Against The Odds

It’s December, 1968, and 20-year-old Emory University student Barbara Mackle is taken at gunpoint from the Atlanta motel room she’s sharing with her mother. Her two kidnappers drug her and then drive her to a remote spot in the woods outside the city. Their plan? To bury her alive in a coffin-like box while they wait for a half-million dollar ransom from her father, a wealthy real estate developer. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19...

Drugged and sick with flu, Barbara Mackle begs her kidnappers not to bury her underground. But soon she’s sealed inside a cramped wooden box, and can hear dirt being shoveled onto the lid. Meanwhile, a mysterious caller to her family’s home outside Miami directs them to a note buried beneath a rock in their front yard. The note confirms their worst fears – Barbara has been kidnapped and will never be found if they don’t pay the ransom. See Privacy Policy at https://art19...

Barbara’s father, Robert Mackle, has gathered $500,000 in 20-dollar bills into a suitcase. Then, following the kidnappers’ instructions, he goes by himself to the drop site – an abandoned causeway in Miami. But when he gets lost on the way to the site, he begins to worry that the kidnappers will flee before he can deliver the money, leaving his daughter to die. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s been days since Barbara Mackle has been buried alive in the cold Georgia clay. She has no idea how long the battery that keeps fresh air circulating into her wooden capsule will last. She's beginning to despair that she'll ever be rescued.  Meanwhile, in Florida, after the first ransom drop is bungled, kidnapper Gary Steven Krist makes one last-ditch effort to get the ransom money and arrange a getaway. But the police dragnet around him is tightening with every hour...

Atlanta-based journalist Steve Fennessy began researching Gary Steven Krist’s past for an article he was writing for Atlanta Magazine back in 2006. The assignment took him on a deep dive into Krist’s life, from his upbringing through the aftermath of one of the most notorious crimes of the 1960s: kidnapping and burying Barbara Jane Mackle alive. Today, Fennessy joins host Cassie De Pecol to share what he uncovered about Krist and what it was like writing our series, Buried Alive...

On this special episode of Against the Odds, wildlife biologist and host of the podcast Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks, Wes Larson, joins Mike Corey to share some of the wildest animal encounters he’s come across, and give tips on what to do if you come across these creatures in the wild. From grizzly bears to great whites, rattlers, cougars and…LEECHES, Wes has it covered. Plus, Mike and Wes swap stories of their own run-ins with black bears...