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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK NATION, Page 15Four Days in Hell
A kidnapper pleads guilty to the brutal $18 million Exxon
extortion scheme
It was the most dramatic abduction in New Jersey since the
Lindbergh baby disappeared in 1932. But unlike that kidnapping
and murder, which has remained shrouded in mystery for decades,
the details of the final four days of Sidney Reso came clear a
little over four months after the 57-year-old Exxon
International president vanished on his way to work April 29.
Last week in a federal courtroom in Trenton, New Jersey, Arthur
Seale, a former security officer for Exxon, recounted the grisly
details as he pleaded guilty to extortion charges that could
bring him up to 95 years in prison and $1.75 million in fines.
Seale's plea reversal came on the eve of his trial, at which
Irene Seale, his wife and co-conspirator, was scheduled to
testify against him.
Seale, 45, described how he and Irene, in an attempt to
extort $18 million from Exxon, ambushed Reso from a van parked
in front of his Morris Township home. When Reso stopped to pick
up his newspaper at the end of his driveway, "I yelled and
grabbed him by the collar," Seale told the judge. "I pulled him
into the van, and when he got into the van he went to turn and
the gun went off." For four days, the couple held the badly
wounded Reso without food and water in a locked wooden box in
a self-storage locker they had rented. On the last day, the
couple panicked as their victim -- dehydrated and possibly
suffering from an existing heart condition -- neared death. "He
actually died in my arms that afternoon," Seale testified, as
the oil executive's widow stared intently at him. The couple
buried Reso's body in a forest but continued to demand money
from Exxon, pledging his safe return. Seale still faces state
charges of felony murder and kidnapping, which could result in
further life sentences for him.