Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
One of the most shocking crimes in American criminal history is the kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mackle. It was December 17, 1968, when a nightmare became reality for 20-year-old student Barbara Jane Mackle. On that day, she was kidnapped and buried alive 1.8 meters underground. The narrow, damp, and dark fiberglass box underground became Barbara’s new home for 83 hours until her kidnappers finally received their ransom demand. Barbara Jane Mackle was the only daughter of Jane and Robert Mackle. Robert Mackle was a true self-made millionaire who, together with his brothers Elliot and Frank Junior, had founded the Deltona Corporation in Florida, one of the largest real estate empires in the USA. His daughter Barbara was studying at Emory University in Atlanta. Since the beginning of December, the Hong Kong flu had been rampant there, and Barbara had also fallen ill, which is why her mother Jane traveled from Florida to be with her on December 3 to take care of her. Jane had booked rooms for herself and Barbara at the Rodeway Inn, which was not far from the campus. Jane devoted herself to caring for Barbara, who was supposed to come with her to her house in Coral Gables in mid-December to celebrate Christmas together. For this reason, Barbara’s boyfriend Stewart Hunt Woodward said goodbye to her on December 16. No one could have guessed at that point that Barbara’s life would change forever in the next few hours. Because on December 17, at around 3 a.m., two police officers knocked on the Mackles’ door at the Rodeway Inn motel in Decatur. They claimed that Barbara Mackles’ boyfriend had been involved in a traffic accident with his white Ford. When Barbara’s mother Jane let them in, they chloroformed, tied up, and gagged her. Then they forced Barbara into her blue Volvo station wagon at gunpoint. They drove Barbara to a remote pine forest in Gwinnett County, where Barbara was led to a dug-out hole in the ground with a fiberglass box at the bottom. Barbara was forced to lie down in it, which was equipped with a pump for fresh air, battery-powered lamps, water, food, and sedatives. The two kidnappers then informed her that she had been kidnapped and would soon be released in exchange for a ransom payment. They then placed a sign in Barbara’s hands that read “Kidnapped” and took a Polaroid photo. In the meantime, Jane had regained consciousness in the hotel room, managed to free herself, and immediately contacted Barbara’s boyfriend, who in turn informed Barbara’s father. He wanted Stewart to alert the FBI. When the FBI learned of the kidnapping, they immediately took over the investigation. On December 18, Robert Mackle received a call at around 9 a.m. In it, the kidnappers told him where they had hidden the instructions for the ransom demand. It was on his property under a certain tree, where there was a small stone under which he should dig. Sure enough, he found a buried glass jar containing a three-page typewritten ransom note. The letter stated that Barbara had been buried alive and that they were demanding a ransom of $500,000 if Robert wanted to see his beloved daughter Barbara again. Shortly afterwards, Robert received a letter at home in which the kidnappers told him the handover location and included a Polaroid photo of Barbara in her underground tomb and a piece of her jewelry. After Robert had organized the money, he was to drive alone the next morning to a bridge 6.5 kilometers away, where he was to place the money in a suitcase on a retaining wall. Robert followed the instructions and then drove home again. In the meantime, the kidnappers picked up the money, traveling by motorboat from the island along Biscayne Bay until they crashed onto land. The noise was so loud that local residents called the police. The kidnappers tried to flee. There was a brief exchange of gunfire between the police and the kidnappers, who dropped the suitcase with the ransom money but managed to escape. The ransom handover had failed miserably. Robert was devastated, fearing for his daughter’s life, so he placed ads in the classifieds of all the major newspapers in Miami in order to contact Barbara’s kidnappers. Robert’s plan worked, the kidnappers got in touch, and Robert handed over the ransom for the second time at 1 a.m. on December 20. After 12 agonizing hours, the FBI office in Atlanta received a call with vague coordinates of Barbara’s location. Over 100 agents went there to search for Barbara, whom they found at around 4:15 p.m. and were able to free from her underground dungeon. Barbara was severely dehydrated and weakened, having lost 4.5 kilograms during her 83 hours in captivity. But what became of Barbara’s kidnappers? According to Barbara’s mother Jane, the kidnappers were a man and a woman. The first failed ransom drop, in which the kidnappers left their vehicle behind, led to the blue Volvo station wagon being traced to a man named George Deakin, in whose possession were not only fingerprints but also Polaroid photos of Barbara in the fiberglass coffin. George Deakin was a research assistant at the University of Miami. When the authorities inquired about him there, the Institute of Marine Sciences discovered that a motorboat had disappeared from their boatyard on the very night of the ransom handover. In addition, Deakin had taken his annual leave on the day of the kidnapping. Deakin led them to his accomplice. She was 26-year-old doctoral student Ruth Eisemann-Schier, who was born in Honduras and was of Austrian descent. Thanks to a scholarship in marine biology, she was able to study at the University of Miami. Ruth had met and fallen in love with Deakin during a research trip to Bermuda. After extensive investigations, George Deakin turned out to be 23-year-old Gary Steven Krist. He was considered highly intelligent, was born on April 29, 1945, and grew up partly in Pelican and Utah. He began a criminal career in his youth, which would accompany him into adulthood. At the age of 14, he committed his first robberies. But that was only the beginning of a series of crimes that eventually landed him in prison. However, Krist managed to escape from the Deuel Vocational Institute, a California state prison, in November 1966. He went into hiding, got married, and moved to Massachusetts, where he worked for a few months in a magnet laboratory at MIT. He then got a job at the University of Miami, where he and Ruth planned their biggest crime: the kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mackle, whom he and Ruth buried alive in a ventilated box underground in 1968. Gary Steven Krist was caught shortly after the kidnapping after the owner of a boat supply store in West Palm Beach reported a suspicious man who had purchased a boat to the authorities. The description of the man matched Krit, who was passing through the Okeechobee Waterway, where he was finally arrested on December 22. He was found with $18,000 in a briefcase and $450,000 in a suitcase hidden in a boat wreck. His accomplice, Ruth Eisemann-Schier, was not arrested until 79 days later. She was the first woman to make the FBI’s list of the 10 most wanted criminals. She was arrested in March 1968 when she applied for a job as a nursing assistant at a psychiatric clinic in Norman. Ruth had provided her fingerprints when she applied, which the authorities were quickly able to match with those found in the blue Volvo. Ruth made a full confession immediately after her arrest. She showed remorse and regretted what she had done. She was sentenced to seven years in prison, of which she served three. She was then deported to Honduras, where she later married and lived a secluded life. Krist, on the other hand, showed no remorse. He behaved arrogantly and unreasonably, which is why he was sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1969 for the kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mackle with a ransom demand. To his surprise, he was released on parole in 1979 after only ten years. The reason for his early release was his alleged rehabilitation and his promise to become a missionary. After his release, Krist received a pardon and began medical training. He eventually practiced in Indiana, but lost his license in 2003 for misrepresenting disciplinary actions taken during his residency. In early March 2006, Krist was arrested in Mobile Bay. Off the coast of Alabama, he had loaded not only 14 kilograms of cocaine onto his boat, but also several people whom he intended to smuggle into the US illegally in exchange for payment. In January 2007, he was sentenced to more than five years in prison. Gary Krist’s story is not just a series of crimes, but also shows his ability to repeatedly find new ways to evade justice and develop new criminal activities. He saw himself as the “Einstein of crime,” which in his view refers to his creativity and expertise in criminal activities. Krist’s life was a series of incarcerations and escapes that ultimately made him one of America’s most notorious criminals. His kidnapping plan was well thought out and detailed, but ultimately failed due to minor details he had not foreseen. As Gary Krist continued his criminal career, he left a trail of suffering in the wake of his victims and their families. Barbara Jane Mackle, the main character in his most famous crime, married her college boyfriend Stewart Hunt Woodward after the kidnapping, with whom she had two children and remained married until his death in 2013. She described her traumatic experience together with reporter Gene Miller in their book “83 Hours ‘Til Dawn,” published in 1972. Despite her horrific experience, she rejected the death penalty for Krist and showed remarkable mercy. In the end, Gary Krist found no peace. His life was a constant struggle with the law and attempts to conceal his criminal activities. Multiple incarcerations and constant surveillance by law enforcement prevented him from ever leading a normal life. Gary Krist’s life story is an example of how criminal genius and arrogance can ultimately bring a person down. Despite his skills and intelligence, he was never able to break the cycle of crime and had to pay for his actions time and time again. Gary Steven Krist remains an enigmatic figure in criminal history. His life story shows that even the most brilliant plans and greatest ambitions cannot protect one from the consequences of one’s own actions. In the history of crime, he will be remembered as one of the most multifaceted and tragic figures, and Barbar Jane Mackle as a true heroine of survival who mastered her life brilliantly despite this horrific experience.
