ENVY: The Kidnapping and Murder of Sidney Reso

Schemes

In the years since their arrest, Irene Seale has maintained that she was just a pawn in the hands of her manipulating husband, though prosecutors have insisted that she was a full partner in the plan to kidnap the Exxon executive and in the deadly events that followed.

Irene Seale photo ID

For his part, Seale has described the development of the plot as being a wholly collaborative effort. Even now, there is something chilling about the way he describes its genesis to reporters. They way he describes it, according to the Bismarck Tribune, the idea first struck them during a leisurely stroll.

At first, they discussed robbing a bank, and even justified it to themselves by suggesting that they would share some of the loot with the less fortunate, which would allow them to dress up their desperation and venality in the borrowed tights and tunics of Robin Hood like nobility.

But, as is so often the case, Arthur Seale decided to stake his criminal career on something he was intimately familiar with: Exxon.

Seale had not only been a security official there, he had helped develop the company's policy to deal with potential kidnappings of its executives. He was well aware that years earlier, after an executive was kidnapped in South America, the company had put up $15 million to secure his release.

In the years since his arrest and conviction, Seale had steadfastly maintained that he never intended to harm Sidney Reso and that the executive's death was a tragic accident.

Authorities are not at all convinced.