Four Days in Hell

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.