ENVY: The Kidnapping and Murder of Sidney Reso

Ransom

Oblivious to the pleas of Reso's wife, over the next eight weeks the Seales sent a barrage of ransom notes to authorities, and made as many as 14 separate telephone calls to authorities, always insinuating that Sidney Reso was alive, and would be released unharmed as long as everyone did exactly what they were told.

On June 8, more than a month after Reso's death, the Seales called the Reso home — the call was placed from Pooler, GA., a short distance from the Seales' old stomping grounds in Hilton Head, S.C., authorities would later say — demanding to know why the ransom had not been paid. A few days later, there was another call made to the Reso's home, instructing authorities to drive to a spot five miles away where further instructions were waiting. In each case, the demands were complicated and hard to follow.

Seale, by his own later admission to Winter was "a better investigator than a criminal," and it seems, he made complying with his demands next to impossible.

Gail Chapman, the FBI special agent who headed the investigation, later told Winter that the agency, and the Morris County Prosecutor's Office had agreed to let Exxon decide whether to pay the $18.5 million ransom. Exxon officials decided they would.

And 50 days after Reso's abduction, they tried to.

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1. A Simple Man of Simple Tastes
2. A Man of Means
3. High Life and Hard Times
4. Schemes
5. Best Laid Plans
6. Cold Blooded
7. Now and at the Hour of Our Death
8. A Patina of Caring
9. The Rainbow Warriors
10. Ransom
11. Arrest
12. Hope Fades
13. Battered Wife Defense
14. Image Is Everything
15. Life in a Larger Box
16. The Sentencing
17. A Bid for Redemption
18. Bibliography