An 'evil' crime, then quiet life until drug bust
The two men arrived at the Alabama marina, stepped onto the chartered sailboat and left town.
They sailed to a second marina where one of the men disembarked and drove back to Atlanta.
The next day, the man still on the boat - 60-year-old Gary Steven Krist of Auburn, well-known for a crime he perpetrated more than 35 years ago - set sail, government agents tracking his every move.
Krist, according to federal court records, sailed to Colombia, where he stayed for five days before returning to the States.
When he arrived, federal agents nabbed Krist and the other man - his stepson Henry Jackson "Jackie" Greeson, 48, of Auburn and almost 39 pounds of cocaine and four illegal immigrants - who paid $6,000 each to come to America - on board the boat the duo chartered.
Krist's arrest brought back into the limelight a man who in 1968 kidnapped the daughter of a well-known Florida businessman, buried her alive in the Berkeley Lake area of Gwinnett County and collected a $500,000 ransom from her father - money he later used to buy a boat to try to flee.
A kidnapper who became a physician, a man of above-average intelligence who authorities believe became a cocaine runner, Krist landed in the quiet town of Auburn, where authorities found an elaborate underground lab they say Krist used to process cocaine.
'My crime was evil'
On Dec. 17, 1968, Gary Steven Krist, a Miami resident at the time, made a name for himself.
Accompanied by Ruth Eisemann Schier, a woman he met in Bermuda while there conducting research, according to Georgia prison records, Krist kidnapped Emory University student Barbara Jane Mackle, the daughter of a wealthy and well-known Florida businessman.
Mackle was buried alive in a capsule for 83 hours and found by investigators after her father paid a $500,000 ransom. Krist built an elaborate coffin - complete with a life-support system - to bury the young co-ed.
As investigators scrambled to find Mackle, Krist drove to a West Palm Beach, Fla., marina where he bought a boat, paying $2,239 in cash, according to court records. A day after he bought the boat, Krist was arrested on the Intracoastal Waterway near Fort Myers, Fla.
Mackle later wrote a book about her experience - titled "83 Hours 'Til Dawn" - that was made into a movie. Krist also wrote a book.
A jail worker who interviewed Krist as he was booked into a Georgia state prison in Jackson classified the convicted kidnapper as "borderline schizophrenic."
"He seems to have an obsession for others to think of him as a superior individual," the interviewer wrote in a 1969 classification and admission summary. "He talked of his crime being part of a grand design which he had."
In fact, Krist had dreamed of carrying out such a plan since he was 14 years old, according to prison records.
Krist, who had an IQ of 119, used his time in prison, attending as many classes as he could. He admitted the kidnapping was evil and wrong, asked Mackle's forgiveness and planned to move on.
"Of course my crime was evil, immoral, and cruel and I cannot excuse it," Krist wrote in a 1971 letter to Mackle. "I don't deserve forgiveness but it would make me happy to receive it. The crime is past and I can learn from it but I cannot change it."
A new start
The son of a fisherman father, left in the custody of others as a child, Krist was in and out of prison while still a teenager. He tried to escape at least four times, according to Georgia parole board records.
As Krist and another man were escaping a California prison in 1966, the other man was shot and killed, Krist said in a letter included in his Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles file.
While serving the Georgia prison sentence for kidnapping Mackle, Krist became a leader, teaching inmates how to care for themselves and how to read and write, former parole board chairman James T. Morris noted in a recommendation letter for Krist.
The parole board considered Krist reformed, even though he was implicated in the burning of a prison chapel and convicted of attempting to escape.
In May 1979, after spending a decade in state prison, Krist was released on parole and by all accounts, appeared to turn his life around.
"Krist has maintained an excellent attitude during the time he has been under my supervision," a probation officer wrote in a March 1983 report recommending that Georgia terminate Krist's parole for the kidnapping conviction. "He occasionally appears somewhat arrogant, but I feel this reflects the feeling he has about himself in terms of his now considering himself quite intellectual.
"I have seen nothing in his behavior indicative of a return to criminal behavior," he added.
In January 1981, Krist started attending colleges, and later, medical school in the Caribbean. A year after he was pardoned by the state of Georgia, he moved to Auburn, according to federal court records.
Though he maintained an address in Barrow County, in December 2001 the state of Indiana issued Krist a probationary physician's license.
As part of the application process, Krist admitted his criminal past and the fact that he was denied a medical license by the state of Alabama.
"He had the makings of a good doctor," said Robin Roos, a resident of Chrisney, Ind., who leased Krist office space. "A lot of people around here liked him. A lot of people didn't like him because of what he's done."
At first Krist kept quiet about his past, but local reporters began hounding him, Roos said.
"It tore him up," Roos said, adding, "He paid his dues. He just wanted to go on with his life and be a doctor."
In 2003, Indiana revoked Krist's medical license, partly because he lied on his application by saying he said he had never been reprimanded, censured or admonished.
"I'm not going to be able to fulfill my dream," Krist told an Evansville, Ind., television reporter in 2003. "I tried to be a beneficial part of society. They wouldn't let me."
Quiet Georgia life
When he was arrested in Alabama last month, Krist lived in a rural area just outside the city limits of Auburn in western Barrow County.
The man with a well-known past had lived in a relatively quiet life - some residents didn't even know Krist lived in their community.
"He was as nice a person as you could meet," said Billy Parks, a former postal carrier who delivered Krist's mail to him. "He was very polite - just a gentleman."
"You wouldn't even think anything was going on with him," added Parks, also a city councilman.
About two weeks before receiving his physician's license in Indiana, Krist and Jackie Greeson incorporated a construction business in Georgia, Greeson & Krist Construction Inc., according to Georgia Secretary of State records. An Auburn company printed business cards for them, noting the company was "Specializing in Sheet Metal Fabrication & Bullet Proof Rooms."
Krist's neighbors - some whom were reluctant to talk or simply refused interviews - offer up a mixed picture of the well-known man.
"He just knows everything," said one Auburn resident who asked not to be identified. "He don't talk good about nobody."
"I'm scared of him," she added. "You don't know what he's going to do."
Of the now infamous kidnapping, the resident said: "He'll tell you about it. He brags about stuff like that."
But another Auburn man disagreed with all the negative publicity Krist has received recently, admitting like Krist he has made mistakes in his past.
"There ain't no use to rub it in the ground," the man said.
"He was a pretty good ol' boy," he added. "He's never raised his voice or said anything vulgar to my children. ... I ain't never heard him say a cuss word."
Trouble again
Federal homeland security agents descended on the Auburn Police Department last month.
"Do you know you have a celebrity living in your community?" one of the men asked Auburn police Chief Fred Brown. "Who?" the police chief asked.
It soon became clear who was living just outside of town.
At about 4 p.m. March 10, drug investigators from the Barrow County Sheriff's Office Meth Task Force, agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and officers from the Auburn Police Department and Barrow County Fire and Emergency Services executed a search warrant at Krist's house at 134 Georgia Highway 324, northwest of Auburn.
Authorities found an underground cocaine-processing laboratory, concealed by a "seemingly normal storage shed."
"No matter how long you think you can get away with it, you get caught," Brown said.
Investigators entered the lab through a small panel that was cut into the shed's concrete floor. The access panel was covered with a wooden hatch that had to be pried open, authorities said.
Investigators then climbed down a ladder into the lab, which was constructed out of a buried cylindrical tank roughly 27 1/2 feet long.
The lab - which was equipped with electricity, lighting, a water source and a submerged pump to evacuate wastewater out of the lab - held various chemicals, glassware and equipment used to process cocaine, turning cocaine paste into a power form that is sold in the streets, according to the Barrow County sheriff's office.
Investigators also found a 50-foot-long escape tunnel that ran into a modified barrel that was camouflaged.
Krist remains in federal custody, charged with importing cocaine into the United States and bringing in and harboring aliens, according to federal court records. A federal magistrate judge in Alabama - acknowledging Krist is "skilled in the operation of vessels in international waters" - decided he was a flight risk.
A trial date on the drug charge is pending. If convicted, Krist faces up to 10 more years in prison.
"I'm glad they got him," said the Auburn resident who asked not to be identified. "I hope they keep him in the pokey."
Published April 9, 2006, in the Athens Banner-Herald.