On this day, Dec. 22, in 1968, Gary Krist, the self-declared Albert Einstein of crime, was arrested for kidnapping the daughter of President Nixon’s friend.
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Two days earlier, Krist and Ruth Eisemann-Schier abducted 20-year-old Emory University student Barbara Jane Mackle in Georgia and buried the heiress underground in a fiber-glass reinforced box outfitted with an air pump.
Robert Mackle, a Florida land developer, delivered the $500,000 ransom, and his daughter was rescued alive after three days underground.
Police found an abandoned car that had a photograph of the girl in the box holding a sign that said, “Kidnapped.” Documents inside the vehicle soon led authorities to Krist, who was arrested on a speedboat off the coast of Florida. Krist was convicted and served 10 years in prison.
— Scott McCabe
