DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Nearly 60 years ago, an Emory University student vanished without a trace and was held for ransom.
Barbara Mackle, then 20, was eventually found alive after being buried alive for three days. She went on to live a happy life, got married and had children.
Channel 2’s Cory James spoke with a former FBI agent who worked nearly a dozen kidnapping cases involving a ransom note or extortion.
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“It can be a brutal, very violent type of crime, and it never ends well for anyone involved,” Stuart Filmore said.
Mackle’s case is not unlike that of the disappearance of former TODAY Show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy Guthrie.
As the search for Nancy Guthrie enters its second week, James asked Filmore if there is a timeframe for solving these kinds of crimes.
“The quick answer is there is not really anything normal. Every kidnapping is a little bit different, a little different twist because people have different circumstances,” he said.
Sarah McCollum says watching the Nancy Guthrie situation play out gives her flashbacks to Mackle’s 1968 disappearance.
“Nightmares, just a horrific event,” she described.
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Channel 2 Action News covered Mackle’s case extensively in the 1960s.
She was woken up at 4 a.m. in a motel room by a knock on her door. Her captors placed her in a box and buried her alive.
McCollum said she knew the detective who found the young woman alive after her father paid the $500,000 demanded in a ransom letter.
“The kidnapper referred to it as a coffin,” McCollum said.
Filmore says that with Ring cameras, geofencing for tracking and people carrying cellphones, this is still a crime that is very rare.
“It’s just getting harder by the day with technology,” he said.
But he said that, in his experience, they never get away with it.
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