# The Girl Who Was Buried Alive in a Box

An episode of [Scary Interesting Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1705969819), 18 May 2026, 20 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72050201/the_girl_who_was_buried_alive_in_a_box.mp3

Ambient Songs: By CoAg https://www.youtube.com/@co.agmusic1823 Intro Theme by Swift Junai: https://www.instagram.com/swiftjunai/?hl=en https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6hf5nMJ8s6LJJfFR4OQ3lg https://open.spotify.com/artist/1PoG2b18MHocWZA8zQgWjO Writers and researchers: Jay Adams https://instagram.com/jayadamsdigital?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ== Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/scary-interesting-podcast--5945096/support.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: On December seventeenth, nineteen sixty eight, in a remote stretch
[0:03] Speaker 1: of woods in Georgia, a woman named Barbara was told
[0:06] Speaker 1: to lie down in a little box about the size
[0:08] Speaker 1: of a coffin. A lid was then placed over her
[0:11] Speaker 1: and screwed into place as Barbara began to scream horrifyingly.
[0:16] Speaker 1: Soon enough, her screams were muffled, then completely silent as
[0:19] Speaker 1: dirt was shoveled onto the box, until Barbara was buried alive.
[0:24] Speaker 1: This is her horrifying story, and as always, viewer discretion
[0:28] Speaker 1: is strongly vised. Barbara Mackel had not planned to spend
[0:42] Speaker 1: the last days before Christmas break sick in a motel
[0:44] Speaker 1: room in Atlanta, but by mid December of nineteen sixty eight,
[0:48] Speaker 1: that's exactly where she was. She was a student at
[0:51] Speaker 1: Emory University, and like a lot of other people on
[0:54] Speaker 1: campus during an outbreak, she had come down with the
[0:56] Speaker 1: Hong Kong flu right in the middle of midterm exam week,
[1:00] Speaker 1: So instead of heading straight home to Coral Gables, Florida,
[1:03] Speaker 1: she ended up in a nearby roadway inn with her mother, Jane,
[1:05] Speaker 1: who traveled to Atlanta to help Barbara get through it.
[1:09] Speaker 1: The two then planned to make the drive to Florida
[1:11] Speaker 1: together once Barbara was well enough to go. It wasn't
[1:14] Speaker 1: an ideal set up, but it made sense considering the circumstances.
[1:18] Speaker 1: Barbara was sick, run down, and trying to get through exams,
[1:20] Speaker 1: and Jane was there to keep an eye on her,
[1:22] Speaker 1: make sure Barbara had what she needed, and get her
[1:24] Speaker 1: home for Christmas as soon as she could. At some
[1:26] Speaker 1: point on the night of December sixteenth, Barbara's close friend,
[1:29] Speaker 1: Stuart Woodward, stopped by for a visit and to check
[1:32] Speaker 1: on her before he headed back to campus. Neither Barbara
[1:36] Speaker 1: nor Jane had any idea at that moment that Stuart's
[1:38] Speaker 1: name would soon be used against them. A few hours
[1:42] Speaker 1: before dawn on December seventeenth, their lives changed forever. At
[1:47] Speaker 1: around four in the morning, someone knocked in the door
[1:49] Speaker 1: of their room. Any knock at that hour would immediately
[1:52] Speaker 1: put most people on edge, and it certainly confused the
[1:54] Speaker 1: mother and daughter inside. Jane then got herself out of
[1:58] Speaker 1: bed to find out who it was. A man outside
[2:00] Speaker 1: identified himself as a detective, and he said he was
[2:03] Speaker 1: there because Stuart had been involved in an accident on
[2:05] Speaker 1: the way back to Emory from inside the room. Still
[2:08] Speaker 1: groggy and after being startled awake, Jane was told that
[2:10] Speaker 1: there had been a traffic accident and that Stuart was
[2:12] Speaker 1: unforcedly in one of the cars that collided. Upon hearing this,
[2:16] Speaker 1: Jane unlashed the door and swung it open. The pair
[2:20] Speaker 1: on the other side then forced their way in immediately.
[2:23] Speaker 1: They were wearing ski masks and at least one of
[2:25] Speaker 1: them was armed with a shotgun, and he illusioned that
[2:28] Speaker 1: this was a late night police visit, disappeared in an instant.
[2:32] Speaker 1: Jane was then shoved face down into the bed and restrained.
[2:35] Speaker 1: The duck tip was used to gag her, and a
[2:37] Speaker 1: Venetian blonde cord was wrapped around her arms and legs.
[2:40] Speaker 1: In some accounts of what happened in those first few moments,
[2:43] Speaker 1: she was also chloroformed, as the intruders were to overpower
[2:46] Speaker 1: both women as fast as possible. Barbara, meanwhile still sick
[2:50] Speaker 1: and caught in the middle being awakened in the middle
[2:52] Speaker 1: of the night, was suddenly realizing this was not a
[2:54] Speaker 1: misunderstanding or warning about Stuart. She was about to be kidnapped.
[3:00] Speaker 1: People who had come through the door knew exactly what
[3:01] Speaker 1: they were doing. They had a store prepared and moved
[3:04] Speaker 1: with the kind of efficiency that suggested what they were
[3:07] Speaker 1: doing had been thought through in advance. Once Jane was
[3:10] Speaker 1: completely incapacitated, the intruders grabbed Barbara, who was still in
[3:13] Speaker 1: her nightgown, and ushered her out of the room and
[3:15] Speaker 1: into the freezing temperatures outside. Somewhere outside that motel room,
[3:20] Speaker 1: a car was waiting, and somewhere beyond the lights of
[3:22] Speaker 1: downtown Atlanta, something else had already been prepared for her.
[3:26] Speaker 1: Barbara didn't know it yet, but the people who had
[3:28] Speaker 1: taken her were not planned to hold her a house
[3:30] Speaker 1: or move her from one motel to another. They had
[3:33] Speaker 1: something much stranger and far more terrifying in mind, and
[3:37] Speaker 1: as the car pulled away into the December darkness, their
[3:39] Speaker 1: plan was entering its final stages. The car carried Barbara
[3:44] Speaker 1: away from the motel and into the cold Georgia night,
[3:46] Speaker 1: while her mother was still tied up back in the room.
[3:49] Speaker 1: She had been pulled out of the room so fast
[3:51] Speaker 1: there had been barely time to understand what was happening,
[3:53] Speaker 1: let alone prepare for it. But even still, she couldn't
[3:56] Speaker 1: help but notice that the people who had taken her
[3:58] Speaker 1: were not acting like panicked crimine, most improvising. They were
[4:01] Speaker 1: headed somewhere specific with her, and soon enough that destination
[4:04] Speaker 1: would be clear. It was a remote pine stand off
[4:07] Speaker 1: south Berkeley Lake Road in Gwinnett County, near Lawrenceville, roughly
[4:11] Speaker 1: thirty miles northeast of Atlanta. It was isolated, wooded, and
[4:15] Speaker 1: well away from the motel where Barbera had been taken
[4:18] Speaker 1: and waiting there for her. Was the real center of
[4:20] Speaker 1: the plot, a narrow coffin like container buried in a
[4:24] Speaker 1: shallow trench. It was a box that had been prepared
[4:27] Speaker 1: in advance for one purpose. Only barber was going to
[4:30] Speaker 1: be sealed inside it and left underground. The box itself
[4:35] Speaker 1: had been built with a frightening level of care. It
[4:38] Speaker 1: was reinforced with fiberglass and buried beneath about a foot
[4:41] Speaker 1: and a half of soil. Inside, it had been equipped
[4:44] Speaker 1: with supplies meant to keep someone alive for several days.
[4:47] Speaker 1: There was a battery powered lamp and food selected to
[4:49] Speaker 1: provide enough calories and nutrients to sustain the person trapped inside.
[4:53] Speaker 1: There was also water, a chemical toilet, toilet paper, and
[4:56] Speaker 1: even sanitary napkins. Two plastic pipes were upward to provide
[5:00] Speaker 1: outside air as a sort of ventilation system. They were
[5:04] Speaker 1: even typed instructions inside, explaining how to operate the light,
[5:07] Speaker 1: the sump pump, and the air system. Whoever designed it
[5:11] Speaker 1: had thought about nearly everything Before she was placed inside,
[5:14] Speaker 1: One of the kidnappers injected Barbara with a tranquilizer. As
[5:18] Speaker 1: that happened, the mechanics of the box were explained to
[5:20] Speaker 1: her in precise terms, as if she were being briefed
[5:23] Speaker 1: on equipment rather than being prepared for a burial. What
[5:26] Speaker 1: she was not told was that the water stored inside
[5:28] Speaker 1: had been laced with a mild, tasteless sedative. The idea
[5:31] Speaker 1: apparently was to keep her from panicking, and it revealed
[5:34] Speaker 1: that even her fear had been planned for in advance.
[5:37] Speaker 1: When the explanation was finished, Barbara was forced to lie
[5:40] Speaker 1: out inside the box. One of the kidnappers then took
[5:42] Speaker 1: a photograph of her, but the first shot was rejected
[5:45] Speaker 1: because Barbara was not smiling in it. He then made
[5:48] Speaker 1: her do it again, this time telling her to quote
[5:50] Speaker 1: a smile for Daddy. The result was a haunting image
[5:54] Speaker 1: that would soon come to live in the case files.
[5:57] Speaker 1: Then came the moment when there was no longer any
[5:59] Speaker 1: room to pretend this might stop. Short of the unthinkable,
[6:03] Speaker 1: the lid was fastened down with twenty heavy tewted screws,
[6:06] Speaker 1: each about three and a half inches in lengths. Once
[6:09] Speaker 1: those screws were driven in and there was no possibility
[6:11] Speaker 1: of Barbara getting out on her own. As the kidnapper
[6:14] Speaker 1: shoveled soil over the top of the now closed box,
[6:17] Speaker 1: Barbara began to scream. She continued this as the sound
[6:20] Speaker 1: of dirt striking the lid grew fainter, muffled by the
[6:23] Speaker 1: increased weight and quantity of earth piled on top. Within moments,
[6:27] Speaker 1: the outside world disappeared for Barbara, as the sounds of
[6:29] Speaker 1: shoveling moved farther and farther away, until there was nothing
[6:32] Speaker 1: left but darkness and the knowledge that she had been
[6:35] Speaker 1: buried alive. Prior to being put in the box, Barbara
[6:39] Speaker 1: was told by the kidnappers that her condition would be
[6:41] Speaker 1: monitored every few hours, but that wasn't true at all.
[6:45] Speaker 1: After bearing her the kidnappers simply laughed. They drove away,
[6:49] Speaker 1: returned to their motel, cleaned up, checked out, and began
[6:52] Speaker 1: a long drive back to Miami. While listening to the
[6:54] Speaker 1: radio reports about the kidnapping they just committed. Barbara, meanwhile,
[6:58] Speaker 1: was left alone beneath the Georgia soil, with only the
[7:01] Speaker 1: systems inside the box and her own ability to remain calm.
[7:05] Speaker 1: The people who had entombed her were gone, and whatever
[7:08] Speaker 1: chance she had depended entirely on where the world above
[7:11] Speaker 1: could figure out where she had been hidden before time
[7:13] Speaker 1: ran out. By the time Barbara was being carried into
[7:17] Speaker 1: the Georgia Woods, her mother was still back at the roadway,
[7:19] Speaker 1: inn bound and gagged on the bed. Jane had watched
[7:22] Speaker 1: the strangers force their way into the room, overpower her
[7:25] Speaker 1: within seconds, and take her daughter off into the night
[7:27] Speaker 1: before she had any chance to fight back. Once the
[7:30] Speaker 1: car was gone, all she could do was try to
[7:32] Speaker 1: get herself loose, and like Barbara, it didn't take long
[7:35] Speaker 1: for her to realize that whatever just happened was not random.
[7:38] Speaker 1: It was not some desperate robbery gone wrong. These people,
[7:41] Speaker 1: whoever they were, had come for Barbara specifically. Jane would
[7:45] Speaker 1: eventually manage to free herself enough to call for help,
[7:48] Speaker 1: but by then the most important window had already closed.
[7:51] Speaker 1: Barbara was no longer somewhere nearby, even though her call
[7:54] Speaker 1: for help was made quickly, the kidnapping had just been
[7:57] Speaker 1: executed with so much speed. As in investigators began trying
[8:01] Speaker 1: to understand the scene, one fact stood out almost immediately.
[8:04] Speaker 1: Barbara was not some anonymous college student. She was the
[8:07] Speaker 1: twenty year old daughter of Robert mackele, a hugely successful
[8:10] Speaker 1: Florida land developer and co founder of the Deltona Corporation.
[8:14] Speaker 1: This was a major home building company that helped shape
[8:16] Speaker 1: enormous residential developments in the state. In other words, Barbara
[8:20] Speaker 1: came from the exact kind of family a kidnapper might
[8:23] Speaker 1: view as capable of paying a massive ransom. This was
[8:26] Speaker 1: a fact to help set the stage for one of
[8:28] Speaker 1: the most bizarre kidnapper cases the FBI would ever investigate.
[8:32] Speaker 1: Back down in the ground, there was no way for
[8:34] Speaker 1: Barbara to track the larger drama in folding above her.
[8:37] Speaker 1: She didn't know that her disappearance was triggering a huge
[8:40] Speaker 1: law enforcement response, or that her father's name in wealth
[8:43] Speaker 1: were crucial to her kidnapping. All she knew for certain
[8:46] Speaker 1: was what the kidnappers had shown her before seeing in
[8:48] Speaker 1: the box. As the hours passed, the reassurance they had
[8:52] Speaker 1: given her that someone would be checking on her began
[8:54] Speaker 1: to fade as she realized that no one was coming back.
[8:57] Speaker 1: That meant Barbara had to narrow down her world to
[8:59] Speaker 1: what she could control. She had instructions for operating box, food, water,
[9:04] Speaker 1: and more than anything else, her own mind, so rather
[9:07] Speaker 1: than let herself spiral into a panic, she focused on survival.
[9:10] Speaker 1: She imagined what Christmas morning back at home would be
[9:13] Speaker 1: like over and over again, and she held onto that
[9:16] Speaker 1: image as a future she intended to get back to.
[9:19] Speaker 1: She also sang every church hymn she could remember well trapped,
[9:22] Speaker 1: basically anything she could do to keep herself calm. While
[9:25] Speaker 1: Barbara fought to stay calm underground, the people who had
[9:28] Speaker 1: put her there were on the next phase of their plan,
[9:30] Speaker 1: and the demand was enormous for its time. Her captors
[9:33] Speaker 1: wanted five hundred thousand dollars from Robert for the safe
[9:36] Speaker 1: return of his daughter. The four and a half page
[9:39] Speaker 1: ransom letter explained that Barbara had been taken to a
[9:41] Speaker 1: remote wooded area and stuffed inside a box that was
[9:43] Speaker 1: lying underground, and like the rest of the instant, what
[9:47] Speaker 1: made the note even stranger was how carefully it had
[9:49] Speaker 1: been handled before the kidnapping ever took place. The letter
[9:53] Speaker 1: had been sealed inside a glass tube and bear beneath
[9:55] Speaker 1: a rock near a palm tree in the family's garden
[9:57] Speaker 1: in Coral Gables. It was yet another sign that the
[10:00] Speaker 1: abductors had clearly tried to think through every step. But
[10:03] Speaker 1: here's where the first mistake was made. After receiving the
[10:06] Speaker 1: horrifying news, Robert would actually arrange to give the men
[10:09] Speaker 1: the money. However, the first attempt to collect the ransom
[10:12] Speaker 1: fell apart when two policemen happened to drive by the
[10:15] Speaker 1: drop site at the pickup time. This was enough to
[10:18] Speaker 1: spook the kidnappers into abandoning the attempt and running off
[10:21] Speaker 1: on foot. In the chaos, they left behind their car,
[10:24] Speaker 1: and that abandoned car became one of the most important
[10:26] Speaker 1: breaks in the entire case. Inside of it, the FBI
[10:30] Speaker 1: found photographs of a man wearing a policeman's hat and
[10:33] Speaker 1: registration papers with the name George Deacon. The extortion effort
[10:37] Speaker 1: didn't end there, though. A second ransom drop was carried
[10:40] Speaker 1: out successfully, meaning the money changed hands without me interruption.
[10:44] Speaker 1: But even after all of that, there was still no
[10:46] Speaker 1: immediate word from the kidnappers telling authorities where Barbara had
[10:48] Speaker 1: been buried. Backing up a little bit, though, the man
[10:52] Speaker 1: actually at the center of the plot was twenty three
[10:54] Speaker 1: year old Gary Stephen Christ. His accomplice was twenty six
[10:58] Speaker 1: year old Ruth Eisman Schier, a graduate student from Honduras.
[11:02] Speaker 1: The two had met through the Marine Science Institute at
[11:05] Speaker 1: the University of Miami, where Gary was employed and Ruth
[11:08] Speaker 1: was studying marine biology. They became romantically involved after taking
[11:12] Speaker 1: part in a university sponsored research trip to Bermuda. Gary
[11:16] Speaker 1: was a large man, about six feet tall and weighing
[11:18] Speaker 1: roughly two hundred and forty pounds. Ruth, meanwhile, was much smaller,
[11:21] Speaker 1: around five foot two and one hundred and ten pounds,
[11:23] Speaker 1: but that contrast probably helped him in some ways. Together,
[11:27] Speaker 1: they didn't necessarily look like the kind of couple many
[11:29] Speaker 1: people would picture carrying out a meticulously planned abduction, and
[11:33] Speaker 1: from the available details, it's clear that Gary in particular
[11:36] Speaker 1: had been thinking about this for some time. At some
[11:39] Speaker 1: point in November of nineteen sixty eight, Gary settled on
[11:42] Speaker 1: Barbarazz's target. He researched her, chose her deliberately, and then
[11:45] Speaker 1: began constructing what he repeatedly called the capsule he built
[11:49] Speaker 1: inside a small construction trailer parked in the grounds of
[11:52] Speaker 1: the Marine Science Institute, a place to which only he
[11:55] Speaker 1: had access to That gave him privacy in time to
[11:58] Speaker 1: create the central tool of the kidnap without interference. The
[12:02] Speaker 1: capsule was designed to keep its occupant alive underground for
[12:05] Speaker 1: seven days. It measured six feet long or one hundred
[12:09] Speaker 1: and eighty three centimeters twenty three inches high and twenty
[12:11] Speaker 1: three inches wide or fifty eight by fifty eight centimeters,
[12:14] Speaker 1: and weighed around two hundred and forty pounds, about the
[12:16] Speaker 1: same as Gary. It was long enough and wide enough
[12:19] Speaker 1: to hold a person, but not much more than that.
[12:22] Speaker 1: The height and wind made it brutally cramped. It was
[12:24] Speaker 1: a narrow, human sized compartment engineered around survival in the
[12:28] Speaker 1: most limited sense of the word. He ensured that barb
[12:31] Speaker 1: would have air, food, water, and instructions, just enough of
[12:34] Speaker 1: everything to keep a person alive while ransom negotiations played out.
[12:39] Speaker 1: After it was constructed, Gary even convinced Ruth to test
[12:41] Speaker 1: to herself. At one point, he had her lie down
[12:44] Speaker 1: inside it for several hours with the lid closed. The
[12:47] Speaker 1: pair wanted to know whether the system worked and whether
[12:50] Speaker 1: the occupant could function inside it, and presumably whether the
[12:52] Speaker 1: whole setup could do what Gary intended it to do.
[12:55] Speaker 1: This test would end up being a success, and a
[12:58] Speaker 1: few days before the kidnapping the operation north. On December thirteenth,
[13:03] Speaker 1: Gary and Ruth loaded the capsule and its contents into
[13:05] Speaker 1: a Volvo station wagon and drove from Miami to Atlanta.
[13:09] Speaker 1: Once there, Gary found an isolated wooded area where the
[13:12] Speaker 1: pair spent a day digging a grave just big enough
[13:14] Speaker 1: for the capsule. They then placed the capsule in the
[13:17] Speaker 1: hole and concealed both it and the display start with
[13:19] Speaker 1: brush from the surrounding woods. Then, in the days leading
[13:23] Speaker 1: up to the kidnapping, Gary Ruth went looking for Barbara
[13:25] Speaker 1: around every university's campus. They checked dorms and classrooms before
[13:29] Speaker 1: discovering that she was ill and temporarily staying at the
[13:32] Speaker 1: Roadway Inn with her mother. Once the pair was settled
[13:35] Speaker 1: at a nearby motel, Gary called the Roadway Inn and
[13:38] Speaker 1: asked for Jane's room. When Jane answered, he told her
[13:41] Speaker 1: that he had a certified letter for her and would
[13:43] Speaker 1: deliver it later. The final touches on the scheme then
[13:46] Speaker 1: took place the night before the kidnapping, Gary and Ruth
[13:49] Speaker 1: s aid at a diner where a local police officer was
[13:51] Speaker 1: seated at the counter. His cap was hanging on a
[13:54] Speaker 1: hook near the door, and when Gary left, he stole it,
[13:56] Speaker 1: deciding that posing as a police officer would be the
[13:59] Speaker 1: easiest way to get some side the room in the
[14:00] Speaker 1: early morning hours. He also realized that police officers don't
[14:04] Speaker 1: usually have full beards, so shortly before the abduction, he
[14:07] Speaker 1: shaved his face clean. The pair even took practice photos
[14:10] Speaker 1: with their polaroid camera to make sure it worked since
[14:13] Speaker 1: they intended to photograph Barbara after the kidnapping his proof
[14:16] Speaker 1: she was still live. Luckily for Barbara, though, Gary and
[14:19] Speaker 1: Ruth made a huge mistake when they left their car behind.
[14:22] Speaker 1: After recovering the abandoned car, the FBI followed that trail
[14:25] Speaker 1: to the University of Miami. There they determined that George
[14:29] Speaker 1: Deacon was connected to the Marine Science Institute and that
[14:32] Speaker 1: George was apparently known for building ventilated boxes as part
[14:34] Speaker 1: of his work. Agents also found out from George's boss
[14:38] Speaker 1: that there was a woman at the university he spent
[14:40] Speaker 1: a lot of time with, and that woman was Ruth.
[14:43] Speaker 1: Then another lucky break came in from Georgia. A local
[14:46] Speaker 1: man contacted the FBI and said that he recently bought
[14:49] Speaker 1: a small trailer from someone, only to discover odd paperwork
[14:52] Speaker 1: left inside. The FBI examined the material and found letters
[14:55] Speaker 1: address to both George and Gary. The real collapse, though,
[14:59] Speaker 1: came when the the FBI compared fingerprints from the abandoned
[15:01] Speaker 1: car with prints already on file for Gary, who had
[15:04] Speaker 1: escaped from a California prison in nineteen sixty six while
[15:07] Speaker 1: doing time for car theft. The match showed that George
[15:10] Speaker 1: and Gary were the same person, and with that they
[15:13] Speaker 1: knew who was likely behind Barbara's kidnapping. Obviously, though this
[15:17] Speaker 1: wasn't the same as knowing where Barbara had been buried.
[15:19] Speaker 1: She was still underground somewhere in Georgia, and the clock
[15:22] Speaker 1: was still ticking. The brakes were on. That aspect of
[15:25] Speaker 1: the case finally came on December twentieth, when Gary called
[15:28] Speaker 1: and gave an FBI operator directions to Barbara's location. Even then,
[15:33] Speaker 1: though the directions were vague and imprecise, but it was
[15:35] Speaker 1: the first real path anyone had towards Barbara's grave. Agents
[15:39] Speaker 1: were then dispatched towards the Lawrenceville area, where the barrel
[15:41] Speaker 1: site was believed to be hidden. By this point, she
[15:44] Speaker 1: was already underground for more than three days, and there
[15:46] Speaker 1: was no room left for delay. In one of those
[15:49] Speaker 1: details that would have been darkly funny if the situation
[15:51] Speaker 1: had not been so desperate, the first wave of agents
[15:54] Speaker 1: actually arrived in the gravesite without shovels. They had rushed
[15:57] Speaker 1: out in excitement, focused on getting to the scene as
[15:59] Speaker 1: quickly as possile, but none of them thought to bring
[16:01] Speaker 1: the most basic tool they might need to dig a
[16:03] Speaker 1: bared woman at the grounds. But in any case, even
[16:06] Speaker 1: after getting there, the grave site wasn't easy to locate.
[16:09] Speaker 1: The burial site was prepared in advance to blend into
[16:11] Speaker 1: the landscape, and again Geary's directions given to the FBI
[16:14] Speaker 1: operator left a lot to be desired. Agents spread out
[16:18] Speaker 1: and began searching, more or less at random, combing the
[16:20] Speaker 1: woods in the hope that some sign of disturbed ground
[16:22] Speaker 1: or concealed brush would stand out. Hours passed with little
[16:26] Speaker 1: to show for it, and as the afternoon war on
[16:28] Speaker 1: the light began to fade. Dusk would mean reduce visibility
[16:31] Speaker 1: and more confusion. It also meant that there was the
[16:34] Speaker 1: possibility that they could be close to the grave and
[16:36] Speaker 1: miss it entirely. As a result of this, the search
[16:39] Speaker 1: effort rapidly. The FBI set to its base in Lawrenceville,
[16:43] Speaker 1: and more than one hundred agents spread through the area.
[16:46] Speaker 1: Some dug at areas with their hands, while others whatever
[16:49] Speaker 1: they could find. They shouted Barber's names to the woods,
[16:52] Speaker 1: hoping that somehow she might hear them and respond, But
[16:54] Speaker 1: buried beneath soil and a sealed box, there was a
[16:56] Speaker 1: little chance of that. Then, in around four in the
[16:59] Speaker 1: after noon, one of the agents spotted something small but crucial.
[17:03] Speaker 1: On top of some brush. He noticed what looked like
[17:05] Speaker 1: a bit of freshly disturbed red Georgia soil. He called
[17:09] Speaker 1: the others over, and the searched out from a broad,
[17:11] Speaker 1: frantic sweep of the woods to one exact patch of grounds.
[17:15] Speaker 1: Once the agents converged on the spot, the mood changed instantly.
[17:19] Speaker 1: Their search had been noisy and scattered before, but now
[17:21] Speaker 1: it turned to focus digging. When the agents finally dug
[17:25] Speaker 1: down to the buried box and opened it, Barbara was
[17:27] Speaker 1: still alive inside. By the time they reached her, she
[17:30] Speaker 1: was badly dehydrate and weak, but otherwise unharmed. She was
[17:34] Speaker 1: conscious and lucid, with two weak to stand on her own.
[17:37] Speaker 1: Agents then began to cheer when it became clear that
[17:40] Speaker 1: she was still alive. After she was pulled up and
[17:43] Speaker 1: looking at the men who dug her out. In her
[17:44] Speaker 1: first words since being buried, she apparently told them that
[17:47] Speaker 1: they were the handsomest men she had ever seen. In
[17:49] Speaker 1: the aftermath, was Barbara found and accounted for. Gary didn't
[17:52] Speaker 1: remain free for long. Eventually, he was captured off the
[17:56] Speaker 1: Florida coast in a speedboat he had bought using some
[17:58] Speaker 1: of the ransom money. Ruth remained uncaught for a bit longer,
[18:01] Speaker 1: though she wasn't arrested until May fifth, nineteen sixty nine,
[18:05] Speaker 1: in Norman, Oklahoma. She had applied for a job at
[18:08] Speaker 1: a hospital, and during the background check, the Oklahoma State
[18:11] Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation found a fingerprint match. Bruce was then
[18:15] Speaker 1: convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. She served
[18:18] Speaker 1: four of those years before being prolled and deported back
[18:21] Speaker 1: to her native Honduras. Gary meanwhile, was convicted in nineteen
[18:25] Speaker 1: sixty nine and was sentenced to life in prison, which
[18:27] Speaker 1: on paper sounds like the end of the store for him,
[18:29] Speaker 1: but he was somehow prolled after serving only ten years. Then, incredibly,
[18:34] Speaker 1: he received a pardon that allowed him to attend medical school.
[18:38] Speaker 1: He then went on to actually practice medicine in Indiana
[18:40] Speaker 1: before losing his license in two thousand and three for
[18:43] Speaker 1: lying about disciplinary trouble during his residency. Then in March
[18:47] Speaker 1: of two thousand and six, he was rested again, this
[18:49] Speaker 1: time on a sailboat off to Alabama coast with fourteen
[18:52] Speaker 1: kilos of illicit substances reportedly worth around one million dollars
[18:55] Speaker 1: the time. He was sentenced to five years and five
[18:58] Speaker 1: months in prison before being released November of twenty ten.
[19:02] Speaker 1: Then in twenty twelve, a federal judge in Alabama revoked
[19:05] Speaker 1: his supervised release after he left a country without permission
[19:08] Speaker 1: and sale to Cuba and South America. He was then
[19:11] Speaker 1: sentenced to another forty months in prison and was released
[19:14] Speaker 1: again in twenty fifteen. He remains a freeman to this day.
[19:18] Speaker 1: Barbara said of the story moved in a very different direction.
[19:22] Speaker 1: She was returned to her family after her rescue, and
[19:24] Speaker 1: she later married and had children. In nineteen seventy, she
[19:27] Speaker 1: published a book about the ordeal called eighty three Hours
[19:30] Speaker 1: Till Dawn. The story would go in to inspire a
[19:33] Speaker 1: nineteen ninety television movie and even a loose exploitation film
[19:36] Speaker 1: adaptation in the early nineteen seventies. The mackell family maintained
[19:41] Speaker 1: that Barbara remained relatively unfazed publicly, though she had very
[19:44] Speaker 1: few public appearances over the years. At the last checking
[19:47] Speaker 1: with her, she was living a simple life in the
[19:49] Speaker 1: Atlanta area with her family.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.