Episode 599: The Kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mackle (Part 2)
Morbid- 81 views
- 9 Sep 2024
In the early morning hours of December 17, 1968, two gunmen burst into the Atlanta motel room of Barbara Jane Mackle and her mother, Jane. After tying up and chloroforming Jane Mackle, the two kidnapped Barbara, forcing her into their car at gunpoint. Later that day, a family friend received a call at the Mackle home in Florida, instructing them to look in the northwest corner of the Mackle’s yard, where they would find a ransom note with details about how to ensure their daughter’s safe return.Once the note was unearthed, the Mackle’s learned their daughter had been placed inside a box and buried in the ground in a remote location. She has enough food, water, and air to survive for a few days, but if the family doesn’t act quickly, there’s a good chance Barbara will dieThe kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mackle was an elaborately planned, well-executed crime that quickly dominated local and national headlines, which was no small feat in a year of major social upheaval. By the 1960s, kidnapping for ransom was a familiar concept, but to be kidnapped and buried alive was a terrifying thought that shook Americans to their core and left everyone wondering, what kind of person could do such a thing?Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me The Axe Podcast for research and writing support!ReferencesAssociated Press. 1968. "Kidnapped college girl found safe in box underground." Los Angeles Times, December 21: 1.—. 1968. "Mackle kidnapping suspect capturted; $480,000 recovered." Los Angeles Times, December 22: 1.—. 1968. "Kidnapped girl tells of ordeal of 83 hours entombed in box." New York Times, December 29: 44.—. 1968. "Kidnapped girl, buried alive, is freed." New York Times, December 21: 1.Atlanta Constitution. 1968. "80-hour burial ends in rescue." Atlanta Constitution, December 21: 1.—. 1968. "Motel coed kidnapped here spurs nationwide alert for 2." Atlanta Constitution, December 18: 1.Foreman, Laura. 1968. "Campus silent about the girl." Atlanta Constitution, December 18: 1.Gary Steven Krist v. State of Georgia. 1970. 227 Ga. 85 (Ga. 1970) (Supreme Court of Georgia, December 3).Markowitz, Arnold. 1969. "Plea of Innocent entered for Krist." Miami Herald, March 8: 1.Miami Herald. 1969. "Krist collapses; is being force-fed." Miami Herald, April 25: 4.—. 1969. "'Superiority' goes to jail." Miami Herald, May 28: 3.—. 1969. "Who's villain of kidnap case?" Miami Herald, March 9: 19.Miller, Gene. 1969. "Krist gets life in prison avter jury grants mercy." Miami Herald, May 27: 1.—. 1969. "'Life imprisonment worse than death'." Miami Herald, May 27: 16.Miller, Gene, and Barbara Mackle. 1971. Eighty-Three Hours till Dawn. New York, NY: Doubleday.Murray, Frank. 1968. "Researcher and 2 sought in kidnap." Atlanta Constitution, December 20: 1.New York Times. 1968. "Ransom pickup inadvertently foiled by Miami police." New York Times, December 20.Raines, Howell. 1979. "Parole of a kidnapper angers Atlanta." New York Times, May 14: A14.Sosin, Milt. 1969. "FBI hunts Ruth's 'flight pal'." Miami News, March 6: 1.—. 1969. "Ruth: Everyone is against me." Miami News, March 7: 1.United Press International. 1968. "Gunman and 'boy' kidnapp 20-year-old coed, Florida millionaire's daughter." New York Times, December 18: 25.Vissar, Steve. 2006. "The strange odyssey of Gary Krist; From kidnapper to prisoner to doctor to alleged drug smuggler." Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 19.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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You're listening to a Morbid network podcast. From Wondery comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules. Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? Paul can do it. I'm your host, Brandon James Jenkins. Follow criminal attorney on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is morbid.
It is. And I'm so ready for part two.
This is part two. And the story just gets weirder. The plot thickens from here on out.
It got weird at the end.
It's gonna get weirder. George Deacon is a wild man.
Oh, goodness gracious.
Wild man. And before we get into it, go preorder the butcher game. It's coming out September 17. It's so close. Everybody do it. Pre order it. It's so close. I promise you, you'll love it. It's thicker. It's gnarlier.
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And there might still be tickets left to some of the events that we mentioned in last week's episode or the other day's episode.
It's true. There might be. So go take a peek. But pre order that episode. Pre order that episode, pre order that book. Remember, you might get it like a day early. It's like that fun little, like, who knows? Who knows? That's a fun game. Fun game.
I like that.
But that's all I got to say to you before we get back into this, because I know you're sitting there going, huh?
That's the thing. I have nothing. I could say a million things right now.
Let's get to it like, let's go. So when we last left you, we had successfully done the ransom drop.
Yes.
We had figured out we'd found the car, the car from Massachusetts. We had found that it traced back to George Deaconous. And we found those wild photos of George Deacon. We also found some photos of Barbara Mackle.
Yeah. Which are so chilling.
Yeah. And it's the one you can look at. And again, she's alive. Don't worry. But she was drugged in that photo, by the way. We find out. But that's where we left off. So on the morning of December 20, investigators learned that George Deacon had moved from Massachusetts to Florida, where he had found work as a boat driver for a marine science laboratory at the University of Miami. Ah. Now, agents tracked down Deacon's boss at that university. His name was Doctor Robert Hurley. He was the head of the marine lab.
And Robert Hurley was who the car was registered to. Right.
So there's all kinds of weird shit going on.
Uh huh.
So according to Hurley, George Deacon was an incredibly bright and capable man who provided field assistance to the research scientists in the field.
Weird that there was science shit buried in their front yard.
Exactly. In addition to driving the boat for them, Deacon would apparently also help them build various kinds of ventilated boxes and containers that the team would use to transport their specimens. Like marine specimens. So he's very well versed in this.
Oh my God.
Now, at the time of him being hired in June 1968, George Deakin said on his resume that he was 23 years old.
Okay.
And he claimed that he had attended Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, under previous work experience. He listed that he last worked as a channel charter service driver in Sitka, Alaska, and that his supervisor was Jay Christ. Now his resume looked very impressive. And it reads as someone who is interested in a career in science, engineering, that kind of thing. But he was only 23 years old.
Well, that's what I'm sitting here wondering about.
So he listed a lot of important jobs for someone who's 23. And it's not like totally out of the realm of possibility, but, like, it would be a red flag for anyone. People would check on this, like, to make sure, because he's very young to have all these, like, esteemed positions. Yeah.
By 23, I think I had waitressed for a couple years and dropped out of community college.
So it's like, not everybody's got like a thousand very important jobs on their resume.
No.
So Doctor Hurley later told agents. Cause they were like, yeah. Did you guys check up on that? Yeah.
Like, did you think about that at all.
He said, quote, obviously our people didn't study this thing very carefully. Oof. Thank you, Doctor Hurley. Yeah, seems like it. Seems like it. And what had happened was apparently he had gotten the job based on a recommendation from a previous co worker at MIT. So whoever was hiring him, the whole, like, committee didn't really bother to look deeper into his resume. So he just put a bunch of bullshit. Damn. He is very smart, though. That is one thing we'll find out. He's a brilliant human. Okay.
He just doesn't use it for good, evidently.
No, he certainly didn't. Now, aside from providing some general information about Deacon, there was one other thing that doctor Hurley showed the agents. He said, for the last several months, Deacon had been dating one of the younger researcher scientists, a graduate student named Ruth Eisemann Scheer.
Okay?
Now, he was asked to describe Ruth. What does she look like?
Tiny, short.
She's a small woman.
Knew it.
The description, once they heard it, it made the agents think, huh. Could Ruth Eiseman Scheer be the accomplice that Jane thought was like a teenage boy? Because they were wearing a ski mask? You know, like they didn't hear the voice or anything like that. It seemed very possible just because of the mask and everything. So she could have easily passed. And there was also a call made from a young woman at the Maccles house during all of this. Oh, and I'm not sure exactly what they said, but there was a young woman's voice that somebody detected.
Okay?
Now, based on the information that he provided to the human resources department at the university, agents learned that George Deakin listed his address at the all rill trailer park in Miami. And so they went to talk to neighbors there. And the neighbors described him as, quote, bitter and bright and an admirer of wealth.
Huh.
Now, according to that neighbor, Deacon apparently, quote, resented living in a trailer. And apparently he lived there with his wife and two children for the last six months. For the previous six months? But two weeks earlier, his wife and his children had left.
I was like you said, wife. But you also said he was dating a graduate student.
They had left.
Oh, goodness. This is a mess.
Yeah. So on the morning of December 20, as the agents were starting to close in on their suspect. Now, investigators caught a big break because they received a call from a young man who thought they'd seen George Deacon the night before. The previous evening, this man that was calling said he bought a detachable trailer in a local parking lot from someone matching George Deacon's description. When he read the paper that morning, he said he read about the kidnapping. And the man, he was like, he really looks like this guy. Like, I think it might be him. So he was worried the trailer might have been used in the kidnapping so he called and reported it right away.
Good. Smart.
Now, inside the trailer, agents found some boxes and most of it was just junk. But one contained several letters that referenced George Deacon as well as one as another mandev named Gary Crist.
Okay?
Now, when the agents ran Gary Crist's name through their various databases they learned that Gary Christ was. He had a criminal record.
Not good.
Several car thefts. He'd been serving a prison sentence at the dual correction institution in Tracy, California until 1966.
Oh, shit.
That was only a couple years before.
Yeah.
And then he escaped from the prison.
You're shitting me.
Quote, under a hail of gunfire that killed his escape companion.
Oh, my God.
And then he went on the run.
What are they called? On the yam?
On the. On the lamb. On the lamb.
Oh, my.
On the sweet potato. He went out on the sweet potato, never to be seen again.
I'm tired. Oh, God. As soon as I said it, I said, it's not the fucking. You. I said, why did you say that out loud, you big idiot? I love it. Honestly. Petition to change it. Petition to change it. Go out on the sweet potato.
Out on the sweet potato.
I'm on the yam.
Don't bother me. I'm on the yam.
That'd be a good Thanksgiving t shirt.
That would be a good one.
Oh, holiday.
So, yeah. So Gary, Chris was out on the yam. You know, he's out as one is. He's out on the road.
I'm in my afternoon slump. It's 344.
Throughout his criminal career, Gary Crist had actually also gone by several aliases including the name Arthur Horowitz George S. Price and Doctor Johnson Rarick.
Where did that one come from?
Good for you. Good for you, giving yourself a doctor.
Doctor Johnson Rarick.
Like, all right. And when the agents compared George Deacon's fingerprints taken from the Volvo to those on file with the California Department of Corrections they discovered that George Deacon was the convict. Gary Chris. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
Wow.
This is. This is a man who was on the yam after being in prison which escaped under a hail of gunfire where somebody died. Yeah, like, this is serious.
Yeah, I know. I should take. Yeah, it is serious.
I mean, the yam isn't, but, like, that's. I mean, like, he's a serious motherfucker.
I shouldn't be picturing him riding a sweet potato out of jail right now.
Well, now that's all I picture, so I can't stop. I'll never stop picturing that. And honestly, I don't want to. I never want to stop picturing that.
Someone draw that, please. With a lasso for some reason.
So, Gary Crist was definitely a criminal. Definitely a sociopath at this point.
Oh, no. A sociopath.
I mean, he buried a woman underground.
Oh. So I didn't know we got that far. Yeah.
Sorry.
He focused on the name of it all.
He's pretty bad. He's pretty bad. Cause he's definitely the kidnapper. He's George Deacon.
Oh, I missed that.
I'm really glad that didn't hit. Cause I was like. I thought that was gonna hit harder.
No. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Fuck. All right, all right.
I'm here.
I'm here. I don't know what's going on.
Do you need some coffee?
I think I do. Probably give me a Red Bull. Okay. All right. What a. I don't know.
I was like, yeah, he's crazy. I was like, why are you questioning them?
Yeah.
Cause you're like, oh, shit, he is. I'm like, I feel like that's pretty. I feel like that's pretty safe to say that.
I don't know. I was listening, too. I promise.
A whole person in a box under.
Yeah, that's fucked. Okay. I I'm sorry.
Yeah, but don't worry about it, because now you know. George D. Hello. Is scary. When I said it, you were like, oh. And I was like, shoot him. Damn. I thought that was gonna hit.
There was a lot of names said within that. That period.
There was. There was. I'll give you that.
And I, like I said, dropped out of community college, so here we are.
Well, Gary, Chris, who is George Deacon? The kidnapper.
So he's the guy that had been in jail before.
Yeah, prison. He's the guy who escaped on the sweet potato.
Okay, fine. I'm with you now. All right, all right.
That's him. That's George Deacon. That's our guy with the police hat on with the beefy description.
He's all the. And he has all these aliases.
And he has a ton of aliases.
The problem was, I was really focused on him riding out of prison on a sweet potato.
He was dating Ruth Eiseman Scheer.
Okay, all right, all right.
I'm here. Could be his accomplice in this, because the agents are sitting there going, well, she is a small.
Yeah, I got all.
I got all same people. Oh fuck. So.
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But, you know, like, he's a bad person.
Sociopath, even.
And Barbara, again, like, according to Barbara's instincts of saying, like, why wouldn't they just kill me if they were planning to kill me? Might have been right. Because according to everybody, you know, according to the people involved here, Gary, Christ, George Deacon, the same guy. And Ruth Eisemann Shearer did not intend to kill her. That was not their end game currently.
They just wanted the money.
They wanted to get the money, and they wanted to get out of there.
Okay.
My thing is, though, and I'm saying this because it's already happened, so it's like, I feel like they didn't have to put her in the ground. They could have just held her where they were.
Yeah.
And then claimed that they had put her in a box underground because they didn't provide the Mackles with any proof that she was in the ground.
Right.
That picture never got to them.
And they said that picture was.
Eventually they got some pictures.
They said something was coming.
They said it was coming, some kind of proof. But they didn't get the proof, and they technically didn't have to give the proof.
Right.
They could have just got proof of her being alive.
Yeah.
So they didn't have to put her in the ground, which, to me, says a lot more about them.
Yeah.
It's like, they didn't have to do it. They could have just lied. Right. The Mackles would have, I'm sure, would have gathered that money, would have done the same just to get her back. I don't care if she's actually in the ground or not. I want her back. I want her out of your possession. Like, give me my child back.
That is interesting.
Why'd they put her in the ground if they didn't intend to kill her? I'm like, I. You didn't care about killing her. It was a seven days. You didn't get that money. You were just gonna leave that poor girl alone in the woods in a box to suffocate to death. So it's like, we should look at them a little more like then, just like they didn't mean to do it. Like it. Like they weren't meaning to kill her. It's like, I don't know.
It would have happened.
A lot of intent here. There's a lot of negligence and a lot of. There's a lot of, like, just a strange pathology. Yeah, I'm trying to think of the word. I'm thinking of. It's very like. But there's definitely a disinterest in what is happening to her.
It's indifference.
Indifference. That's exactly the word I was thinking. Indifference. There is an indifference. Why the fuck can I think of that?
No, I thought that's what you were thinking too.
Thank you.
But the word was not coming to me either.
That is so much better. Yeah. There's a total indifference to whether this woman lived, died, whatever. That's the perfect word for it. And they put her through a fucking nightmare scenario, and they laid their heads on a pillow every night knowing she's in a fucking box in the middle of the woods panicking. Like, I think. I just think it's like it's looked at as like they were kidnappers. I'm like, well, it's like, more than that.
It's like how attempted murder doesn't carry the same sentence as actual murder. It's like you're still gonna go through with it, that something just didn't work.
Out, luckily, at what you were trying to do.
Right.
Like, it just. It bothers me. But after the second money drop, like, after the second ransom drop, Krist waited nearly 15 hours and then called the FBI headquarters in Georgia. And the secretary answered the call and she attempted to transfer him to one of the agents, but he cut her off and demanded that she take down the instructions. This poor fucking secretary. And so Krist gave the secretary directions to a wooded area in the small city of Norcross, Georgia, which was about 25 miles outside of Atlanta. But he gave super vague directions and he gave no indication about what the fuck they were supposed to be looking for when they got there. So he just gave them a very vague, very vast area and gave. That's the other thing. And he gave them nothing to look for.
And this is where she's supposed to be.
Yeah. And it's like. And she's running out of air. Running out of everything. Yeah. And I'm supposed to believe that you weren't intending to kill her or hurt her?
I feel like there is this. I get the sense that, like, he's having fun making these calls and he's in control.
Yeah. And he's watching everybody run around.
Exactly.
And it's fucked up.
Exactly.
So moments later, the information was passed on to the agents on the case, and the team just rushed to the location. And when they arrived, the vastness of the area made it seem entirely unlikely that after now four days in the ground, that they would find Barbara alive.
Yeah.
And the agents fanned out across the area. They were scouring the woods. They were looking for anything. They had no idea what they were supposed to look for. They were looking for. They're like, maybe I'm looking for, like, some kind of pipe. I don't know. Like, what should I be looking for? And then suddenly, one of the agents caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a small piece of flexible pipe sticking out of the ground, rushed over, began digging into the earth with his hands, calling out for everyone to help him dig.
And she can probably hear him.
Oh, yeah. When they dug about 13 inches into the earth, the agents could hear light tapping coming from the earth underneath them. So they're digging faster and faster until about 18 inches down, they discovered the lid of the makeshift coffin. And the lid was. It was airtight. It had been screwed into place, so she could never have gotten out of it.
Oh, my God.
And they had to remove the screws. Like, they couldn't even rip the lid off right away. They had to, like, manually get the screws out. And they found Barbara Mackle very weak and very dehydrated, but still alive after 80 hours in that box.
80 hours.
80 hours in that box.
Four fucking days.
Yep. Barbara was quickly bundled up in blankets and taken to an ambulance, where they found that she had superficial injuries, but she was otherwise pretty unharmed. That's good. Once she was cleared by medical personnel, she was loaded into her father's plane and flown back to Florida, where they retreated into their home and were like, get the fuck away from us.
So she got to spend Christmas with her family.
Yeah, she did.
What a fucking Christmas.
That must have been. Talk about being, like, thankful. In a statement to the press, Robert Mackle's brother Frank told reporters that Barbara was, quote, in good health and good spirits despite her ordeal. Wow. And she told the family her kidnappers, quote, were very considerate, actually, and she was very well taken care of by a woman.
Huh.
And in fact, Frank Mackle told reporters that Barbara's main worry was that we would be worried. Oh, yeah. And nobody knows if obviously that was true or if Barbara was just sparing her family the horrible emotional horror of dealing what she had to deal with.
Yeah.
But Gary and Ruth technically didn't have a history of violence, and both maintained that they would. They only took Barbara for ransom. So I still don't really. I mean, I believe Barbara, what she says? Yeah, but I don't believe their intention was purely money. We get money in that. I think. I think that was 100% the motivation. I don't think they went into this because they were like, let's hurt someone today. I don't think that was the case. I think they were like, I want the money. I don't really care if she lives or dies. Exactly like you said. Yeah. I think it's the indifference of it that bothers me.
I agree.
But the next morning, J. Edgar. Edgar Hoover gave his own statement to the press, and he stated that arrest warrants had been issued for Gary Christ and Ruth Eisemann Scheer for the kidnapping and attempted ransom of Barbara Mackle. And in his statement, Hoover noted that Christ had escaped from the dual correctionist institution, and the warden described him as, quote, a young man of very superior intelligence.
That's scary.
Very. Ruth was described as a graduate student in the Marine biology department and a native of El Hatillo, Honduras. I hope I said that right. Both were described as armed and dangerous, with a demonstrated willingness to fire upon law enforcement if cornered. In the days after that, FBI agents tracked Gary crisps movements to West Palm Beach, Florida, where he stored his car at the. All right. West Palm beach parking station on December 20. This was like, as he was telling them where Barbara was, they were able to track all these movements backwards. He had told the clerk that he would return to get the car in ten days. And from there is where he went to the Dixie market. And that's where he used the telephone to place the call to the FBI office to tell them where Barbara was that afternoon. They were able to track him to the D and D marine supply, where he rented a boat, an Orlando Clipper, and set out along the coast in the direction of the Bahamas.
Oh, no.
Now, again, this was them tracking his movements after the fact. Uh huh. So he's already set out.
Uh oh.
Now they were like, cool. He's definitely trying to flee the country. Obviously. So they scrambled to capture him before he was outside of us jurisdiction.
Holy shit. Is this a fucking movie?
It's wild.
But did they make this a movie?
I think they did make this into. I can't remember if it's a movie or a tv show. It might even be both.
Let me look it up. 83 hours till dawn. It's based on her autobiography. It was a tv movie.
Yeah, there it is.
Damn. Damn. That's crazy. Okay, keep going.
Now, unfortunately, by the time the sun had gone down and without knowing exactly where he was, there was no way to find him in the dark at that time. So the following morning, December 21, a coast guard plane carrying several FBI agents spotted his boat.
Shut the fuck up.
It was abandoned on the coast in Fort Myers. And a local FBI helicopter was dispatched to the area. And this was an area around Hog island, which is a small alligator infested island of the southwest coast.
Sorry, qua. Where the fuck is this guy?
Yeah, where they searched the boat and they found a duffel bag containing all the ransom money, minus a few thousand dollars that Krist had already spent.
What?
Yep.
He just left the money on an alligator infested island.
Well, given that he had beached the boat on an island, he had to be on the island.
Yeah.
Where the fuck else was he, like.
Fucking swimming with the alligators?
And so they fanned out and searched the island, and after a few hours, they located him. He was just standing about around the trees, just, like, in a bunch of.
Trees, just vibing with the trees.
Taken into custody without incident. And after all that had led up to this, it was pretty uneventful. And, like, it was, like, up till this point, it's like, oh, my God, he's on a boat. He's on his way to the Bahamas. Holy shit. We can't even see him. It's the next morning we have a plane. Oh, my God, it's his boat. It's on an allagustic gator infested island. Holy shit, he's on the island. He's in the trees. Like, it's just like, oh, there he is.
But where's Ruth?
And it's like, what the fuck? How does it end with, like, there he is.
He's just hanging. He's just in the gym, like, leaning up against a tree, like, drinking a coconut.
They. So an agent literally said he was just standing there in the mangrove.
What the fuck?
They said he didn't even put up a fight. He had no comment.
I mean, what the fuck else was he gonna do?
I'm on an alligator infested island. Really? What do I do?
I guess he wasn't armed then, huh?
He was carrying a small gun and about $18,000 of the ransom money.
All righty.
Yeah. So three months later, on March 5, 1969, Ruth Iseman Shear was arrested by agents from Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. It took three months and Oklahoma, after a potential employer ran her fingerprints as part of a background check and alerted the Oklahoma SBI.
Shut the fuck up.
So she's trying to get a job. And they were like, oh, baby, you're on the FBI's most wanted list.
Like, what the. We're gonna have to apologize, but, yeah, sorry, you didn't get this one.
You didn't get that. We're gonna pass on. Another candidate seemed to have what you don't, which is not being on the FBI's most wanted list.
It's kind of like what we go for around here.
We're neck and neck at that point, but that's really what tipped them over.
The FBI list is always a tiebreaker.
It's always the thing we look for, you know? Fuck. And in fact, at that time, she was the first and only woman to appear on the FBI's most wanted list.
Wow.
This woman.
That's crazy.
Ruth was charged with extortion, and a judge set her bond at $500,000.
I'm like, can we put attempted murder in the wall? They buried her in a fucking box.
At the time of her arrest, it appeared to agents as though Ruth was planning to flee the state. And she told various friends and acquaintances different stories about how she was going to be taking some time off. And she left her roommates three separate notes. And later, some of her friends said that she was definitely expecting to be arrested. It seemed when asked for comment about the arrest, Barbara Mackle said, I think it's a great tribute to the efficiency of the FBI.
Barbara forever.
Barbara's such a classy lady.
She's a sweet queen.
She really is. And by the time she sat down with agents on the afternoon of her arrest, Ruth had prepared a statement regarding her relationship with Gary Crist, whom she only knew as George Deacon. She did not know his real name. According to Ruth, they met while she was studying marine science at the University of Miami, and she quickly fell in love with him. And after about a month or two of having a relationship, Chris told Ruth, you know, I have the idea for the perfect crime. Are you in?
No. The answer is always no, baby.
And she was like, I'm sorry, what? And he was like, well, if we pull it off, we could take all the money and run away together.
But you'll never pull off a great crime like that, and you shouldn't try.
Nope. She wasn't put off at all by her new boyfriend's suggestion at all. And they began poring over Miami's social record, which is how they came across Robert Mackle's name. And they learned that Robert Mackle had a daughter, Barbara.
Oh, my God.
So they're pieces of shit.
Yeah.
And the two plan the kidnapping, meticulously.
For weeks, like we said, like, these was planned also. I was like, they had to have done this before.
Yeah, they didn't.
They didn't.
With all the, like, they just planned it for like for weeks.
Even the specifications about the suitcase, though, like, how would you even think about.
That's his brain that he is misusing. And Christ designed and built the box that they were gonna keep as he. Barbara did that. Yeah, he did the job. And when they were finally ready to execute the plan, they left Miami for Atlanta, stopping at the Mackle house along the way to bury the ransom note. And they had planned to kidnap Barbara from her dorm room, actually at Emory. But when they arrived in Atlanta, they learned she'd moved to a motel room with her mother. I'm not sure how they knew that, which is like fucked up.
Yeah. Somebody had to have said something.
Somebody must have, not knowing, said something.
Unless they were. They may have been following her. Like they may have spotted her on the campus.
Absolutely.
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I know. Whoa. I know that I have. And apparently Elena has, too. But it wasn't until I had that little experience. It was kind of a big experience. You remember the snowstorm, the knocking on my door, the three in the morning of it all? That's when I realized how urgently I needed a security system. And I knew my family deserved the best. After some extensive research, honey, I found simply safe. And I have loved having simplisafe protect my home for, I think, four, close to four years now. And the security and service have exceeded all of my expectations. I love going over to my little system at night and hitting home, and then my house is armed and everything feels safe, and I can go lay my head on the pillow knowing that if anybody dare tries to enter my home, it'll be like. And scare the crap out of them. Protect your home with 50% off a new simplisafe system, plus a free indoor camera. When you sign up for fast protect monitoring, just visit simplisafe.com morbid. That's simplisafe.com morbid. There's no safe like simplisafe.
So they revised their plan over lunch at a diner. And while they were at the diner, they stole the hat of a local police officer in the restaurant. And that's the one they used.
Are you kidding me?
So in case the whole situation with the kidnapping didn't make you think, like, what the fuck's going on with the police there in the sixties? Yeah, one was they were able to steal one of their hats at a fucking diner.
Just like, whip it off his head.
Just took the hat. He probably left it on the fucking table while he was going to pee or something.
Oh, my goodness.
What the fuck? So in the few days leading up to the kidnapping, Ruth and Chris watched Jane and Barbara, and that's how they learned about Stuart Woodward and knew what kind of car he drove so that they could use it in that ruse. Right now. Ruth explained that everything was going up to plan until the first night of the ransom drop when the police intervened and the couple became separated. And a few hours later, because remember, they went in different directions when the police came. Ruth, a few hours later, returned to the car that they had abandoned but didn't and was trying to wait for him to come back, but he never showed up.
So he just fucking loved it.
So she thought he'd taken the money for himself and abandoned her. So she thought she was used. And she went back to Atlanta, got on a bus. She took the bus as far as her money would get her, which turned out to be Norman, Oklahoma. She found work at a drive in restaurant and took a room at a boarding house and was just gonna be like, well, so to be clear, she helped bury a woman in a box in the middle of the fucking forest.
And then just dipped.
And then she was like, well, looks like my boyfriend dumped me, so I guess I'll just go get a job somewhere and live my life not caring at all about what happened to Barbara.
I'm gonna go ahead and say it. What a fucking cunt.
Like, whoa, what? Like, damn, that is cold. That's so cold and so callous.
And that makes me sit here and say, what the fuck else are you capable.
That's the thing.
Because if you're capable of knowing going on with your life, knowing that a girl is in a box.
Yeah. And that you don't know if it's gonna end or. Or not. Like, and the same for fucking this asshole. Like, thank goodness they bought Gary. Yeah. Cuz Gary was just gonna take that money and, you know, off he goes. And Gary is. Gary's just as bad. But Ruth, it's like you don't even. You weren't even there when Gary called the FBI to tell them where Barbara was. He's never told her where they are and they're never going to find.
And you didn't place and you were.
Just popping off into the rest of your life.
Exactly.
At the very fucking least, Gary called and told where they. Where she was.
Yeah.
Which I'm not giving him credit for, but I'm saying, like, what a different situation where it's like you were just popping off to live your life. You had no idea.
Like, damn, this is mind boggling.
They are such vile human beings. Now, at her arraignment on March 7, Ruth told the judge, it's a terrible feeling to see all these people out there and you are all alone. And they're all against you. She was talking to the large crowd that had assembled outside the courtroom.
Hey, you know what else?
It made her sad?
A terrible feeling is being buried in a box in the woods, like a couple days before Christmas or fucking ever. Uh, yeah.
All alone. Yeah, it's like, Ruth, you. Oh, you feel alone. If I was you feel alone.
You won. Like, judges do get snappy sometimes, and we always love that. But you wonder how they're not just snappy all the time. Cause I would. How do you look that girl? Dead in the face and just be like, yeah. Anyway, moving on now, if that.
I can't imagine. If I was the judge, I'd literally be like, are you serious? Are you fucking kidding me, Ruth?
Be so for real right now.
Be so for real right now, Ruth. Like, are you kidding me with that? I feel so alone. Shut the fuck up.
Alone. Well, maybe we should bury you in a box in the middle of the wilderness. And the animals can keep you company. How about that?
Alone. And as far as you were concerned, Ruth, she was gonna be alone forever in that box.
Fucking a.
But you feel alone because there's people outside that are mad that you buried someone in a box.
Sorry.
Yeah. Sorry about that. So. So sad.
Life's tough, huh?
Yeah. Now, after conferring with his client, Ruth's attorney told the judge, as you can see from her actions yesterday, the realization finally has come home to her that she is in a tough situation. I found her somewhat despondent, as you can well imagine. She certainly is not as gay as she has been.
Good.
I'm sorry.
She's found herself in a tough situation where she signed on to a plot to extort a rich man by abducting his daughter and burying her in a box in the middle of the woods.
It's a tough situation, you know, thing to call that. I guess it's pretty tough. And, oh, no, she's not as cheerful as she has been. I.
Good.
Oh, good man. I guess we should. We should change how we're dealing with this, I suppose.
You know who's probably not as cheerful as they once were? Barbara.
Yeah.
She probably has fucking PTSD up the wazoo.
Oh. When do you hear some? Yeah, we'll get there. So, a few days later, Ruth was transferred back to Georgia, where she was charged locally with kidnapping. Her involvement. Involvement in this case made her somewhat of a local celebrity, the press frequently commenting on her beauty and fashionable attire whenever she appeared in court.
I don't give a fuck what you're wearing. You buried a girl in a box.
And, of course, this was one of those situations. Even in the sixties. This is in the seventies, this is one of those situations where people said.
No, she's too beautiful.
She's too pretty for that.
Pretty people do fucked up things.
She knows how to put together an outfit. There's no way she was kidnapping people.
These two things are not mutually exclusive.
Yeah. Like, have you. What? What do you mean? Somebody can't. You have to be ugly to be able to do ugly things. No. Babies. No.
Some of the prettiest people do the ugliest shit.
The ugly shit is on the inside.
Exactly.
And then comes out eventually, but the ugly shit is on the inside.
Saying she's too pretty for that is absolutely buck wild.
Yeah. And it's why. And it's she. The worst part is, you look at her and you're just like, wow, girl. Like, really? Like, she's a very normal looking person. So I understand that some people, like, especially because we look at it through like a 2024 lens. Yeah. And we're like, of course, anybody can do that. But I think even back then, it.
Was still shocking to see, like, especially a woman.
A woman. You know what I mean? And especially a woman that's pretty and fashionable, like, being like that. They're just like, what? People are like. No.
Can you imagine if that was your defense? I am way too pretty and I put together way too good of an outfit to be accused of this.
And they're like, got it. But others really liked the femme fatale narrative because they found it more compelling. One article asked, could a woman like Ruth Eisemann shear the fetching, hysteria prone blonde with a knack for attracting males to love and protect her, provide the motivation to drive a man to carry out a kidnap scheme?
I don't think she drove him to do it. Could she ever just along for the fucking ride?
Yeah, it sounds like he actually came up with the idea. But thank you guys all.
Alright.
In fact, the article goes on to say, as a Miami beach clinical psychologist told me Saturday, are you ready for a Miami beach clinical psychologist? And we're talking about in many instances, the woman is the driving force. And yet when the crime is committed, she does not bear the responsibility.
I would put my life savings on the fact that a man said that. I would put my life savings on it.
Okay. Unnamed Miami beach clinical psychologist.
My God.
But later that month, Ruth pleaded not guilty to the charges of kidnapping and extortion. And a trial. Yeah. And a trial date was set for June 9. But when her trial date came, Ruth changed her plea to guilty to one count of kidnapping and immediately began serving her seven year sentence at the Georgia state prison for women. Seven.
Back it up. Seven years.
123-4567 that's it.
She went along with a plan to extort a father by burying his. I just gotta say it one more time. Everybody burying his daughter in a box. And then when it didn't really work out, she just moved to Oklahoma. Yeah. The fuck? Seven years. Is everybody all right?
Mm hmm.
And what, like, genuinely, why was attempted murder not put on there?
Cuz. Cuz, don't. Don't you get it? No, they never wanted to kill her.
Psych.
Don't you get it? Everyone?
Oh my God.
Cause they said, yeah, let's believe them. In 1973, Ruth successfully petitioned for parole.
That's fucking crazy.
And was released from prison. And she was deported back to Honduras and she receded from the public spotlight.
Good. For her. Get out of there, girl.
After his arrest, Gary Crist said very little to authorities, and in early March 1969, he pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping and kidnapping for ransom.
Huh.
The plea was made with a special attachment that it could be changed at a certain point pending a sanity hearing.
We do have to go back for just 1 second. She really is the normalest looking girl ever.
Yeah, she really is.
Wow.
That's scary. It's bonkers. That's scary. So District Attorney Richard Bell told reporters the special plea means that his lawyers think Christ is unable to understand the charges against him. Now, between his arraignment and his sanity hearing in April, Gary Criss began a hunger strike in his cell in Decatur, Georgia. And this is because he believed someone was trying to poison him, he said.
Kind of like he poisoned multiple people with chloroform and or ether.
Yeah, I also think it's complete bullshit. And so did the authorities. They believed that the hunger strike was his attempt to be moved to a more escapable place. Yeah, probably because, remember, he escaped from prison before, but after 28 days of hunger strike, he collapsed from malnutrition and required intravenous feeding. And the sheriff told reporters he does little now but sleep. He stopped at his almost continual writing, but he still will wear nothing but a pair of underwear shorts in his cell.
He does love to be naked.
He does. His attempts to convince psychiatrists of his mental illness were unsuccessful, and he went to trial in mid May. In fact, despite having been evaluated by ten different doctors, the defense never called any one of them to testify because, as one reporter said, no psychiatrist would call the defendant insane.
Yeah.
Rather than demonstrate any symptoms of mental illness, like a lot of these defense defendants do when they're being evaluated, they at least try. Yeah, he didn't. He would just spend hours complaining to these psychiatrists about the justice system as a whole.
Okay.
He said. He was quoted as saying, the law is unjust in its conception and its application. It's mechanically unsound. It is bound to disintegrate and fall apart. It's very poorly conceived.
Disagree.
And when they came to his own case, he believed the system was just rigged against him and in favor of those with wealth and power. And I was like, wait, do you mean the people whose daughter you stole and put underground? Like, I don't know if that one's rigged against you. Like, like, I'm not saying in general. I'm saying in this particular case, I don't think that one was rigged. I think you put someone's child underground in a box and then extorted money out of them. So I I don't. I don't think I'm with you on that. That they rigged against you. I. No, I think you did a bad, bad thing, even rigable, and you happen to do it to a wealthy, powerful person, which was your problem and no one else's.
Yeah, baby.
Like, I'm sorry. You chose someone who is, like, smarter than you when, like, more powerful than you.
Yeah.
I steal their child and put them in a box underground.
I don't know about all that.
It's like, dude, I don't think you're gonna win with that one. I don't think that one you're gonna get. A lot of people being like, totally should have been able to. Totally rigged. Absolutely.
Calling that rigged is wild.
And he said, quote, I've offended the cartel that runs this country. In case you don't know. I'm in jail simply because I was overpowered.
What?
So he's calling, like, the rich and powerful, like, the cartel of this country, and he's saying, I offended them. And I was like, you definitely offended some people.
Yes, I'd say so.
But, like, the other thing, I don't see it the way you see you're not.
He's acting like he's like Robin Hood or something. And I'm like, you robbed from the.
Rich and gave to the poor.
Like, you were trying just to become rich.
Yeah.
You wanted to join that very cartel, quote, unquote.
And it's like, you did it by taking someone's daughter and putting them in a box underground. That's where you went wrong.
Like, I understand saying certain systems are rigged, and, like, it's hard to make money and it's hard to get rich. One hundo piece.
And that's why I'm like, you could have just generalized that and made it a little more of, like, a stance. Yeah, but you took someone's child and put them in a box underground. Like, I can't. You have no high horse to stand from.
He's like, eat the rich.
And it's like, you had a suitcase.
Full of almost $4 million, motherfucker.
$4.5 million you had in a suitcase, and you were flying. You were running off to the Bahamas with it.
Let's bury you in a box because.
You took someone's child and put them in a box underground. It's like, that is where your problem lies, my friend. Yeah, that's the whole steal money. No, you didn't even extort money in any other way. You took a whole human from somebody and put them in the fucking ground to possibly suffocate to death. You didn't know if she was still alive. You had no fucking clue. You could have died the first night.
You did that with, like, specimen. Like marine specimen. You never did that with a human. You didn't know how the fuck that was gonna go.
And you certainly never buried them under the ground. I don't see you burying marine fucking specimens underground for research, to my knowledge. And it's like, so you're sitting there trying to take this, like, passion stance, and it's like, nope, not in your case, buddy. Let's be real.
To sum it all up. That ain't it.
That ain't it.
That ain't it.
That ain't it. And so despite his statements about a rigged system and trying to appeal to the greater, you know, thought of that, people do look at the justice system. Yeah, we've looked at it before as, like, being unfair and being broken and all that stuff. Instead, like, you know, it does work. And the jury did seem to take pity on him a little bit from that.
That's absolutely insane.
They deliberated?
Not in this case.
Yes, they deliberated for a little over 4 hours and then returned a guilty verdict with the recommendation of mercy.
Why?
Meaning they spared him the death penalty, okay? Instead, he was given life. A life sentence. All right? That was the mandatory sentence in the state of Georgia.
That's crazy. That he got a life sentence and she got seven years.
Yeah. That's wild.
That's where the problem with the justice system in life.
Yeah, that's a problem.
Like what?
But he had the potential for parole after Tony Ben. Seven years.
Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah.
How?
Why? Who? What? One. Where?
I'm not sure, but when the verdict was read aloud in court, you want to know what he did? No. Do I? He yawned, grasping his wrist and glancing at the clock. Yeah, like stretch yawned. What, like this kind of thing.
And was like, what an absolute pompous waste.
Before he was let out of the courtroom by armed guards. That's what he did. He just did like the stretch. Like, oh, boy, life must be so tiring for you. In a statement to the press, prosecutor Richard Bell told reporters were disappointed. We thought the circumstances of the crime demanded the death penalty.
Imagine youre walking through the park one day and you see a suspicious backpack sitting underneath a bench. You report it to the police, and upon investigating, they discover two live pipe bombs inside. You rush to clear the area before they explode, saving countless lives and preventing injury. Everyone declares you a hero for a fleeting moment until everything changes and you are declared the prime suspect. This was the story of security guard Richard Jewell after the Centennial park bombing killed one person and wounded more than 100. Public pressure and a media witch hunt pushed a desperate FBI to find a suspect. Despite obvious holes in the case and unethical tactics used by the FBI, security guard Richard Jewell was under pressure to confess. I'm Aaron Habelae. And I'm Justin Evans. Join us as we explore the aftermath of the 1996 Centennial Olympic park bombing in the newest season of our podcast, generation, the Olympic park bombing. Follow generation y on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to generation y ad free right now by joining wondery.
The trial was the first time the public got any insight into Gary Crist's psyche and personality. And for many, they didn't like what they saw.
No.
In an editorial in the Miami Herald, one journalist wrote, the kidnapper is a brilliant man, but we do not agree with his view that he is a superior human being. We will not accept that definition of a man who put the mako girl in a crude grave and left her there in torturing darkness. The superiority of Gary Christ is one of cruelty. We believe that behind bars is where he belongs and where he should stay.
You're here.
And we said, yes. Yes.
Chin chin.
You're here. And it turned out the Supreme Court of Georgia agreed with the wider public with respect to his freedom. In 1970, his lawyers filed an appeal with the court arguing like a bunch of stuff. But also that the, you know, sum.
It up like a bunch of stuff.
The court argued like a bunch of shit.
It's giving legally blunt. I love.
They argued a bunch of shit. But the lower court. But the one thing I wanted to talk about was that the lower court, they said that. The lower court erred in overruling the defense's motion to dismiss the charge of kidnapping for ransom on the grounds that the offense was not defined by the statute.
Okay.
And in their summary, the justices noted the offense for which the defendant was indicted, tried, and convicted. Kidnapping for ransom was designated a crime by necessary implication by the general assembly and requires no definition. Also, the justices pointed out that the evidence supported the indictment, and thus the verdict was just. Yeah. Resulting in the lower court's ruling being upheld.
Good.
Now, in the wake of her rescue, Barbara spent a few days in the hospital before, you know, going back home to her parents, like I said, and I had said, like, they just kind of were like, get the fuck away from us. And they just kind of said, like, please respect our privacy. But once a short amount of time had passed, Barbara did grant a small amount of interviews where she talked about the experience after being abducted from the motel. She said she was injected with a tranquilizer by her kidnappers.
Where the fuck did they get a tranquilizer?
I don't know. But Barbara said she was out in the woods and taken to the area where Christ had dug the pit. And she said, I was woozy, but I knew what was happening. And she said, I tried to talk them out of it, but they paid her no attention. They didn't care about her. Please to. Please don't do this. And instead, they forced her to take that photograph of her holding the kidnap sign. So that's why she looks that way, because she's on tranquilizer?
Yeah. No, it makes sense.
Throughout her ordeal, Barbara said she tried to keep her mind off of the terrifying potential of how this situation could end by thinking of her friends, her family, like we said, singing to herself, singing Christmas carols, trying to make herself laugh, she said. But the reality of being in the box was unavoidable. She said it was cold.
It leaked.
It kept dripping from above.
83 hours.
83 hours. And she said on the fourth day when she was rescued by FBI agents, she said, I could hear footsteps. I thought it was the kidnappers coming back for me. I had been there so long, I really didn't care. And when she was pulled from the coffin, the first thing she asked the agents was, how are my parents? Oh, yeah. And they said that was the first thing she cared about, was, how are my parents?
That's amazing.
And she said it was only after she looked around at their faces that she realized how relieved she could be. They were all crying, like all the agents were bawling their ass. I can't imagine. And after giving a few interviews, Barbara was determined to put the entire experience behind her and just move forward. I don't blame her. But two years later, she partnered with Miami Herald writer Jean Harrell on a book about her kidnapping. And following its publication, she vowed that, I'm not revisiting this story again. And that book is called 83 hours till dawn. You can find it still today. I don't know if there are, but, yeah. In 1971, this is my favorite part of the story. Barbara married her best friend, Stuart Woodward.
Yes.
And I was so happy.
I love that.
I was like, that's her, man.
I love that.
I love it.
Just the fact that he, like, sat with her mom and who even knows how well he knew her.
What a good dude.
Oh, my God.
And they moved back to Florida where they started a family fuck up, and they made a concerted effort to stay out of the public eye. Yeah. Unfortunately, Stewart passed away in 2013.
Oh.
But they did have, like, a lovely life together. Good. I love that she married.
Like, that's my favorite part.
1971, they got married.
Fuck. Yeah.
I was so fucking happy when I read that. I was like, that's what I need for my Barbara.
That's what I need. That's what Barbara. Barbara deserves. A Steward.
She did. Stewart was the guy, man. Hanging out all day, studying with her. Yeah. Going to her dorm to get her notes. The whole time I was reading this for the first time, I was like, what a good guy. I love this guy. Seemed like a stand up. And I'm like, they get married.
Wow. And start. And they have a family.
They had kids. Like, it's great.
I'm so happy that she fucking queen to say, I'm gonna write this book. That's gotta be told. And then I'm done. I'm gonna move on. Like, she's a strong individual. Yes. That's crazy.
Good for her. Good for her.
Wow. What a fucking story.
Oh, I'm not even done. What, you thought I was done?
I sure did.
You thought it just ended there?
I mean. Yeah, kind of.
So that was in 1971. They got married. Like, she's off. She's happy.
Yeah.
In the summer of 1973, Gary Criss tried to escape from the Georgia Diagnostic and classification center by crawling through the air conditioning ducts and hiding inside a large garbage bin, where he was then loaded onto a truck to be removed from the grounds?
Gary.
The attempt earned him. He did get caught, and he got an additional two years on his mandatory minimum. So he had to do nine instead of seven. In May 1979, he was paroled.
That's fucking nuts.
From Georgia's Reidsville State prison, much to the disappointment of Atlanta residents.
Ah, yeah.
Yeah. Superior Court Judge Ho Hubert said, I just don't think he'll ever change, given the nature of the case. Burying the girl on the ground like, he was like, what the fuck? Regardless of how the public felt or the judge felt, the state's parole board felt justified in their decision.
That's very interesting.
They said, there is nothing in our files to indicate Gary Stephen Christ is violent or dangerous.
How about the part where he buried a girl in a box underneath the ground?
Does that mean you guys are just forgetting that part.
You guys are not very demure. You're not very mindful.
No, not at all. And they said, if he does commit a crime, it won't be a crime of violence.
How do you know?
And they went on to further justify their decision by minimizing his original crime. Ready? Ready for what? The parole board said never misses Woodward suffers no lasting trauma from the ordeal. Misses Woodward, meaning our girl Barbara. Because she's married.
Because she's stupid.
She doesn't give a fuck about you guys, but fuck you guys.
And also, how do you know?
Who the fuck do you think you are?
Did you contact her?
They're literally like, he's not violent and she's fine. So.
Wow.
Wow. Gross. Gross. To everyone's surprise, Gary Chris did make an effort in the beginning to show the world that he had turned around.
Yeah.
The conditions of his parole required him to initially move back to Alaska. And in 1983, he was accepted into medical school at the University of Washington. After completing his program and earning a medical degree, he struggled to find a state that would grant him a license.
Cuz, like, I'm sorry, I just have to ask. The charge that he served time for, that's a felony, right?
Yep.
Can you. Can your doctor be a fucking felon?
That's what I was a little concerned about. That's why he was struggling, I think, to find somebody that would give him a license. And then in December 2001, the state of Indiana granted him a probationary license to practice medicine.
You said, what state?
Indiana.
Let's not go there.
Yeah. And he opened a private practice in the tiny town of Christney.
Alrighty.
Yeah, yeah, it's. Yep. So now, in the months leading up to and immediately following his parole period, he found a number of people that were willing to vouch for him and assure his critics that he had changed for the better. And in fact, it was because of these people that the parole board even considered releasing him. Like they were really part of it.
Uh huh.
But for every one person that was insisting he was a better person, there was twice as many who were like, no, no, no.
Incorrect.
Sorry, I just hit my microphone. I'm so mad. I said, no, no, no. Slap my microphone.
No, that's the end.
It was twice as many that would say, no, no, he's a narcissistic con man and, like, it's going to turn out bad. And within a year of opening his practice, he kind of proved the critics a little right. In the fall of 2002, less than a year after receiving his probationary license to practice medicine. The licensing board pulled his license for failure to comply with the supervisory requirements, writing his own supervisory reports and forging his supervisor's name. In addition to the lies and fraud related to his license, there were other incidences that also led to this. In one, he reportedly told a 13 year old patient with an eating disorder that she, quote, had a big butt.
Oh, my God.
And on another occasion, records show that he told a woman who'd recently been diagnosed with HIV that, quote, her boyfriend must be thrilled.
Oh, my God.
During this period.
That's why doctors probably shouldn't be felons.
No. And during this period, he was also accused of sexual assault by a patient, and he fled the state before facing prosecution.
Wow.
So he was stripped of his license. He returned to Alaska now and began finding various other means of making money, both legal and illegal. In March 2006, us customs agents raided his boat in point clear, Alaska, and found 37 pounds of cocaine on board.
That's a lot of cocaine.
That's a lot of cocaine.
That's, like, all of the cocaine.
All the cocaine.
Okay. Pablo Escobar.
The fuck? They also found four South Americans who had paid Krist $6,000 each to illegally smuggle them into the country.
Who the fuck is this guy?
I don't know, but how do you.
I just gotta know.
I'm not even done.
Oh, God. I just gotta know. How do you, like, get a life and, like, do that with it? Yeah, like, that. You're out here with a life doing this. It's cool that we all got lives. Like, I'm excited about it. I don't know how it happened. I mean, I do, but, like, we don't need to get into the skinny of it all, but that's what you do with it. I'm just out here trying to have a good time legally. Make some fucking yummy treats every now and again and, like, I don't know, enjoy shit, George. I mean, really? He was out there trying to enjoy shit too, but, like.
But, like, work smarter, not harder. Like, what do you do? He's doing so much.
Just chill out.
He's doing so much.
Just chill the fuck out.
Chill the fuck out and go the fuck away. Don't be like, go away.
Like, sir. Well, I feel like he's just somebody that should live on a boat by himself.
Just go live on an island.
Yeah.
Yeah, right. On a boat. No one needs to see you. That's just vibe. Just do your, you know, go on a boat.
You know?
Here's $10. See you later.
$10. All right, go ahead. Do. They will. Anyway, keep going.
Now, when they caught him with the.
With all the cocaine of cocaine on.
His boat, they served a warrant at his Georgia residence that he had kind of just up and abandoned.
Sure.
They found a giant underground drug lab.
What, like a meth lab? Like a huge one or like, just like all the drugs manufacturing it all.
Murray Kogod, I think his name is, was quoted as saying. Basically there was a trapdoor. It was wood covered with linoleum. Unless you knew you were looking for something, you wouldn't notice it. There was an eight foot ladder that led down to a 27 foot long lab underground. Had a countertop at one end. There was ventilation. It was glass enclosed things. It was fully equipped with light, electricity, water. And it had an escape tunnel that led into a covered barrel about 50ft from the lab.
What? You can't make that shit up.
Yeah, who the f?
I mean, I get.
Wow. They said he was like mega mind. He was like mega, like crime lord at this point. Like just.
He's a drug lord now, isn't he? Yeah, I don't really know what makes one a drug lord, to be honest.
It's like, it fits though. Like I just.
30 something pounds of cocaine.
He's doing it all. He's doing it all. He's doing all the things. The new charges earned him an almost five year sentence. That's it. But not long after being released in 2010, he violated the terms of his probation and was sent back to prison I in 2012 and stayed there until he was released until in July 2015.
How old is this motherfucker at this point?
He's 79 right now.
Okay.
Wow.
What? And he's probably still out here, huh?
He's still out here? He's still alive. Yeah. And I know he's just, you know, apparently. Apparently he got tired at that point. 2015, he was let out and nobody's really heard from him since then.
You guys better keep your fucking eyes peeled into the newspapers.
Yeah, he's 79.
I'm like, damn, you build a fucking eight foot down, 2020, 7ft wide or long, whatever the fuck you want to call it. Drug lab. You're not. I mean, yeah, yeah. You're not just chilling out after that.
And that's the case of the kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mack.
I gotta say, you really popped the fuck off with that one.
Dave was so correct when he was like, yeah, you gotta take a look at this.
He texted us one day and I was like, oh yeah, that sounds interesting.
I gotta look into it. I was like, whoa.
Hello. I'd like to report several crimes throughout the span of. It is 60, 70, 89. Like, he. That's like a career criminal.
Oh, 100%.
Literally, like 50 years of crime.
The only good thing is, in the end, Barbara just came out, like, got married with Stewart, wrote a book, and off she went. Had her family, you know? Yeah.
That's really crazy.
Yeah, I. Wow, it.
What a tale.
It's a. That's why it had to be told in two episodes. Because it's just like, you think, though, that the most action is happening with, like, the kidnapping and the ransom, all that. Like, yeah, there's just so much happening, and then it's like, oh, wait. We haven't even scratched the surface of what happens here.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow.
So that's a tale.
Everybody fucking tail.
What a tale. We.
You better keep. We don't even hope at this point. You heard that you're not gonna keep listening. Keep listening. And we hope you.
Do I even say that? What is going on?
Keep it weird. Keep it so weird that you forget your own outro. It's been a long time. I don't know. I'm riding out on a yammer.
We did it the same day.
I said, it's been a long time, like, doing this. I mean, I don't know. You know, you do something so much and then you're just like, how do I do this?
Yeah, you know, we're six years in.
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