Once inside, Krist and his accomplice, Ruth Eisemann-Schier, disguised as a man, chloroformed, bound and gagged Mackle's mother and forced Barbara Jane Mackle at gunpoint into the back of their waiting car, informing her that she was being kidnapped. They drove her to a remote pine stand off South Berkeley Lake Road in Gwinnett County near Duluth and buried Mackle in a shallow trench inside a fiberglass-reinforced box. The box was outfitted with an air pump, a battery-powered lamp, water laced with sedatives, and food. Two plastic pipes provided Mackle with outside air.