Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. I don't even know what to say about our upcoming live show. Other than tickets are sold out. Yeah. I don't know. I wasn't expecting that. Are you shocked? I'm pretty insane. I'm like...
- Shocked. - So yeah, tickets are sold out. Sorry. I don't even know what to say. Tickets are sold out. Sorry to everyone who wanted to go. We just, we've never done a live show. We figured, hey, let's do a live episode. Let's see how it goes. Hopefully we do more in the future. We're not sure yet, but we just wanted to do one. It was close to Halloween. We thought it would be a fun kind of special event. At the same time, just,
Thanks to everyone who supports us. And I'm sorry to everyone who wanted to come but can't. And thank you to everyone who is coming. It's going to be a great night. For those who are patrons and paid Apple subscribers, we are going to be posting the video and audio on there. We're not sure exactly how close after the live or whatnot, but we are going to be posting it on there. So we just wanted to update everyone on that.
Again, thank you so much. We hope we can do another one of these live shows soon. It seems like everyone wants to. Yeah, like there's an appetite. Yeah, it seems like people want to go. I mean, I would want to go. Before I hop into my 10 seconds, just a reminder, we got Apple subscriptions, Patreon, bonus content, ad free. I'm always plugging because we did just do a bonus episode that is out now.
as this is coming out on Susan Powell. - Garrett thought it should have been a regular episode because he doesn't know the Susan Powell case and he was- - It was good. - Yeah. - But Peyton had a good point. She said that, I guess it's been covered a million times. So we figured we'd make it a bonus episode. - So if you want access to that, just go sign up on our Patreon or Apple subscriptions. - Well, jumping into my own 10 seconds here.
I will say for everyone who has listened to some of the earlier episodes, I bought a truck a while ago and that truck is now sold. It is gone. It was a little sad because I did quite a bit of work to it. Not work as in fixing it up.
Just, you know, making it look cool. Did some stuff to it. Added a bumper, some lights, a wrap, some wheels, new tires, tint. You know, just your basic car stuff. Anyways, that truck is now gone. I think Peyton is happy. Actually, I feel like you're a little sad. I'm sad for you.
I'm a little sad. I love that truck, but you know, time to move on. Sold it and I might cry. For the first time in our marriage ever. Did you guys know that? I've never seen Garrett cry. It's true. I've never, I've never cried. When is the last time you cried? I don't know. Maybe I'm a psychopath. When is the last time you cried? I don't know. I remember the last time I cried. Like 18? I don't know. I don't know. I would say probably like
maybe 13 14. oh that's unhealthy it's all just held in there one day it's just gonna explode yeah and i'm gonna be here like you're probably gonna have the ugliest cry face oh man that's about my 10 seconds for this week i don't have a truck anymore one more thing for my 10 seconds this is a long one but this one's good you're gonna want to listen to this so in our laundry room we have a little cabinet
um next to our washer and dryer uh because cabinet the right word yeah cabinet countertop countertop thank you well there's no countertop yeah so we have some cabinets and there's no countertop and we have some extra like literally it's unfinished it's just a slab of unfinished wood yeah on top but the cabinets are done so we have some extra tiles some extra slabs basically in our garage i mean i looked at painted and i said you know what
I'm not calling anyone to do that. I'm going to do it. So my project and my goal for the next, I would say a couple of days, but it might take a couple of weeks because I don't know what I'm doing for the next couple of weeks is I'm going to put the tile slab, whatever you want to call it on the cabinets myself. I'm going to document it. I'm going to take pictures. I'm going to cut everything. I'm going to glue everything and it's going to be amazing. And I hope everyone follows along because I'm going to do it. And that is my goal.
Everyone hold me accountable and I will keep everyone updated. And Peyton's really excited about it. This is a touchy subject in our marriage. This is a touchy subject. And I was going to hire someone to do it, but I said, you know what? No, I'm going to do it. Dang.
Laundry countertop. I am committed to doing it. I'm going to do it all myself, and it's going to be the best freaking countertop anyone's ever seen. Okay, let's get into the story. Let's do it. Our sources for this episode are Mystery Millions and Murder in North Jersey by John E. O'Rourke, History.com, New York Daily News, LA Times, The Federalist, The New York Times, FBIstudies.com, NJ.com, Seattle Times, Texas Obituary Project, and Wikipedia. Okay, there's something comforting
comforting about living by a routine. You wake up, you have breakfast, read the paper, head to work, come home, dinner, maybe some TV, a few hours of scrolling TikTok. Repeat. Every day, knowing how things are going to play out, avoiding any of life's big surprises.
And the smaller the town, the easier it is to sort of keep up with these patterns, right? Like these just everyday routine patterns. For sure. At least that's what Sidney Riso thought living in Morristown, New Jersey back in 1992.
He was a simple family man with a simple routine, but maybe Sidney shouldn't have gotten so comfortable. As a high-profile executive for Exxon, Sidney's life may have been ordinary, but from the outside looking in, he was anything but. He was valuable, critical to the company's operations, a target.
So when Sidney Riso pulled out of his driveway on April 29th, 1992, his simple routine would not only get him kidnapped, it would also cost him his life. So to most people, 57-year-old Sidney and his wife Patricia were an unassuming couple, kind, down-to-earth neighbors, well-off, yet not overtly extravagant, modest,
The type of family who'd been offered a chauffeur through Sidney's work, but chose to keep their Volkswagen instead. Who went to church every Sunday, who made gracious donations to those in need. The Norman Rockwell family with now five grown children and two happily married parents eager to cross the finish line into retirement. Sidney Riso's path to success was one he'd worked hard at.
and his ability to forecast the economy also worked in his favor. While at Louisiana State University back in his 20s, Sidney chose to pursue a blossoming area of study known as petroleum engineering. Only a few were accepted into the program, and its curriculum wasn't an easy one. Courses in geoscience, biology, chemistry, and agricultural monopolized Sidney's time during college. All the while, he met Pat Gossett,
got married, they had their first child, and Sidney still graduated in the top 20% of his class back in 1957. Sidney made having it all look easy. And after graduation, he climbed the ladder at Humble Oil and Refining, which in due time would become the iconic gas company known as Exxon. Interesting, okay. Come the mid-1970s, Sidney's work had taken the family overseas to London.
where Sidney took on the role as vice president of Exxon for all of Europe. But by the 1980s, the company wanted him back stateside. Exxon had a new, more important role for him to play, vice president of production for all of the U.S.,
He's making bank. That's all I know. Oh, for sure. He's got that oil money for sure. Of course, Sydney and Patricia would miss the bustling city life of London, but they were excited to settle down and enter a quieter period of their lives. So about three miles from Exxon's office in Florham Park, New Jersey, the Rissos found the perfect home in a tiny donut hole of Morris Township, New Jersey called Morristown.
Morristown was a 45-minute drive west of New York City, a sleepy little suburb with many affluent families who were willing to make the daily commute into the city, so long as they got to come home at night to the safe, quiet respite they were promised.
The Rissos found a beautiful five bedroom, six bath, French colonial style home set about 200 feet back from the road. The five acres of land was more than enough for the Rissos to have their peace from the neighbors, a place where they could loudly play their classical music with the windows open and still have it be little problem. But life in their picturesque new home couldn't be perfect forever.
Over the years, their children moved out and on with their lives. Then in 1987, the couple faced a major tragedy when they lost their 27-year-old son, Gregory, in his battle against AIDS. In 1989, Sidney struggled with his own health and survived a heart attack.
But the challenges life threw at Sydney and Patricia only brought them closer. It made them fall more in love. And they found comfort in simple daily routines. The evening of April 28, 1992 was the perfect example of that. Sydney and Patricia had climbed into bed at around 10 p.m. like clockwork. They spent an hour or so reading or watching TV before turning off the lights on their nightstand, giving each other a kiss, and planting their heads on the pillow.
But outside their home, a white van sat watching unbeknownst to them. Come on, man. Waiting for those lights to shut off. And as soon as they did, they drove away with a plan to return tomorrow. So, interrupting real quick, just because I was watching a TikTok video yesterday and this Vivint camera caught it.
It's literally this lady's girl. She looked like she was mid-20s-ish, walking out of her house, out of the garage, as this white van, I think it was in Texas, I can't remember, I don't remember. But this white van pulls up and just stops in front of her driveway. And she just instantly walks back in the house, closes the garage. And I was just sitting there thinking like,
it's just insane that people do this in broad daylight and just why always a white van yeah that that too why always a white man like no offense if you drive a white van but in my house growing up they were known as scary man vans yeah i think i called them the rapist fans growing up yeah a little more harsh than the scary man but you know it's what it is
So April 29th was a Wednesday morning, which meant a work day for Sidney. That morning, he got dressed and came down to the kitchen where Patricia had already prepared his full breakfast, per usual. The two caught up on the morning news, talked about their plans for the day, maybe debated about what Patricia would make for dinner. Then she handed Sidney his briefcase, gave him a kiss, and sent him off on his 10-minute commute to the office.
Meanwhile, outside of the Riso's home, a fit middle-aged blonde was jogging through the neighborhood.
That morning, she stopped right in front of their property. Spotting the Riso's newspaper just in front of the driveway, the jogger kicked the paper, sending it a bit further away than Sydney was used to. After, that jogger continued down the block and got into the same white van that had been parked outside the home the night before. So this wasn't some accidental kick of the newspaper as she's jogging by. This was on purpose. Yeah.
At around 7.30 a.m., Sidney's Volkswagen came down the driveway and made a stop, just like every morning. But today, with his paper farther away than usual, Sidney couldn't just open his door, grab it, and go. He had to put the car in park and get out to retrieve the paper. And that's when the white van moved in. They blocked Sidney's car, and when Sidney looked up, a man in a black ski mask was leaping from the van's passenger seat. He
He pointed a gun in Sidney's face and demanded he get in the back of their van. But when the assailant threw those back doors open, Sidney refused to comply. He could see a wooden box, what looked like a coffin, waiting for him in the van. Oh, that's insane. And so that's when Sidney decided to try and fight back.
He attempted to break free from his captor's grip, but that only made things worse. The man in the ski mask punched Sidney in the mouth, shaking some of his teeth loose. Then he shot Sidney in the arm before binding his hands together, gagging him and dragging him to the van and stuffing him in that wooden box. The van took off with the female jogger now in the driver's seat. But
But in all the chaos, the kidnappers forgot to leave their ransom note behind. Seconds later, all that was left sitting in front of 15 Jonathan Smith Road was Sydney's Volkswagen with the engine still running, the driver's side door wide open, and Sydney obviously gone. Okay. Because the bottom of the Riso's driveway was about 200 feet away from the house, the car stayed like that for nearly an hour without anyone noticing.
But around 8.45 a.m., a neighbor named Mrs. Reynolds, whose husband worked in the HR department at Exxon with Sydney, decided to take a stroll over to the Riso's. She wanted to say hi to Patricia. She hadn't seen her in a while. And that's when she spotted Sydney's car still running in the driveway. And I assume there's blood on the driveway as well.
Does it say anything about that? Not that I saw. Okay. I would imagine it all happened so fast because it was just a shot to the arm. It would probably just be drops if so. Yeah. Okay. You guys shifting my wardrobe from summer to fall can be a challenge, but I'm telling you right now.
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Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/husband, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com/husband now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com/husband. - So Mrs. Reynolds sees that Sydney is nowhere in sight and that his car is like suspiciously sitting at the end of the driveway still running, but she didn't want to alarm Patricia just yet. Mrs. Reynolds went home and called her husband instead.
Perhaps Sydney had gotten a ride to work and he just accidentally left his car on. But when her husband called Sydney's office and his secretary said he hadn't made it into work that morning, Mrs. Reynolds figured, okay, something is obviously very wrong. So Sydney's secretary then made the call to the Riso household. And when Patricia answered and confirmed that no, Sydney had not come back into the house that morning after he left for work,
Well, panic started to just set in for everyone. Patricia ran to the end of the driveway where she found Sidney's car still running with his briefcase and coat still in the backseat. Sidney wouldn't have gone anywhere without those two items, so Patricia knew it was time to get the police involved.
Shortly after the officers arrived at the Riso home, they learned about Sidney's recent health issues and the heart attack he'd had just a few years prior. To them, this had to be treated like a missing persons case for now, and the best theory they had was perhaps Sidney had some sort of medical emergency. Maybe he lost his wits and wandered off into the woods around the home.
At this point, they hadn't really considered Sidney's high-profile position with Exxon, especially because the kidnappers didn't leave any sort of note behind, and it's like a grown man. So kidnapping isn't really the first thing you would think of. It's also interesting because ransoms never work. Never. They don't. I feel like all these people try them, and they don't work. Like, they just don't work. Maybe they do. I don't know. Maybe there's...
crazy like hidden CIA stuff I don't know about where ransoms work but I just feel like they never work because if you give them what you want you're still gonna kill them you know basically what I'm trying to say is if you ever get kidnapped and they leave a ransom note I don't think I'll pay it
Okay, good to know. Would you pay it? No, I would go to the police. Yeah, at least we're on the same page. So police at this point aren't imagining that this has anything to do with his money or his job at this point. Instead, they call in the canine team to track Sidney's scent and put that medical theory to the test. But the dogs obviously don't pick up on Sidney's smell beyond the front of the car, and search teams don't find any evidence of Sidney in the woods beyond his home.
So they move on to the next most likely theory. Maybe Sidney Riso faked his disappearance or ran away with a lover.
but it only takes a little bit of digging to rule these possibilities out as well how is that more likely than getting kidnapped well he's a grown man i think they're like well maybe i guess he has the love affair they can't find any reason or motive sydney might have to disappear he had no debts no inappropriate business dealings certainly no mistress or secret lover if there was a break in sydney's routine patricia would have noticed but that's when police realized
Maybe this was a crime scene. Maybe Sidney had been kidnapped and his predictable routine was exactly why he was targeted. Now, because this was such a high profile case, I mean, one of the oil industry's biggest executives had just been taken from his home.
The FBI was also brought in by the end of the day to help out. Okay, interesting. And they actually set up a command center inside the Riso's basement. I'm not clear on why this was the best location for something like this. Maybe they figured they'd have easy access to phone lines in case the kidnapper called or showed up back at home. But this kidnapping theory, well, it's actually confirmed to them the following day because on April 30th, Exxon officials received a message from an anonymous caller. The
The female voice kept the instructions short and sweet. She said, quote, information regarding Sydney Riso can be found at the Livingston Mall.
So the FBI dispatched some of their agents to the massive shopping center, but finding said information would be like finding a needle in a haystack, especially because the instructions were so vague. Yet shockingly, while scanning one of the parking lots, a few agents spotted a telephone pole with a white envelope taped to the outside. That's so random. The envelope was addressed to Mr. Lawrence Rall, a chairperson for Exxon.
and inside was a letter along with Sydney Riso's Exxon credit card. So they brought the letter back to the command center, aka the Riso's basement, and opened it carefully there so as to not destroy any forensic evidence the letter might contain.
Now, the letter is pretty long-winded, so I'm just going to give you a couple of lines from it, but I think it will get the point across. It starts off, quote, The major industrial entities continue their thoughtless programs which are destroying the earth and harming countless forms of life. Destruction of the land, sea, and air continues at unprecedented rates.
World organizations and governmental bodies have so far proven themselves totally ineffective in preventing these activities. We propose to make industry pay for this continuing campaign. To ensure your contribution, we have seized the president of your international division. It then goes on to demand $18.5 million from Exxon to help pay for this mission. It
It also said they will soon deliver further instructions. It's so dumb to think that Exxon's going to pay this. Like, it's so dumb of these people that kidnapped him to think that Exxon's, one, that Exxon's going to pay this, and two, that this was the way to go about this.
Well, and also their reasoning is because you're hurting the earth. But is that worth kidnapping somebody and holding them ransom for $18 million that you're not even sure is going to go to this mission of saving the earth? $18 million, that's a lot of money. Yeah. And the note specified that Mr. Riso will be held captive without food or water until the ransom is paid.
And it's signed by an organization known as, quote, Warriors of the Rainbow. Oh, so they were like a group of people. So investigators are like, OK, this is obviously some sort of environmental activist group. They're targeting one of the biggest oil companies in the world. This obviously makes sense.
After all, Exxon had a massive oil spill off the Prince William Sound in Alaska three years prior. That makes sense. Which to this day remains the second largest oil spill in U.S. territory. Is the first one...
And then the one that BP did when I think I was in, I don't know how long ago that was, but I remember it. I actually just looked it up. It was the one in Deepwater Horizon, which I think is, I think there's a movie based off of that. Have you seen it? - No, I don't think so. - I'm pretty sure there is. I think it's the movie I'm thinking about. - Well, either way, this makes sense that Exxon would be the target, but for Patricia, it didn't matter who had her husband or what they wanted. Time was of the essence. Like this is a real person. This is her husband.
With Sydney's recent health complications, she worried about his high blood pressure and the stress of the situation leading to another heart attack.
But for now, they were at the beck and call of Sidney's kidnappers. And every second without further instructions must have felt like an eternity for Patricia Riso. It wasn't until 9.30 p.m. the following day, May 1st, that the phone in the Riso's basement command center rang again. This time, it was a male's voice who said, "'Go to the entrance of the Lewis Morris Park to pick up instructions.'"
The police traced the call back to a phone booth in Bedminster, New Jersey, about 18 miles from the Riso home.
But by the time local police were dispatched to the phone booth, the caller was long gone. Yeah, for sure. Meanwhile, agents on Sidney's case followed the instructions over to Lewis Morris Park, where they discovered another message. This letter read, Delivery of money in 10 Eddie Bauer large sport duffel bags to be delivered by Mrs. Riso and children using the family's station wagon.
Come on. They're not going to give you $18.5 million in cash. In 10 Eddie Bauer bags. That's so... Yeah, what? Yeah. What is that about? I don't know. Why Eddie Bauer? Well, I think they're oddly specific about how the money should be transported, but not when or whether Sidney Riso was even still alive. So it kind of, again, it's just...
Your typical ransom. I would have been like in 10 Gucci bags, you know, I would have upped it a little bit. A little bit more. Yeah. Still, the following day, the money was loaded into the command center courtesy of Exxon. The duffel bags had been purchased and the divided cash fit into them evenly and perfectly. Almost as if the kidnappers had tried something like this before.
On Sunday, May 3rd at around 10 p.m., the command center's phone rang again. This time, the caller told them to respond to the phone booth at the Villa Restaurant in Summit, New Jersey to await further contact. This was about 15 miles away. After tracing the call, detectives realized it had ironically come from a phone booth at an Exxon station right across the street from the restaurant.
So they dispatched police and helicopters to watch the area. There was no sign of the kidnappers, but the team felt this was it. They loaded the Rizzo's family car with the Eddie Bauer bags full of cash and carted them over to the location. Parked between the Exxon station and the Villa restaurant, the officers sat for hours waiting for the next call to come through that phone booth in the restaurant parking lot.
But there was nothing. They took down every license plate that passed through the area, scanning them to see if they belonged to anyone of interest. Still nothing. As the sun came up, the police decided to leave with the cash. Maybe the kidnappers had noticed the helicopters and the other officers waiting in the wings and just chickened out. After that, almost a week went by with no sign of Sydney's captors. Ooh, that's weird.
Okay. The Morris County prosecutor publicly begged the kidnappers for a photograph or voice recording of Sidney to prove that he was still alive. But with each passing day, the hope fled further. Then on May 10th, a landscaper outside the Villa restaurant found a letter tucked into the bushes. It said there would be more instructions at the summit train station, although it was unclear how long that letter had been sitting in the brush for.
When police arrived at the train station, they did find another clue. This time, an audio tape was stuck under a phone booth's shelf. Police brought the tape back to Patricia and listened to it over and over. It was a man's voice saying, I want to come home.
But Patricia was certain it wasn't Sidney's. It was someone pretending to be her husband. Okay. Which only made her heart sink deeper. If Sidney was alive, he should have been able to record the message himself. Yeah. I don't even know if one is worse than the other, but would you rather be kidnapped and just not here? Or would you rather be kidnapped and getting all these ransom notes? Chasing...
Not chasing your tail, basically chasing your tail, not knowing if he's alive. Like, I mean, they're both horrible, but yeah, I feel like to an extent, the whole ransom things like torture. Yeah. It's like slow torture for those who are your loved ones. Yeah. Yeah.
So on May 12th, Exxon headquarters in Irving, Texas, receive another note. This one claiming that because the officers had failed to deliver the ransom money, Sidney Riso had been moved out of the country, which was strange because the police were there that night at the restaurant. They had all the money ready to go. The Eddie Bauer bags like they were there. No one showed up. Also, I would assume the FBI put a, I don't even know if these
These lists existed back then, but a no-fly list as well. But we might be at a point when that wasn't really possible. Yeah. I'm not sure. So it was the kidnappers that never gave them further instruction or showed up to retrieve the cash. So needless to say, the police are a bit baffled by this new message from the kidnappers, especially because they aren't even sure if Sidney is still alive. So on May 15th, a member of the FBI goes to the press and basically says...
Look, whoever is holding Sidney Riso for ransom has to prove that they still have him. We need a live telephone call. Sidney holding up the day's newspaper. Something definitive. Well, later that day, a security officer at a nearby mall gets a phone call. And again, it says information about Sidney Riso can be found on a signpost in their parking lot. This time, when the police retrieve it, the letter essentially says...
Too bad we already gave you Sydney's credit card and recording of his voice, which if you remember Patricia said wasn't him. But they're like, look, this is all you're getting for now. If you want more, have Patricia Riso go live on television to say she received our demands and that the plan will be met. So Patricia does because what other option do they really have? A television crew came to the Riso home and miked up Patricia and put the begging wife live on TV for the entire nation to hear her pleas.
She just wanted her husband returned home safely. She didn't care what it took.
By this point, it's nearly three weeks into the investigation, and the search for Sidney Riso had become one of the largest nationwide manhunts since the kidnapping of the 19-year-old granddaughter of the Hearst Empire, Patricia Hearst. But the more police studied the letters left by the kidnappers, the more became apparent. There was a particular language being used. Words like, quote, prohibited left turn and prohibited
proof of the victim that made investigators think, "This person kind of sounds like a cop." Like maybe this wasn't an activist at all.
By this point, Greenpeace claimed they not only had nothing to do with whoever the Warriors of the Rainbow were. This is the group that had been signing the letters. Oh, so they think it's all fake. It's just all set up, basically. Yeah, they also publicly denounced the actions of the group and insisted they only took nonviolent measures. Police also realized whoever was leaving these letters seemed local to the area. They knew where to hide things discreetly, but in very public places.
something you might not be as savvy at if you weren't from that part of New Jersey. So now police are thinking, could this be an inside job at Exxon? Maybe someone they'd fired, a disgruntled employee, maybe even someone who had it out for Sidney Riso in some way. But the truth was even stranger than they could have imagined. Let's hear it. Investigators did have one thing right.
One of the people who'd taken Sidney Riso on that April morning was someone he'd probably passed by dozens of times before.
His name was Arthur Seal and he was a 45 year old former security officer at Sydney's Exxon offices. And Arthur, who'd also roped his 45 year old wife, Jackie, into the scheme, wasn't doing this on behalf of the environment. They were doing it all for themselves.
Those who knew Arthur and Jackie, though never would have guessed, they were at the center of this scandal. From the outside looking in, the Seals were well-dressed, seemingly well-off, good-looking, and social. Both grew up in Hillside, New Jersey, about a half-hour drive from Morristown. Jackie was the daughter of a
prominent local businessman who owned several little stores around town. Arthur was the athletic, intelligent son of a school secretary and police officer. The two married in 1967 and after, Arthur decided to follow in his father's footsteps by joining the town's police force.
But while on the job, Arthur couldn't seem to stay out of trouble. The power Arthur was now wielding had since gotten to his head. He was suspended twice and fined three times during his six years on the force. Sometimes for subordination, other times for pulling out his weapon inappropriately while making arrests. Then in early 1977, Arthur was injured in the line of duty and put on disability leave for the rest of the year.
Town officials who'd been looking for an opportunity to get rid of Arthur now had one. He was given a pension of $10,000 a year and later dismissed from the force for good. I'm trying to figure out why $18.5 million. Yeah, like, aren't you good with $10,000?
or like a million i mean yeah it's the 90s yeah it's the 90s like you would think that if there's a chance they will pay it and you wouldn't get caught 18 and a half million is not the answer here's my thought he worked for exxon he knew they would pay the 18 million they did easily true play i mean they're huge so to him maybe i mean to exxon is 18 million a lot you know what i mean like that's probably where his train of thought is going just like
Gosh, having to carry $18.5 million carrying from house to house. In the Eddie Bauer bags. In the Eddie Bauer bags. It kind of reminds me of the movie Fun with Dick and Jane. I don't know if you've seen it. We'll have to watch it. Obviously a lot less brutal. No one's killed. But if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. Okay.
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By 1985, however, there was a change in the security force at Exxon. Arthur wasn't happy about the two former military guys who were brought in to run it, and he began skipping out on work to take trips down to Hilton Head, South Carolina with his family. So when layoffs came around that year, Arthur was on the top of the list. He was given a severance package and let go from Exxon, and frankly, he seemed fine with it.
So you're probably wondering, okay, then why target Exxon? Seems like he got what he wanted. Well, things started to go south for the Seals after they and their two teenage kids moved to Hilton Head in 1986. The family thought they could start fresh, but that also meant living well beyond their means.
Those who knew them thought they were high profile executives by the way they were spending money. They bought a 38 foot boat and opened an interior design shop for half a million dollars. - Oh my. - They drove a Mercedes, sent their kids to private school, bought them expensive clothes. - Wait, so they don't have jobs, they're doing all this stuff. - The truth was they were living off the bit of severance and the money they'd gotten from selling their New Jersey home. They did not have millions of dollars.
Over time, the Seals racked up more and more debt as their marriage started to implode. They began fighting all the time. Then one afternoon, Arthur expressed his frustration by throwing a screwdriver at one of his employees. By the time the Seals realized they had to sell their store and their boat, they were already hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Come 1989, the family of four was forced to move into Arthur's parents' home in Hackettstown, New Jersey. After the police had been called several times about domestic disputes and their children running away from home, the Seals officially reached rock bottom in 1991 when they were caught and fined for not paying their taxes over the last several years. It seemed Arthur and Jackie would spend the rest of their lives climbing over a mountain of debt. Unless...
Unless they came up with a plan. Like finding an old Exxon executive. Someone who was predictable, easy to watch and to target. Someone of value they could take and hold ransom. Then give back without incident while skipping town with all of the cash. Also, it just seems like you'd be way better off just doing small jobs. Like kidnapping an executive and asking for $18.5 million. You know, maybe they should have asked me first what I would have done.
For months, they plotted the kidnapping and looked at several executives who might be ripe for the picking. But none fit the bill better than Sidney Riso. And for the next several weeks, they surveyed his every move, learning every detail of his monotonous routine until it was time to go.
From mid-May to mid-June of 1992, correspondence between the Seals and the FBI slowed. The Seals had returned to Hilton Head to visit their now-grown son. They had a few meals, catching up with old friends. They even talked about buying a new boat. Wait, but the FBI doesn't know who it is at this point, correct? No. Okay. During that time, Arthur had also applied for a rushed passport, saying he had an emergency trip planned to the Bahamas.
So it was clear the Seals were still planning their future, certain they were somehow going to get away with that cash that they were supposed to get weeks earlier. And come June 18th, the Seals were back in New Jersey ready to take what they believed was still theirs. That day, Jackie rented an Oldsmobile in Hackettstown so she and Arthur could split up and execute the final phase of their plan. Then at around 2:55 p.m., Arthur called the FBI command center once again.
In a muffled voice, he asked if the money was ready. An agent, shocked to hear from the kidnappers again and after all this time, replied, yes, they just needed to know where to deliver it. Arthur replied with only one word, shortly. Then he hung up. But the FBI already had their sting operation in place. After all, they'd been waiting for this call for over a month. They've had a month to plan how to do this.
The plan would be similar to the night at the Villa restaurant. They'd arrive in the Rizzo's family car like initially requested. Only this time, they weren't bringing the money. Also, they have kids. Yes. Like, I wonder what the kids are. I mean, they obviously have no idea because they're kids. But can you imagine? Because I assume at the end of this, they're going to get caught.
That sucks. Also, I just want to know, were they just going to say goodbye to their kids forever and go to the Bahamas? Or were they going to kidnap their own children and take them to the Bahamas, force them to come? They were probably just going to bring harder kids. Well, I bet. If my mommy and daddy looked at me and said, hey, we got $18 million. Let's go to the Bahamas. I would go. 100%. I would go. I wouldn't even question it. 100%.
And the reason they weren't going to bring the money this time is because the FBI was certain that Sidney Riso was no longer alive after a month. At around 9.08 p.m., the phone in the command center rang again. Arthur told them, leave now, go to Tingley Road at Patriot's Path, look on the ground for an envelope.
Okay.
Eventually, the police found a final note instructing Patricia Riso to go to a phone booth in town and await their final call. Only that didn't happen because this entire time the agents have been tracking where those calls to the command center were originating from.
And those booths all had FBI agents sitting outside of them that evening. Just before 10.40 p.m. outside the Chester Mall, the agents noticed a man enter one of the phone booths they'd been watching. At the same time, FBI agents were receiving another call from the kidnappers. Okay.
And as soon as the command post said the call ended, the man they were watching also hung up, left the booth, took off a pair of rubber gloves and threw them in a nearby trash can. What a coincidence. He then got into the old small bill Jackie had rented earlier and drove off. But the agents had the license plate, which meant they were pretty sure they also had their guy, at least one of them.
Remember, Jackie Seale, for some reason, was making separate calls from another phone booth outside an Elks Club in Gladstone, New Jersey, about 10 minutes down the road from her husband.
At around 11.16 p.m., FBI agents spotted a white car pull up and a woman get out to use the booth. At 11.21 p.m., another call came through to the FBI with more detailed instructions, ending with, "'Leave the money on the east side of the railroad crossing.'" Less than 15 minutes later, another team saw Arthur arrive at the train station and go looking for the money.
But he must have sensed that someone was watching him and that the money wasn't going to make it to the drop-off point because he rushed back to the Oldsmobile, got in, and drove back to the rental facility in Hackettstown to desperately try and return that vehicle.
And that's where a team of agents confronted Arthur. Cornered, he tried to play dumb, said he just rented a car for the day to go out to dinner. He was waiting for a ride from his wife, which that part was true because moments later, Jackie also showed up at the rental car spot to get him, not expecting to also be placed into handcuffs by a team of FBI agents. And it was game over for the Seals, and they were walking away not a penny richer. I...
Is he dead? Is he alive? What's up with Sidney? Well, once Jackie was in police custody, she sang like a canary about the entire scheme. Wow, okay. She told the police, yeah, Sidney Riso was dead. No. So they killed him too? Well, of course.
Well, according to her, that was never part of the plan. It was here that the police saw an opportunity. They wanted to get Sidney's body back, allow his family to bury him properly. If Jackie told them exactly what had happened to Sidney and where they could find him, they'd cut her a deal, reduce her sentencing, and Jackie agreed. And here's what she said happened after they stuffed Sidney Riso in the back of that van that April morning. Well, they shot him in the arm, so he probably bled to death.
After driving nearly an hour from Sydney's house in Morristown, the couple arrived at a self-storage facility in Washington Township, New Jersey. The Seals had rented a 20 by 20 foot unit for $125 a month back in February prepping for this very moment. Oh, so they've been planning this for a while. Yes. It was big enough for them to back the van into so no one could see what they were unloading. Once inside, Arthur opened the wooden box and let Sydney out.
His arm was severely injured from the gunshot wound he'd suffered trying to escape their grip. He needed medical attention, but that didn't gel well with their plan. Instead, Jackie poured some peroxide on his wound and Arthur stuffed him back into the box to deal with him later. All Sydney could hear was them locking the unit and driving off.
Meanwhile, the sweltering heat inside the box became overwhelming. And this is just... Oh, I can't. That's horrible. Between that and the very small holes they'd pierced into the box, Sidney was getting weaker and weaker. By midday, he was breathing in his own carbon dioxide. Yeah. Over the next several hours, the couple returned to give him little more than a sip of water, some orange juice, and some fresh air. Shockingly, Sidney survived for four more days under these conditions. Okay.
On May 3rd, Jackie said she left Arthur alone with Sidney while she went to get some water and some Tylenol for the executive. And when she returned, she found Arthur doing chest compressions on the man. But it was far too little, far too late. Sidney Riso was dead. Which meant collecting their ransom would be even more challenging than expected. But for now, they had bigger problems like getting rid of Sidney's body. The couple wrapped Sidney up in plastic and returned a few days later to remove him from the storage facility.
Then they drove out to an area known as the New Jersey Pine Barrens, which is close to a million acres of nothing but woods. If you watched The Sopranos, you probably know this was a popular dumping spot for the mafia. Once they got deep enough into the forest, the couple dragged Sidney's body about three quarters of a mile further off of a path and buried him in a tick infested grave. You would think that after he had died, they would have just stopped everything and like
figured something else out. Yeah. Because now if they found out, now if they find out that you killed someone as well, I mean, it's game over. Right.
After Jackie revealed the details of their crime, she helped lead the police and a canine unit back to the site of Sidney's body. After 58 days, the search for Sidney Riso was finally over and his body was recovered on June 28, 1992. Okay. It's also pretty crazy because if they had just stopped... No one would have known. They probably would not have ever gotten caught. No, I think, I definitely think that they would have gotten away with it. But they just needed $18.5 million. They were set on it.
during her hearing jackie sill pleaded guilty to honor her deal but she claimed she'd been manipulated by her husband into participating in a crime that she didn't want to commit i wonder what her husband's thinking at this point because she totally turned on him oh yeah jackie i don't really care because was sentenced to 20 years instead of the would-be 40 had she not helped the police locate sydney's body however she was released back in november of 2009.
Arthur also pleaded guilty to extortion, conspiracy, mail fraud, kidnapping, and murder charges, and he was sentenced to 95 years.
In 2020, the 73-year-old Arthur actually requested compassionate release when the pandemic hit, citing a number of health issues. He claimed he had demonstrated remorse for his decisions and a, quote, lasting attempt at atonement. However, the courts disagreed and his motion was denied. Thank goodness. I think it always bugs me when they try doing that. Like, no, you killed someone.
So, sorry. Yeah, like that person doesn't get to live. Yeah, you can't bring them back, so why are we letting you out? Arthur will continue to serve out his 95-year sentence while his accomplice is out. Ironically, he will likely meet the same fate he served Sidney Riso, dying behind bars with little compassion after following the same routine day in and day out.
And that is the story of Sydney Riso. So she's out and just living life? Mm-hmm. You think she's changed her name and everything? For sure. Yeah? For sure. Served her time, got out and said... I'm changing my name. I'm changing everything. Maybe I can find another husband who will try to get me $18 million. I wonder how that works. When you get out, you change your name, but obviously that's...
like all that's still going to be on your record you can't just go and be like oh i'm going to apply for a job somewhere i wonder if it's just like a name change that she lives under publicly but not officially does that make sense yeah yeah i know it makes sense like in her neighborhood she's like oh i'm rebecca yeah but still publicly security numbers still jackie yeah
Interesting. That's, I was hoping that he would be alive. That sucks. That's heartbreaking. I mean, they lost a dad, a husband. Oh my gosh. And for nothing. For no reason. He was just working at Exxon, just doing his thing. Yeah. That's, that's. It's heartbreaking. Yeah. All right, you guys, that is our story for this week. Remember to go check out our bonus episode that we did covering Susan Powell's murder. And we will see you next time with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.