasing about 13 pounds of cocaine. The charter company, upon inspecting the returned vessel and seeing a map of Colombia, called the police. A month later, in January of 2006, Krist rented another sailboat which, unknown to him, had a tracking device installed in it. On March 6, 2006 when Krist returned to Mobile, he and his wife’s son were arrested along with four illegal aliens on board, each of whom had paid $6,000 for entry to the U.S. The police also found 38 pounds of cocaine in paste form, worth about $2 million on the street. Krist, using the same ingenuity that it took to construct the box for the kidnapping, had put the cocaine in a box filled with concrete and held in place with a rope. It would take seconds to cut and release the evidence if needed. However, he did not have time to cut the rope and was caught red-handed.



A search of Krist’s house, located 35 miles east of Atlanta, uncovered a large underground laboratory with a fifty-foot escape tunnel. Here cocaine paste was converted into powder form, and then sold in Atlanta.

Dr. Krist and his wife’s son pleaded guilty to the charges on May 16, 2006 in U.S. District Court in Mobile.
Krist’s wife Joan, told the Athens, Georgia newspaper, “He is a good man, and he has not done anything to anyone in years.”
On January 19, 2007 Krist at the age of 61 was sentenced to five years in jail. He is scheduled to be released in 2012 when, presumably, his story will continue. Ruth Eisemann Schier was last heard of in Honduras, married with a family.
Barbara Mackle married her college boyfriend Stewart Woodward, has a family and lives in Florida. She has not spoken publicly about the kidnapping and wants to put that part of her life behind her. Meanwhile, her nephew and his family currently reside on Marco Island in a Mackle-built house, which was constructed in the late 1960’s.
A highly-rated TV movie, with the same name as Barbara’s 1971 book, ‘83 Hours ‘Til Dawn’ came out in 1990 starring Robert Ulrich as Robert Mackle, and was released on DVD in 2006.
Craig Woodward moved to Marco Island in 1968 and has practiced law in Collier County since 1980. For many years Craig has led a history tour of the Island for the Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Marco program. He also has a home in Everglades City and has a deep interest in local and Florida history. The Coastal Breeze News is delighted to feature his regular columns on Collier County history, to provide ‘essential information’ for new and old residents alike.



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On December 17, 1968, Barbara Jane Mackle, a student at Emory College and the 20-year-old daughter of a millionaire real-estate developer is kidnapped from the Rodeway Inn in Decatur, Georgia.

Mackle was sick with the flu, and her mother had driven to the Atlanta area to take care of her daughter and then drive her daughter back to the family home in Florida for the Christmas break. A stranger, Gary Steven Krist, knocked on the door claiming to be with the police, and told Mackle that a friend Stewart Hunt Woodward had been in a traffic accident.

Once inside, Krist and his accomplice, Ruth Eisemann-Schier, disguised as a man, chloroformed, bound and gagged Mackle's mother and forced Barbara Jane at gunpoint into the back of their waiting car, informing her that she was being kidnapped. They drove her to a remote area near South Berkeley Lake Road near Duluth and buried Mackle in a shallow trench inside of a fiberglass-reinforced box. The box was outfitted with an air pump, a battery-powered lamp, water laced with sedatives, and food. Two plastic pipes provided Mackle with outside air. Krist and Eisemann-Schier demanded and received a $500,000 ransom from Barbara Jane’s father. The first attempt at a ransom drop was disrupted, when two policemen drove by. The kidnappers fled on foot and the FBI found their car, abandoned. Inside the car, the authorities found, not only documents giving Krist's and Eisemann-Schier's names and former addresses, they also found a photograph of Barbara Jane Mackle in the box holding a sign that read "Kidnapped."

The second ransom drop was successful. On December 20th, Krist called and gave to a switchboard operator of the FBI vague directions to Mackle's burial place. The FBI set up their base in Lawrenceville, and more than 100 agents spread out through the area in an attempt to find her, digging the ground with their hands and anything they could find to use. Mackle was rescued alive and unharmed. She had spent more than three days underground. Krist was soon arrested off the coast of Florida in a speedboat bought with part of the ransom money. Eisemann-Schier was arrested 79 days later. She was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, paroled after serving four years. Krist was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1969 but was released on parole after 10 years. Krist received a pardon to allow him to attend medical school. He practiced medicine in Indiana before his license was revoked in 2003 for lying about disciplinary action received during his residency. In March 2006, Krist was arrested on a sailboat off the coast of Alabama for smuggling drugs and was sentenced to five years in prison but released in November, 2010.
............

[Photoplay]

Great read and post
The thought of spending three days in a pre-dug hole and a coffin sends shivers up my spine.
History showed Krist was going to try making bagsful of money anyway he could really wasn’t he.

[Kelseecat65]

wow, what an ordeal for her. Glad she made it thru. She lost 10 lbs in 83 hours...woweee! OK, thats not the way to do it...but damn!!

[Nick_ufc]

great read, excellent post too.

[ToMidnightshow]

Shocked I have never heard of this! I grew up in the Berkeley lake area less than a mile from the road they reference. I'm going to see if I can find out the exact location and if it's hike-able. Fascinating read!!!!

[Brhatt70]

Wow. I live on Marco Island and have never heard this story. Great read!

[Lythal]

I would hate to be kidnapped and buried alive. But these guys sound like if you had to be kidnapped, these guys would be the best to take you, atleast they didnt just kill her and gave her things to survive on

[deanmine]

Originally Posted by LydKyd

these guys would be the best to take you

no, not at all.. what u want is a t.v. sofa, T.V. and air.... she had none of these and lived in unbarable conditions of no air and extreme heat