Kidnapped Woman Shares Her Story Of Surviving Three Days Buried Alive

The story of a woman being buried alive and left for dead is truly horrifying, but her survival is nothing short of remarkable.

This kind of experience is unimaginable for most, yet it became a terrifying reality for 20-year-old heiress Barbara Jane Mackle.

Mackle was set to inherit her family's Florida housing development business when she was kidnapped in 1968.

At the time, Mackle was a student at Emory University. She had gotten sick in class, so her mother came to pick her up early, right before the Christmas holiday, so she could be with family, according to Time.

The two of them, Barbara and her mother Jane, booked a room at a motel to stay overnight before making the trip back home.

But then, at 4 a.m., a knock on the door changed everything.

Barbara Jane Mackle was buried alive Bettmann / Contributor/Getty

Standing outside the door were two people. One claimed to be a detective and said that Mackle's boyfriend, Stewart Woodward, had been in a car accident.

According to Coastal Breeze News, it wasn’t until Jane opened the door that they realized it was actually a man in a mask with a shotgun, accompanied by a woman in a ski mask. They stormed into the room.

Jane was then knocked out with chloroform and tied up at both her hands and feet.

Barbara was forced into a car, and although she managed to free herself and attempt to call the police, she found herself 30 miles north of Atlanta, still in their clutches.

As it turned out, her kidnappers were an escaped convict, Gary Steven Krist, and his accomplice, Ruth Eisemann-Schier, who were taking her to a secluded location where they planned to bury her alive.

Two decades later, Krist’s former parole officer, Tommy Morris, told UPI that the motive wasn't just the $500,000 ransom demanded from the Mackle family, but the twisted challenge of keeping her alive underground.

The ransom note to the heirs of Deltona Corp, a company valued at around $65 million at the time, was sent, and the kidnappers proceeded with their scheme.

In Gwinnett County, they placed Mackle inside a “coffin-like box” outfitted with two air tubes, food, water, and sedatives.

They then buried her a foot and a half below the ground, leaving her there for three days until the FBI finally located her.

"He was looking for a rich, tough-minded female," Morris told UPI.

"Someone who could stand up to the trauma of being buried alive. Barbara Jane Mackle fit that profile."

Gary Steven Krist was sentenced to life in prison Bettmann / Contributor/Getty

But Mackle’s determination to survive didn’t waver.

In her journal, she recorded her experience, which was later reported by UPI and ABC News: "The sound of the dirt got farther and farther away. Finally, I couldn't hear anything above. I screamed for a long time after that."

To stay hopeful, she focused on the thought of spending Christmas morning with her family.

While the kidnappers did manage to collect the $500,000 ransom from her family, this ultimately led them to disclose her location to the FBI, which then allowed them to find her.

Following this, the FBI was able to track down Krist, who was found on a speedboat off the coast of Florida after he had used some of the ransom money to purchase it.

Eisemann-Schier was captured months later after she provided her fingerprints for a new job at a hospital in Oklahoma.

Reports indicate that Eisemann-Schier was eventually deported to Honduras, while Krist was sentenced to life in prison.