Episode 253: Barbra Mackle Was Buried Alive

In December 1968, 20-year-old Barbara Jane Mackle was kidnapped from her motel room and buried underground in a ventilated box that was designed to keep alive for a full week while she was held for ransom. Her kidnappers, Gary Steven Krist and Ruth Eisman Schier, demanded $500,000 from Barbra’s father Robert Mackle, who was a very famous and wealthy Florida businessman. Over the course of 83 hours Robert, along with the help of Richard Nixon, Jay Edgar Hoover, and the FBI, did exactly what the kidnappers demanded to get Barbra out of the box alive.