83 Hours : Decatur, GA

motels are an iconic part of the american landscape the idea was to create a drive-up friendly hotel for people on road trips to quickly stop for the night and then continue on their way they're often charming in quirky places that are affordable for weary travelers or people on vacation who like the laid-back atmosphere who doesn't love the sight of a classic motel alongside the highway generally people check into a motel to have a safe place to rest and then check out the next day sometimes though once you check in you never check out [Music] [Music] we're going to put you in an underground room you'll get air through a battery the battery will last seven days if you use the light the battery will only last five days you'll be underwater we'll check on you every two hours to make sure you aren't trying to escape if you try to get out you'll drown barbara was reeling from all the information she was being bombarded with one of the kidnappers was rambling on about a fan a life support system and amperage per hour barbara had no idea what he was talking about confused and disoriented she wanted to escape she wanted to run but he had tied her feet together so she couldn't sobbing she begged to be put in the house she promised not to fight but the man said his boss would be mad if he didn't put her underground what did that mean she didn't understand the other kidnapper a smaller woman spoke up she told barbara not to worry she would check on her every two hours they took anything that barbara had that was metal like a safety pin on her pajamas and the one ring she had on they forgot about her watch and she managed to slide it up her arm enough to hide it under the sleeve of her nightgown the kidnappers used chloroform to knock barbara out but she was still semi-conscious as the man pulled her out of the car he found the watch on her arm and took it then he laid her on a blanket on the ground put a sign on her that read kidnapped and took a picture in the first picture her eyes were closed and he was worried that her parents would think she was dead he told her to open her eyes and smile so she did the second picture was better he said he picked barbara up and carried her a few feet away and then set her down on the edge of a hole the young woman wasn't able to fully recognize her surroundings so when he told her to slide down into the hole she did then he told her to lay flat as soon as barbara realized where she was being placed she began screaming no no no you can't do this the kidnapper just responded don't be such a baby like a grown adult should just be okay with being buried alive right then the top was put on and screwed into place barbara yelled frantically for them to stop but it was no use once the top was screwed on the man talked through the box and gave her more instructions he told her the switch for the fan was behind her head she reached back and found two switches one worked the fan and one worked the light when she flipped on the fan it made noise but she wasn't sure if it was working she yelled that it was broken but the kidnapper responded that it was fine then she heard dirt start falling onto the top of the box like sporadic rainfall as the pebbles scattered across the wooden lid inside the sound of dirt falling on the box became more and more muffled until she was left with nothing but silence with the light on she would see that she was in a coffin-like box just big enough for her to lay down flat there was a container full of water inside the box it had a tube that went from the container to up near her head acting as a straw so she could drink barbara came to the terrifying realization that she was buried alive in decatur georgia jane mackle sat on the bed in room 137 outside the sign read roadway inns of america solid comfort and old-fashioned hospitality two dekalb county police officers had responded to the room in response to a report of a kidnapping on december 17 1968 jane proceeded to tell the officers what had just happened her daughter barbara mackel was 20 years old and a student at emory university but was one of the many students who fell victim to the 1968 flu pandemic due to the amount of students who had fallen ill she wasn't able to get a bed in the university clinic so her mother traveled to georgia from florida and checked them both into a motel room where jane was going to help barbara recover they had checked into the roadway inn on the 13th of december about four days earlier once settled in jane called barbara and had her drive to the motel in her olive green 1967 pontiac firebird when barbara got to the motel she had a temperature of 101 while recovering at the roadway inn barbara was also studying for her finals she was upset that she had lent her economics notes to another student and he had failed to return them on saturday the 14th the phone in the room rang and someone said they had a registered letter for barbara mackle the man's voice said that he was holding it for her at barbara's dorm it was late so they planned to pick it up the next day jane believed that barbara's economic notes must have been sent back to her by the students she lent them to barbara was relieved that she would be able to finish studying for her finals stuart woodward was a good friend of barbara's who also attended emory university where he was studying business he volunteered to stop by the dorm on saturday to pick up barbara's notes and when he arrived he was handed a red notebook containing them when he brought them to the motel the following day nobody questioned that they were not packaged as a delivery steward spent the next two days helping barbara study and when he left on monday the 16th he said well don't talk to any strange men which was what he normally said upon exit it normally garnered a chuckle then he got into his white ford and drove away that night both barbara and jane had trouble sleeping by then jane was also showing signs of illness and was keeping both of them awake in the early morning hours of december 17th jane was startled by a knock on the motel room door at about 4 00 a.m jane asked who it was and a man's voice answered the police the voice went on to explain that a young man in a white ford had been in an accident he was at the hospital and was asking for her jane clarified stewart woodward and the man confirmed jane slowly opened the door and when she got a glimpse of a police cap on the man's head she relaxed and opened it the rest of the way immediately the man who wasn't disguised at all rushed into the room he was followed by a much smaller person wearing a ski mask the two people overpowered jane and barbara the smaller one began tying jane's wrists and ankles and she said at that point she thought it might have been a young boy about 12 or 13. then they pressed a cloth of chloroform over her face it takes a few minutes for chloroform to work it's not like the movies where you take one whiff and you're immediately out jane realized that her best option was to pretend to pass out so she did then the smaller assailant put a piece of tape over her mouth and ran out the bigger one picked up barbara and carried her outside jane saw a glimpse of barbara's red and white nightgown leaving the room and began to panic what were they planning to do with her daughter she rolled off the bed and onto the phone and managed to knock the phone off the hook but she couldn't dial the numbers pulling herself to her feet she ran out of the room and since the tape on her mouth was already falling off began screaming for help nobody responded she hopped her way to barbara's firebird tripping and cutting her knees in the process she managed to get the door open and lunged inside pressing on the car's powerful horn with her chin the loud noise caused one of the motel patrons to wake up and call the front desk finally the motel's night manager came outside and told jane to quiet down jane released the horn and yelled that her daughter had been kidnapped the manager was hesitant to get involved but he did agree to cut the cord around her wrists finally jane was able to go back into her room and call the dekalb county police herself by the time the police had arrived jane had called steward and asked if he had been in an accident he hadn't the attackers had used it as a way to get her to open the door stewart ran to his car and immediately drove to the motel the police questioned the young man and were immediately suspicious in 1968 having a man and a woman be best friends was not considered normal they also wanted to know how the kidnappers knew he drove a white ford then when they asked him if he knew any reason why someone would take barbara he quickly suggested ransom the police thought he came to that conclusion too quickly though stewart explained that the mackel family was wealthy but they weren't from the area so police didn't know anything about their status at the end of the day authorities would end up keeping stewart under surveillance barber's father robert mackle was still in florida but he wasn't at home he was at the key biscayne hotel in villas which he and his brothers built in 1953 and had owned ever since robert and his brothers were one of the largest property developers in the miami area and were worth an ungodly amount of money in 1968. when stewart called robert and told him what was happening robert directed the young man to call the fbi one of robert's good friends was j edgar hoover the director of the fbi robert flew to atlanta and was soon at the motel once the fbi arrived the situation began running more smoothly the local police weren't equipped to handle a case of this magnitude and complexity they set up a base of operation at the motel because that's where the kidnapping had taken place they assumed that the kidnappers would make contact there in room 137 in the event of a ransom but the phone never rang instead at 9 10 am the phone rang at the mackel house in miami an employee answered the phone and the man on the line asked if he was robert mackle the employee let the caller know that robert had gone to atlanta the caller said to look under a palm tree in the northeast corner of the house under a rock about six inches down then he hung up the employee relayed the message to robert and they sent an fbi agent to the house in miami when they dug under the tree they found a beaker buried in the soil inside was a ransom note it was three sheets of paper typed double spaced on the first page but single spaced on the other two it began robert mackle sir your daughter has been kidnapped by us and we now hold her for ransom the lengthy ransom letter explained that barbara was safe but somewhat uncomfortable they explained that the proof that they had her would be arriving in the mail soon they said that barbara was buried in a small capsule in a remote piece of soil and that she had enough food water and air to last seven days they asked for five hundred thousand dollars just over four million dollars today in twenty dollar bills the bills were not to be older than 1950 not to have consecutive serial numbers have no type of markings and not have anything added such as chemicals or radiation the cash was to be placed in a large suitcase and when it was ready robert was supposed to place a personal ad in all miami area newspapers that read loved one please come home we will pay all expenses and meet you anywhere at any time your family once the ad appeared in the paper they would call robert after midnight and advise him of where to drop the money he was required to deliver the money himself wear a white suit and drive his lincoln when he did so the message said that if these directions weren't followed precisely they would discontinue communication and never release the location of barbara resulting in her suffocation they stated that if they were caught they would also never reveal her location it was important to note that barbara was kidnapped at 4am in decatur and the ransom was located at the mackel residence about 700 miles away at 9 00 am it was a 10 hour drive so either the ransom letter had been there for a while or there were multiple people working together in multiple locations robert traveled back to miami where he had no problem getting five hundred thousand dollars in cash he placed a personal ad in all of the area newspapers and then they waited the ad was published in december 18th morning newspapers every minute that passed after midnight was excruciating with every tick of the clock robert imagined his daughter dead at the hands of these ruthless kidnappers at 3 47 am on december 19th the phone at the mackel home finally rang the man on the line gave robert directions to a causeway and robert asked how he knew that his daughter was still alive the kidnapper responded you don't the instructions were for robert to drive to a secluded area and put the suitcase of money into a box and then back out of the area robert followed the instructions precisely and the drop should have been a success except that it wasn't the fbi didn't tell the local authorities in miami what was going on because they thought they'd leak the story to the press so after the drop the kidnapper armed with a gun picked up the suitcase and was walking away from the drop site two police officers saw him thought he looked suspicious and attempted to stop him as soon as they pulled up the man dropped the suitcase and ran into the woods the officers opened the suitcase and were shocked to find that it was filled with cash fbi agents heard over the radio that police had chased a suspicious character and recovered a suitcase filled with money they knew immediately that the ransom drop had gone sideways the suitcase was now locked in evidence at the miami police department the mackels were completely distraught they were sure that barbara would be killed robert put another personal ad in the papers that stated he was not involved with the police and he was still willing to pay all he could do now was wait and hope hoped that the kidnappers were desperate enough for the money that they would give him another chance when the police chased the kidnapper he had been walking from the drop location to his car when police canvassed the area they found a 1966 volvo station wagon with massachusetts license plates the fbi informed the miami police of their kidnapping case and recovered the suitcase in the car when they searched the car they found rope tape and a ski mask they also found a key to the roadway motel where the abduction took place in the back seat they found photos of a man in his 20s in one of them he's nude besides a police cap covering his genitals fbi forensic technicians vacuumed the car to pick up any fibers that could lead them to the identity of the kidnapper they also took prints from all over the car when the car registration was run the owner came back as a man named george deagan the mackel family didn't recognize the man in the picture or the name the identity came back with no criminal record while the fbi was scouring the miami area for george deacon the kidnapper called the mackel residence and gave robert a new drop point this time it would be an unpaved road on the edge of town the first thing the fbi did was to contact all local authorities and tell them to stay the hell away they did not need a repeat of the last money drop robert put on his white suit got into his lincoln and drove to the drop location where he left the suitcase and returned home he and the mackel family waited by the phone for days but it remained silent investigators discovered that george deacon worked at the university of miami institute of marine science when they interviewed his boss they learned that he had been hired in june to pilot boats for research then they learned that part of his job was to build ventilated boxes to put specimens in his boss told agents that he was close with a post-grad student who also worked there named ruth eisemann-shearer she was described as being small barely five feet tall with a heavy spanish accent the fbi also learned that a man had just bought an enclosed trailer from george for 35 dollars the man said he didn't really want the thing but he couldn't pass it up for only 35 bucks he said that george was in a real hurry to get rid of it when the trailer was searched investigator found letters addressed to george deacon but also others addressed to gary crist when they did a background check on gary crist they found that he had a lengthy criminal record for theft he had actually escaped from prison in 1966 and had been on the run for years they compared the fingerprints from the car to the prince on file for gary and came back with a match george deacon was gary crist their kidnapper and ruth eisemann shearer was his accomplice gary crist was born in alaska in 1945 and eventually moved to the lower 48. he began getting in trouble with the law at the age of 14 before being sent to prison in california he escaped prison in 1966 and started using the identity george deacon he made his way to florida where he got a job at the university of miami institute of marine science using forged credentials it was there that he met ruth who quickly fell in love with the criminal and conman ruth was born in honduras in 1942 and went to the national university of mexico where she graduated and began attending the university of miami after she started dating gary he convinced her that they could score a bunch of money and run away together he explained that all they had to do was kidnap the child of a wealthy family and put them up for ransom they didn't have to hurt anyone and the parents would easily pay to get their child back the pair began researching who their target would be and they found out that robert mackle the wealthy real estate developer had a daughter who was attending emory university outside of atlanta they devised a plan to drive up there kidnap her from her dorm and put her up for ransom gary constructed a box just like the ones he built at the marine science center only bigger he wired a fan and a light to a battery and loaded it into an enclosed trailer the couple drove to a secluded area outside of atlanta where they dug a trench and placed in the makeshift casket underground they spent a few days watching barbara and learned that she had left the dorm and was staying with her mother at the roadway inn their first attempt at kidnapping barbara was to call her room at the motel and claim there was a delivery waiting for her their goal was to lure her to the parking lot where they could snatch her but she didn't take the bait instead they went for a direct approach having seen stewart frequently at the motel in his white ford gary stole a police hat from an officer in a cafe and used it to talk his way into the room at 12 47 pm on december 20th the operator at the fbi's atlanta field office received a call from gary crist she tried to transfer him but he told her not to and began giving her directions she tried to write them down as fast as she could out on i-85 beaufort highway to norcross stoplight at buford and tucker proceed 3.3 miles from the intersection small white house on a hill turn left dirt road about a mile on the right he told her to go up there about a hundred feet in the woods he asked if the operator had got it she said yes agents from all over were called to the area so they could search for barbara it took them a while but one of the agents saw pipe sticking out of the ground and he called over to the rest of the agents they started digging and about a foot and a half down they hit the top of the wooden box they started to knock on the box and call out to barbara but there was no response they knocked again and yelled her name after a minute a dazed barbara heard the noise and started knocking back once the box was fully uncovered they pried it open and barbara was pulled out alive and relatively unharmed she had been in the box for 83 hours robert and jane were still at their home in miami and j edgar hoover personally called them and told them that their daughter was recovered alive and well gary crist was tracked all over miami over the next two days before being caught hiding in a swamp he refused to confirm his own identity and they didn't have his fingerprints with them but they knew that gary crist had a surgical scar on his testicles one of the agents pulled down his pants and positively confirmed that he was in fact gary crist fingerprints would later cement those findings the week after gary was captured the fbi added ruth eisemann shearer to the fbi's 10 most wanted list she is the first woman to ever be placed on the list since it was established in 1940. she was finally apprehended two and a half months later in norman oklahoma she told authorities that she and gary got separated and she assumed he abandoned her so she took a bus out of town gary stephen crist was sentenced to life in prison but only served 10 years he was paroled in 1979 he went on to become a drug smuggler and went back to prison multiple times ruth eisemann shearer served four years in prison and was deported back to honduras where she still lives barbara married steward in 1971 and they lived in florida where they started a family barbara used her positivity to keep from letting her 83-hour nightmare ruin the rest of her life she was placed in a grave that night in 1968 but she lived and she was determined to keep on living the next time you stay at one of those cute little places off the highway keep the doors locked tight because though you walked in on your own you never know who might carry you out thanks for letting us tell you this sinister story if you enjoyed it subscribe on whatever platform you're on hit like rate it or leave us a comment join us next week where we'll take you somewhere sinister

Channel: Somewhere Sinister

Views: 60,044

Keywords: true crime, travel, barbara mackle, kidnapping

Id: tO85PqhweLg

Length: 23min 22sec (1402 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 29 2022