Crime: Making an Impact

As 20-year-old Barbara Jane Mackle recuperated last week at her family’s rambling Coral Gables mansion, a vast federal-state dragnet reached out for her kidnapers. Snatched from an Atlanta motel by Gary Steven Krist and Ruth Eisemann Schier and freed for a ransom of $500,000, Barbara Jane was found buried under 18 inches of Georgia turf in a coffin-like box. Snorkels to the surface allowed her to breathe during the 80-hour entombment.

The first break in the case came when a West Palm Beach boat dealer reported that a man calling himself Arthur Horowitz had bought a 16-foot outboard, paying for it with $2,300 in $20 bills that he carried in a brown paper bag. Horowitz was, in fact, Krist, 23, the organizer of the Mackle kidnaping. Serial numbers proved that the money was part of the ransom raised by the girl’s father, Millionaire Builder Robert Mackle.

Through Canals. Hoping to reach the Gulf of Mexico, Krist threaded his way through cross-state canals. At the last lock along the 155-mile stretch, a suspicious tender called the FBI. Swiftly, a land, sea and air task force was mounted to track Krist down. With helicopters whirring above him Krist ran his boat aground on a crocodile and snake-infested strip of Gulf Coast land called Hog Island.

He scuttled the boat, stashing aboard it a waterproof bag with $480,000, then took off through the waist-deep swamp toward the lights of El Jobean, a tiny fishing village. He never made it. Two Charlotte County deputies stalked him until finally he paused to rest directly in front of them. “We turned the light on him, and there he was, crouched down on a log, just sitting there,” said Deputy Milton Buffington. They found $17,-000 in his pocket.

Still missing at week’s end was Krist’s accomplice, Ruth Eisemann Schier, 26, a linguist and graduate student at the University of Miami’s Marine Science Institute. She met Krist, an escaped convict working at the institute under the alias George Deacon, during a student-faculty cruise to Bermuda in September. He drew her into his scheme. As Krist’s estranged wife recalled last week: “Gary doesn’t want to lead a mediocre life.

He always wanted to make an impact on the world.”

Getting the Word. He chose the wrong mark. Mackle, co-owner with his two brothers of the $65 million Deltona Corp., is acquainted with some of the most influential political figures in the U.S. The FBI agents received orders directly from J. Edgar Hoover, while Florida state police were getting the word from Democratic Senator George Smathers. And Barbara Jane was visited last week by family friend Richard Nixon, who urged her to write a book about the ordeal.

Pamela Powers was not as fortunate as Barbara Jane Mackle. On Christmas Eve, Pamela, 10, went to the Des Moines Y.M.C.A. with her father to watch her brother in a wrestling match. She walked out to the lobby for a candy bar, and disappeared. Two days later, Anthony E. Williams, a self-styled preacher and accused rapist, calmly led police to a roadside ditch eight miles from Des Moines where her frozen body lay.