She Was Buried Alive for 83 Hours — Her Kidnappers Took $500,000 and Left Her Beneath the Ground

She Was Buried Alive for 83 Hours — Her Kidnappers Took $500,000 and Left Her Beneath the Ground

On December 17, 1968, 20-year-old Barbara Jane Mackle was staying at a motel in Decatur, Georgia, with her mother when two people came to their door. One of them, Gary Steven Krist, posed as a police officer and claimed there had been an accident involving someone Barbara knew. When the door was opened, the nightmare began.

Krist and his accomplice, Ruth Eisemann-Schier, overpowered Barbara's mother and forced Barbara away at gunpoint. They drove her into a remote wooded area in Gwinnett County, where they placed her inside a specially constructed, coffin-like box and buried her underground.

The box had been designed to keep her alive long enough for the kidnappers to collect their ransom. It contained food and water, a fan, a light and ventilation tubes extending to the surface. But Barbara was still trapped beneath the earth, unable to escape, while two kidnappers held her life over her family's head.

Then the ransom demand arrived.

They wanted $500,000 from Barbara's father, Robert Mackle, a wealthy Florida real-estate developer. The FBI became involved and arranged the ransom operation. During the first attempted exchange, the kidnappers became suspicious when police officers passed nearby. They abandoned the money and fled.

For Barbara, every hour underground meant more uncertainty.

Eventually, the kidnappers agreed to another meeting. This time, the $500,000 was successfully handed over. But instead of immediately releasing Barbara, they disappeared with the money.

For hours, her family and investigators had no idea where she was.

Then, on December 20, Krist contacted the FBI and gave vague directions to the place where Barbara had been buried. More than 100 agents spread through the Gwinnett County area, desperately searching the woods. They had no precise location and knew that every minute mattered.

When they finally found the burial site, agents began digging with their hands and whatever tools they could find. They uncovered the box and rushed to open it.

Barbara was still alive.

She had spent approximately 80 to 83 hours underground. The small light inside the box had failed, and she had been isolated beneath the earth for more than three days. Yet when rescuers finally reached her, she survived the ordeal without the fatal injuries her kidnappers had risked causing.

The two kidnappers did not remain free for long.

Krist was captured in Florida just days after Barbara's rescue. Eisemann-Schier escaped and became the first woman ever placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. She was eventually arrested in Oklahoma in March 1969, after 79 days on the run.

Krist was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was eventually paroled after serving about ten years. Eisemann-Schier pleaded guilty, received a seven-year sentence, served four years and was paroled in 1973 on the condition that she be deported to Honduras.

Barbara survived. She later wrote about the ordeal in 83 Hours Till Dawn and went on to marry and have children. Her kidnapping remains one of the most extraordinary ransom cases in FBI history because the victim was literally buried alive while her family and investigators raced against time to find her.

And that leaves the most disturbing question of all.

Imagine being Barbara's father and knowing that the person standing in front of you knows exactly where your daughter is buried. You are told that she is underground, and time is running out. The kidnapper refuses to tell you where she is.

What would you be willing to do to make him talk?

Would you allow the police to torture him if you believed it was the only way to save your daughter's life?

There is a profound difference between asking what is morally acceptable in ordinary circumstances and asking what a desperate parent might do when someone they love is slowly running out of time.

Torture should never be treated casually. A civilized society has laws precisely because fear, anger and desperation can drive people toward actions they would otherwise reject.

But Barbara Mackle's story forces us to confront the uncomfortable space between principle and desperation.

When an innocent person's life is hanging in the balance, the question is no longer abstract.

It becomes personal.