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- <text id=92TT1511>
- <title>
- July 06, 1992: Tripped Up by Technology
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- July 06, 1992 Pills for the Mind
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 20
- SOCIETY
- Tripped Up By Technology
- </hdr><body>
- <p>The alleged kidnappers of an Exxon man are foiled, and a body
- turns up
- </p>
- <p> Television crime dramas typically provide viewers with a
- sampling of life's invaluable lessons. One is that kidnapping,
- generally, is a high-risk method of making a buck. That
- venerable cop-show counsel apparently went unheeded by a New
- Jersey couple, indicted last week on six counts of kidnapping
- and extortion in the case of missing Exxon International
- president Sidney Reso. Last April Reso, 57, vanished from the
- driveway of his posh Morris Township, N.J., home while on his
- way to work.
- </p>
- <p> Soon after his disappearance, FBI agents recovered letters
- demanding a ransom of millions of dollars from Exxon for his
- safe return. In one note the '90s-style kidnappers made a
- particularly unsophisticated request: that a cellular-telephone
- number be established through which further contact would be
- made. As the alleged culprits, Arthur and Irene Seale, later
- learned to their dismay, calls received on such phones can be
- traced.
- </p>
- <p> Ultimately sold out by cellular, the Seales were apprehended
- after a fast-paced four-hour chase that ended at a Hackettstown,
- N.J., car-rental agency. There, Mrs. Seale was caught with a
- briefcase containing some extraordinary items: three .38-cal.
- bullets and a 1985 directory of home addresses for Exxon
- executives. A search of the house where the Seales had been
- staying turned up the scribbled phone numbers of banks in Zurich
- and Karachi, and a book on money laundering. Former Exxon
- security guard Seale and his wife, both 45, face life in prison
- if convicted. Investigators last Saturday discovered a body in
- the New Jersey Pine Barrens suspected to be Reso's.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-