Buried Alive: The Mackle Case
Chocolic
Also note, those of 'you people' that comment how the pretty, popular,
etc., missing people tend to get more media coverage than the poor and not
so pretty. This story is a good example of all of that. Wasn't there a
movie made on this? It seems I've seen it but can't remember the name of
it.
Chocolic
-----------------------------------------------
By Rachel Sauer, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 11, 2004
In the photos, they're smiling -- big, glowing smiles displaying pearly
teeth, serene Mona Lisa smiles, innocent smiles framed by strawberry
cheeks. And they're beautiful.
On the 6 o'clock news and the front page, these girls are safe and where
they should be, pictured in places known to those who love them.
But the photos are on the news because the beautiful, smiling girls are
gone. Sometimes they come home. Sometimes they don't. Always their names
linger in memory: Laci Peterson. JonBenet Ramsey. Elizabeth Smart. Patty
Hearst.
And Barbara Jane Mackle.
Thirty-five years ago last month, Florida heiress Barbara Jane Mackle was
kidnapped from an Atlanta hotel room and buried alive for 83 hours in the
remote pine woods northeast of the city. Her abductors demanded $500,000
from her father, a land developer.
When she was found by FBI and Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department
investigators, she was weak and dehydrated but unruffled. Her only public
statement about the ordeal was the 1971 book 83 Hours Till Dawn, written
with Miami Herald reporter Gene Miller.
"I wanted to tell it once completely and as honestly as I could, so that it
will be behind me," she wrote. "I want to end it. I want to put it behind
me. Once and for all, I want it to be over. For ever and ever."
Now she lives in Vero Beach with her husband and two children. She declines
all interview requests. Though her story is unforgettable, she's done
everything possible to forget it.
"It's not a part of our life at all," her father, Robert Mackle, told The
Miami Herald in 1978. She never had any counseling, never saw a
psychiatrist, he said. "Nobody will understand that it didn't affect her."
What Mackle didn't understand is that when something bad happens to a
beautiful girl, especially one from a prominent family, it's going to be
talked about and remembered.
Edna Buchanan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Herald who
now writes novels, said cases like these that linger in the national memory
are created by a "perfect storm" of factors -- not just the victim's
beauty, youth or innocence, but the media being in the right place at the
right time and how the family handles the situation.
Such "perfect storms" are rare, and the buzz they generate is tremendous.
People can't seem to get enough... as in the case of Barbara Jane Mackle.
"I've put on a tour of Gwinnett (County) twice a year since '75 and I hand
out a sort of timeline of important dates in Gwinnett and I never mention
Barbara Mackle," said Elliott Brack, a retired Georgia newspaper editor and
publisher and moderator of www.gwinnett forum.com. "But every time I do the
tour, somebody in the back of the bus says, 'Tell us about Barbara Mackle.'
"
Taken from hotel
Even 35 years later, the story is chilling.
On Dec. 17, 1968, Barbara Jane Mackle, a 20-year-old Emory University
student, was getting over the Hong Kong flu. Her mother, Jane Mackle, had
driven to Atlanta to bring her daughter home to Coral Gables for Christmas
break and was staying at a Rodeway Inn in Decatur, Ga. Barbara was with
her.
At 4 a.m. they heard a knock on their door. A man outside said that he was
with the police and that Barbara's fiancée, now husband, Stewart Hunt
Woodward, had been in a car accident, according to the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. Earlier in the evening, Woodward had visited their
room and later told police he noticed strangers watching him get into his
car.
The man claiming to be a police officer accurately described Woodward's
car, so Jane Mackle opened the door a few inches. Gary Steven Krist, 23, a
highly intelligent lab technician at the University of Miami, and Ruth
Eisemann-Schier, 26, a Honduras native and graduate student at the school,
aimed a gun at her and shoved their way into the room.
The ski-masked duo bound Jane Mackle's wrists and put a cloth soaked in
chloroform over Barbara Mackle's mouth and nose. She was wearing only a
red-and-white-checked nightgown as they dragged her from the room and drove
her to a remote spot on South Berkeley Lake Road in Gwinnett County.
There they buried her 2 feet underground in a fiberglass-reinforced plywood
box Krist had made.
They left her food, a sweater, water laced with sedatives, a fan and a
battery-operated lamp that went out a few hours before she was found. The
box also had two plastic pipes that provided her with outside air.
Krist and Eisemann-Schier then sent Robert Mackle a $500,000 ransom demand.
At 4 a.m. Dec. 19, Mackle left the money in a suitcase on the seawall along
Biscayne Bay at the Fair Isles Causeway. Miami police gave chase, however,
and Krist dropped the money, injuring himself as he fled. Afterward,
Eisemann-Schier vanished.
A second ransom drop was made later by Mackle family friend and Heisman
Trophy-winner Billy Vessels, who delivered the $500,000 in $20 bills to a
deserted dirt road off Tamiami Trail.
Twelve hours after he got the money, Krist called the switchboard at the
Atlanta FBI office and gave vague directions to the spot where Barbara
Mackle was buried. More than 100 FBI agents rushed to the area and began
digging. Some scratched frantically with their hands until they found the
two plastic pipes protruding from the ground.
Several agents sped to a hardware store to buy shovels while others stayed
near her. FBI supervisor Ange Robbe told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
in 1997, "She kept saying, 'Don't leave me.' We assured her we wouldn't."
When they unearthed her, she was 10 pounds lighter, stiff and slightly
dehydrated, but otherwise unharmed.
"We didn't know if she'd be dead, or maybe she'd be crazy, out of her
mind," said FBI agent Roger Kaas. Instead, her calm sanity was apparent.
Her father told The Miami Herald in 1978 that she never even saw a
therapist and, after marrying Woodward in 1971, only wanted a normal life.
FBI agent Rex Shroder told the Herald in 1978, "I always thought she was
the bravest woman I ever met in my life."
Caught using $20 bills
Meanwhile, Krist used $20 bills to buy a speedboat from D&D Marine Supply
in West Palm Beach, which aroused the suspicions of owner Norman Dix
Oliphant. He called the FBI who, working with the Coast Guard, chased Krist
around Florida. Krist ran aground at Hog Island and sprinted into the
swamp, pursued by 85 local and federal agents. Twelve hours later, he was
caught.
He was sentenced to life in prison but served only 10 years in a Georgia
state prison. His wife, the mother of his two children, divorced him
shortly after his sentence began. When he walked out of prison, he was met
by Joan Jones, a prison pen-pal he eventually married.
Krist went on to study medicine in Grenada and Dominica and in 2001 got a
probationary license to practice medicine in Indiana. That didn't last. He
was barred from practicing medicine in the state last summer when the
Indiana Medical Licensing Board found out about his past. He is eligible to
reapply for a medical license in seven years.
Eisemann-Schier was found in Oklahoma 79 days after the kidnapping, when
she applied for a job. At her trial she claimed to have been blinded by her
love for Krist. Her sentence was for seven years, but after just four she
was paroled, deported to Honduras and barred from entering the United
States.
In 83 Hours Till Dawn, Mackle noted that at least Krist had the decency to
call the police and tell them where she was buried. Eisemann-Schier didn't
bother. In her testimony at his trial, Mackle was surprisingly merciful to
Krist, according to jurors who talked to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
This, despite her memory of screaming as the sound of dirt hitting her
makeshift coffin became fainter and fainter as she was buried alive, a fact
she related in her book.
Mackle's concern for Krist and disdain for Eisemann-Schier was just one of
the emotional twists in the case that kept the public riveted yet
sympathetic. It seems people are always willing to tune in when an
innocent, pretty girl is personally targeted by a predator.
"As we all know, most homicide victims play some kind of role in their own
demise," Buchanan said. "They're fighting in traffic, fighting in a bar,
beating on a spouse that takes retaliatory action in a deadly way. The
innocent victim is rare."
Its helps explain why we can't forget the beautiful, smiling girls we see
on the news: They are the rare, innocent victims of evil intent.
"That's the contrast of good and evil," Buchanan said. "Here's a good
person, totally innocent, then the total evil that somehow confronts them.
It's like the classic beautiful princess in the tower, kidnapped and held
prisoner."
Michael Snyder
"Chocolic" <chatt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:y6qMb.19549$6y6.4...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> This is a tad long. Note, Snyder, how the man got the stiffer sentence?
Geez, everybody's on their toes these days! ;-)
> Also note, those of 'you people' that comment how the pretty, popular,
> etc., missing people tend to get more media coverage than the poor and not
> so pretty. This story is a good example of all of that. Wasn't there a
> movie made on this? It seems I've seen it but can't remember the name of
> it.
I'm thinking there's one about a similar case, but one in which
the victim died. Could that be what you're thinking of?
ImNot911
>I'm thinking there's one about a similar case, but one in which
>the victim died. Could that be what you're thinking of?
*********
This one?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0401040331jan04,1,3957158.sto
ry?coll=chi-news-hed
New twist in 1987 killing of publisher
Hearings ordered in convict's case
By Karen Mellen
Tribune staff reporter
January 4, 2004
More than 15 years after Nancy Rish was sentenced to life in prison for one of
the most sensational murders in Kankakee history, an appellate ruling has given
her supporters some cause to hope for her eventual release.
Rish, now 42, was a single mother from a troubled background when she became
entangled in a botched scheme by her live-in boyfriend to kidnap Stephen Small,
the heir to a media fortune, for ransom. Small died in an underground holding
pen.
Now the 3rd District Appellate Court in Ottawa has ordered two evidentiary
hearings in her case, centering on whether the lawyer with her during
interrogations provided effective assistance and whether prosecutors knew but
did not disclose that police apparently threatened Rish.
Based on the outcome of those hearings, a new trial could be ordered.
"The judge has to get to the bottom of this and find out whether there's been
some misconduct or not," said Rish's appellate lawyer, Joshua Sachs of Chicago.
Representatives of the Illinois attorney general's office, which is handling
the case, said they believed they would prevail and insisted Rish's rights were
not violated. A date has not been set for the hearings.
In 1993, a Tribune investigation found that prosecutors repeatedly
misrepresented evidence against Rish that could have bolstered her alibi and
possibly inspired doubts about witness accounts that tied her to the crime. It
also supported Rish's contention that police had threatened her during
questioning.
Rish's defenders have suggested she was naive and vulnerable at the time the
crimes were committed, themes that could be touched on in the Appellate Court.
"We've always prayed for the truth to come out, the whole truth," said Rish's
mother, Genevieve Woodrich of Kankakee. "Anything they found, it wasn't
connected with her. ... She was railroaded. That's what I say."
Legal experts say it is unusual for hearings to be ordered on a post-conviction
petition, which comes after appeals are denied. But they said it's difficult to
generalize about the significance of the court's action because each case is
unique.
"I think the chances of winning a post-conviction petition are slim, but
there's great payoff," said Jed Stone, a Waukegan defense lawyer who has argued
cases on the appellate level. "Cases are won or lost on facts. You can't
generalize."
Rob Warden, director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern
University School of Law, said he believed the issues raised in Rish's case
were significant enough to warrant in-depth study.
"Indeed, these may be very serious issues that could lead to a new trial," he
said.
Rish maintains innocence
Rish, an inmate at Dwight Correctional Center, declined to be interviewed. She
has maintained her innocence and said any help she gave boyfriend Danny Edwards
to lure Small from his house and kidnap him was unintentional.
Edwards was convicted and sentenced to death for murder and kidnapping but was
moved off Death Row last year when then-Gov. George Ryan granted blanket
clemency. Edwards is serving a life term at Stateville.
Authorities said Edwards kidnapped Small--one of the city's most influential
and politically connected residents--early on Sept. 2, 1987, then drove him to
a rural area where he had buried a box and rigged a pipe for breathing.
But the breathing apparatus did not work, and the coroner's report said that
Small died of suffocation.
Small, 40, was a father and wealthy businessman from a Kankakee family that
owns the local newspaper. Edwards made ransom calls to Small's relatives,
asking for $1 million. Within two days, police had focused on Edwards, and
during questioning he told them where the box was buried.
During that same period, police also questioned Rish repeatedly. Her defense
lawyer during the trial said the questioning went on for hours.
"Once they would get some inconsistencies, they would hammer on those," said
Vince Paulauskis, an attorney who still works in Kankakee. "And then she would
talk some more. And it just got worse, and worse."
One issue the Appellate Court will consider is prosecutorial misconduct,
focusing on whether a police officer who apparently threatened Rish with the
death penalty told anyone--including trial lawyers for the state--what he had
done.
Rish said a detective had told her that if she didn't start talking, the next
chair she would sit in would be the electric chair. But records showed that the
detective Rish named was not in the police station that day, an issue that the
trial prosecutors made good use of, Sachs said.
"[The prosecutor] caught her in the act of making up a story," Sachs said. "He
really went to town with it."
But a few years after the trial, a different investigator, William Willis, who
is retired from the Illinois State Police, appeared on a television special
about the case and admitted he was the one who made the threat.
According to the Appellate Court decision, a hearing must now be held to
determine whether Willis told other officers or state lawyers about the
incident. Misconduct may have occurred if prosecutors knew a threat was made,
yet maintained during the trial that nobody ever threatened Rish.
When contacted by telephone at his Downstate home, Willis declined to comment
on the threat issue. But he said there was no doubt in his mind Rish was
involved in the kidnapping and subsequent murder.
"This thing is never going to end," Willis said.
The other issue before the court is whether the lawyer who was with Rish during
her questioning provided ineffective assistance because he knew Small.
After her arrest, Rish asked that attorney Scott Swaim, who had represented her
on some child-support matters, be present when she spoke to detectives.
According to the Appellate Court opinion, Swaim did not disclose to Rish at the
time that he had a social relationship with Small.
"The defendant had a right to expect that her requested counsel was acting
completely in her interests," the Appellate Court ruled. "Such was not
necessarily the case here."
In fact, Sachs' brief for the post-conviction petition noted that at one
hearing related to the case, Swaim told the court he did not believe he was
acting fully as her lawyer but was instead a "passive" participant. According
to the brief, Swaim interrupted the repeated questioning of Rish only once or
twice during about 15 hours of interrogation over a five-day period, did not
review arrest reports or search warrants and did not interview police officers.
Sachs argued in his brief that even after Small was found dead and it was clear
Rish was facing a murder charge, Swaim did not change his advice or advise her
of her right to remain silent.
Swaim, now an associate judge in Kankakee County, declined to be interviewed.
Paulauskis also would not comment on whether he believed Swaim's relationship
to Small affected Rish's statements to police.
But he conceded that it was difficult during the trial to overcome the many
contradictory statements Rish made to police. The prosecution, he said, used
the word "liar" over and over.
"I can still hear [Michael] Ficaro," a former assistant attorney general who
prosecuted the case, Paulauskis said. "He must have used that word a thousand
times. ... Inconsistencies are not necessarily lies."
Friends say fear to blame
Rish's defenders blame her mistakes on fear and a fragile state of mind.
Friends later testified Rish had used cocaine, and her relatives have said that
her father's alcoholism made for a turbulent childhood.
Her mother said Rish, who admitted she drove her boyfriend to the rural area in
the middle of the night and to various pay phones where he made ransom calls,
believed Edwards was involved in drugs--not a kidnapping for ransom.
"She didn't even know who the Smalls were at the time," Woodrich said.
Richard Schwind, chief of the criminal prosecutions bureau for the attorney
general's office, said he is confident the conviction will stand. The office
prosecuted the case from the start because of a conflict of interest involving
the state's attorney for Kankakee County at the time.
"We will make comments ... that she was not intimidated or coerced or forced
into making any statements," he said.
Even if a police officer had threatened her, Schwind said, "it did not unduly
intimidate her into making any of her statements."
In the Appellate Court ruling, the panel of judges noted that Rish "helped to
create the problem by misidentifying the maker of the statement."
But the judges, in ordering an evidentiary hearing, stated that "because no
evidentiary hearing was held, we do not know whether Willis intentionally hid
his knowledge from the prosecution, nor do we know whether he told any other
officers or investigators about the incident."
Victim's widow speaks
Asked about the latest legal challenge, Small's widow, who has since moved out
of state, said the far greater blow to her and her grown children came last
January, when Ryan cleared Death Row because of problems with how the death
penalty had been administered.
"What really rocked our family was George Ryan's decision," which changed
Edwards' sentence, Nancy Small said.
As for Rish, she said: "I hadn't heard anything about her for years. I'm not
sure why this is coming up now, again. Once again."
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
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Michael Snyder
"ImNot911" <imno...@aol.commotion> wrote in message
news:20040112035828...@mb-m16.aol.com...
> >From: "Michael Snyder"
>
> >I'm thinking there's one about a similar case, but one in which
> >the victim died. Could that be what you're thinking of?
> *********
> This one?
Maybe -- is there a movie in the works?
Lane Closure
David Jannsen as her dad ("The Longest Night", 1972), and the other had Robert
Urich playing Dad ("83 Hours Til Dawn", 1990).
PattyC
BTW, I think Edna Buchanan is one of the worst writers I have ever read.
Interesting story, Choc. I honestly don't remember this one. I must have
been having quite a good time at those college parties...
PattyC
"Chocolic" <chatt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:y6qMb.19549$6y6.4...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...