Personal information | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Born | 1961 (age 62–63) | ||||||||||||||
Occupation(s) | Biathlete, veterinarian | ||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||
Sport | Biathlon | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
|
Kari Swenson (born 1961) is a veterinarian in Bozeman, Montana and former biathlete who earned a bronze medal as a member of the 1984 U.S. relay team competing in the first women's Biathlon World Championships in Chamonix, France. Swenson placed fifth overall in the women's 10-km final, which, at the time, marked the best performance for a U.S. biathlete of either sex in 26 years of international biathlon competition. In 2015, Swenson and her 1984 teammates were inducted into the U.S. Biathlon Hall of Fame.
In 1970, Swenson's father, Bob, former head of the Physics Department at Temple University, moved from a suburb in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his wife Janet and their three children, relocating to Bozeman where he became head of the Physics Department at Montana State University. [1] Janet Swenson was a nurse and ski patrol volunteer, and Kari took up cross-country skiing in her youth. [2] [3]
By 1984, Kari Swenson had become a member of the three-woman U.S. biathlon relay team. They competed at the first women's Biathlon World Championships in Chamonix, France. The team was awarded a bronze medal for their performance in the event. [4] Swenson placed fifth overall in the women's 10-km final, a record performance at the time for a U.S. biathlete of either gender in 26 years of international biathlon competition. [2] [5] In 2015, Swenson and her 1984 teammates, Holly Beattie and Julie Newnam, were inducted into the U.S. Biathlon Hall of Fame. [4]
Following the 1984 biathlon season, Swenson took a summer job at a Montana guest ranch near Big Sky, Montana, where she could train daily. On July 15, 1984, while on a training run in the Ulerys Lakes area, Swenson was abducted by Don Nichols and his son Dan. [2] The two survivalists intended to force her to become Dan's bride. When Swenson did not return to her job that evening as expected, a search party was organized. [5] [6]
By the following morning, over 20 searchers were combing the mountains. Swenson's friend Alan Goldstein and another ranch worker, Jim Schwalbe, paired up during the search and stumbled onto the camp. Because the Nicholses had threatened to shoot any rescuers, Swenson began shouting out to warn the searchers away. Swenson later recounted that Don Nichols ordered his son Dan to "shut me up." The younger Nichols looked directly at Swenson and shot her. "It wasn't an accident," she said in a 2019 interview, [2] in reference to his later defense claiming it was. [7]
As the two rescuers approached, Don Nichols fired a single shot from his rifle, killing Goldstein with a gunshot wound to the face. The impact knocked him backward out of Swenson's sight. Schwalbe managed to escape. Knowing they had been located, the Nicholses unchained Swenson, then fled, leaving her alone. The bullet had entered her chest just below her collarbone, went through her lung, collapsing it, and exited below her shoulder blade. [2] [8] [9]
Swenson remained in the clearing, in pain so intense it prevented her from moving, for four hours before she was rescued. [2] It had been over 18 hours since her abduction. [5] [10] Swenson later attributed her survival to the breath control skills she developed as a biathlete. [11] [12]
Don and Dan Nichols were captured in December 1984. They were tried separately in Virginia City, the Madison County seat, prosecuted by Marc Racicot, then a staff attorney for the Montana Attorney General. [2] In May 1985, Dan Nichols was sentenced to 10 years in prison for kidnapping and misdemeanor assault. In September 1985, Don Nichols was sentenced to 85 years in prison for kidnapping, murder, and aggravated assault. The younger Nichols was released on parole in 1991 and he stayed out of trouble until 2011, when he was arrested on drug charges and sentenced to four years in prison. [13] [11] [14]
Don Nichols came up for parole review four times, and each time, the Swenson family and its supporters vigorously opposed his release. [15] On April 27, 2017, the elder Nichols, then 86 years old, was granted parole after serving 32 years of his sentence. [14] He was released from prison on August 23, 2017. [16] Don died June 17, 2023. [17]
Swenson and her family were not pleased by some of the coverage in the press because they felt it glamorized her abductors as mythical "mountain men," and stereotyped her, a champion athlete, as a "proper Belle." [3] "Using this description in conjunction with these two crazy misfits is truly maligning the mystique and legends of the mountain man," wrote Swenson in a 2012 op-ed. [15] In 1989, Swenson's mother authored a book written from the family's perspective, titled Victims: The Kari Swenson Story. In the book, Kari stated, "the Nichols lived in the mountains part-time but they couldn't survive there, at least not without poaching, breaking into cabins and stealing supplies, leaving the mountains for months at a time and purchasing modern equipment. Ultimately they were caught without a fight because they were cold, hungry, and tired of living in the mountains. These are not mountain men." [8]
A two-hour made-for-TV drama titled "The Abduction of Kari Swenson", produced by NBC aired on March 8, 1987. [7] It starred Tracy Pollan in the leading role as Kari Swenson. [18] Swenson contributed as a technical advisor during production and also filmed her own ski sequences. [19] Season 2, episode 5 of TV show American Justice, the episode titled "Kidnapped," premiered on January 5, 1995, and spent the first segment of the episode reenacting the story of Kari Swenson's abduction and the Nichols’ subsequent trial. [20] Her story was also featured on Investigation Discovery in the TV series Your Worst Nightmare, season 3, episode 9 titled "Into the Wild" premiering on February 11, 2017. In 2019 her story was the focus of an ESPN 30 for 30 podcast titled "Out of the Woods." [2] [21] The 30 for 30 podcast episode was also featured in the Criminal episode #128, titled "Deep Breath". [22]
Following the kidnapping and the immediate aftermath of her injuries, Swenson returned to training, she earned a spot on the United States Biathlon team again, and she competed in the 1986 biathlon competition in Oslo, Norway, where she finished fourth. That year, she retired from biathlon competitions. [2] [15] She then enrolled at Colorado State University Veterinary School, where she graduated in 1990. After working for five years at a small animal veterinary practice in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, she returned to Montana, and as of 2019, she was a practicing veterinarian in Bozeman. [23]
Elizabeth Ann Smart was kidnapped at age fourteen on June 5, 2002, by Brian Mitchell from her home in the Federal Heights neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah. She was held captive by Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, and later, in San Diego County, California. Her captivity lasted approximately nine months before she was discovered in Sandy, Utah, approximately 18 miles (29 km) from her home.
Myriam Bédard, is a Canadian retired biathlete. She represented Canada at two Winter Olympics winning gold medals, and a bronze medal. As of 2022, Bédard is the only Canadian biathlete, male or female, ever to win an Olympic medal, and the only North American biathlete ever to win Olympic gold.
Marc Paul Alain Dutroux is a Belgian convicted serial killer, serial rapist, and child molester. Initially convicted for the abduction and rape of five young girls in 1989, Dutroux was released on parole after just three years' imprisonment. He was arrested again in 1996 on suspicion of having abducted, tortured, and sexually abused six girls aged between 8 and 19, four of whom were killed. Dutroux's widely publicized trial ended with his conviction on all charges in 2004; he was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment.
Marc Racicot is an American attorney, lobbyist, and former Republican politician who served as the 21st Governor of Montana from 1993 until 2001. After leaving office, Racicot worked as a lobbyist for the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani. His notable clients included Enron, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and the Recording Industry Association of America.
Cary Anthony Stayner, also known as the Yosemite Park Killer or the Yosemite Killer, is an American serial killer and the older brother of kidnapping victim Steven Stayner. He was convicted of the murders of four women between February and July 1999. The murders occurred in Mariposa County, California, near Yosemite National Park. Stayner was sentenced to death for the four murders and is still on death row at San Quentin State Prison.
Paul Charles Denyer is an Australian serial killer currently serving three consecutive sentences of life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 30 years for the murders of three young women in Melbourne, in 1993. Denyer became known in the media as the Frankston Serial Killer as his crimes occurred in the neighbouring suburbs of Frankston.
Robert Christian Boes Hansen, popularly known as the Butcher Baker, was an American serial killer active in Anchorage, Alaska, between 1972 and 1983. Hansen abducted, raped and murdered at least seventeen women, many of whom he may have attacked in the wilderness with a Ruger Mini-14 and hunting knives. Hansen was captured in 1983 and sentenced to 461 years' imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He died in 2014 of natural causes at age 75.
Colleen J. Stan is an American woman who was kidnapped and held as a sex slave by Cameron and Janice Hooker in their Red Bluff, California home for over seven years, between 1977 and 1984. At Cameron Hooker's trial, Stan's experience was described as unparalleled in FBI history. Janice Hooker was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony, while Cameron Hooker was found guilty on multiple charges and sentenced to 104 years in prison.
David John Birnie and Catherine Margaret Birnie were an Australian couple from Perth who murdered four women at their home in 1986, also attempting to murder a fifth. These crimes were referred to in the press as the Moorhouse murders, after the Birnies' address at 3 Moorhouse Street in Willagee, a suburb of Perth.
The Ripper Crew or the Chicago Rippers was an organized crime group of serial killers, cannibals, rapists, and necrophiles. The group composed of Robin Gecht and three associates: Edward Spreitzer, and brothers Andrew and Thomas Kokoraleis. They were suspected in the murders of 17 women in Illinois in 1981 and 1982, as well as the unrelated fatal shooting of a man in a random drive-by shooting. According to one of the detectives who investigated the case, Gecht "made Manson look like a Boy Scout."
David Parker Ray, also known as the Toy-Box Killer, was an American kidnapper, torturer, serial rapist and suspected serial killer. Though no bodies were found, Ray was accused by his accomplices of killing several women, and was suspected by the police to have murdered as many as sixty women from Arizona and New Mexico while living in Elephant Butte, New Mexico. Ray was convicted of kidnapping and torture in 2001, for which he received a lengthy sentence, but he was never convicted of murder. He died of a heart attack about one year after his convictions in two cases, the second of which resulted in a plea deal.
Sian Kingi was a twelve-year-old New Zealand-Australian girl of partial Maori descent who was abducted, raped and murdered in Noosa, Queensland in November 1987. Barrie John Watts and Valmae Faye Beck, a married couple, were convicted in 1988 of the much-publicised crime. Watts was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Beck would have been eligible for parole after 14.5 years, but died while she was still incarcerated.
Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips is an American who was convicted of murder as a child. In November 1998, when he was 14 years old, Phillips killed Madelyn Rae Clifton, his 8-year-old friend and neighbor. The following year, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Phillips stated that he killed Clifton to stop her from crying after she was accidentally struck with a baseball while they were playing, and that he feared punishment from his abusive father. Although elements of Phillips's story are disputed, officials who were involved in his prosecution have subsequently expressed contrition over the severity of his sentence. In 2017, Phillips was re-sentenced to life in prison on appeal, but he has been eligible for re-sentencing as of 2023.
On June 10, 1991, Jaycee Lee Dugard, an eleven-year-old girl, was abducted from a street while walking to a school bus stop in Meyers, California, United States. Searches began immediately after Dugard's disappearance, but no reliable leads were generated, even though several people witnessed the kidnapping. Dugard remained missing for over 18 years until 2009, when a convicted sex offender, Phillip Garrido, visited the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, accompanied by two adolescent girls, who were discovered to be the biological daughters of Garrido and Dugard, on August 24 and 25 of that year. The unusual behavior of the trio sparked an investigation that led Garrido's parole officer, Edward Santos Jr. to order Garrido to take the two girls to a parole office in Concord, California, on August 26. Garrido was accompanied by a woman who was eventually identified as Dugard.
Michaela Joy Garecht was nine years old when she was abducted in Hayward, California, in broad daylight at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue.
Lone Peak Lookout was a weekly newspaper in Big Sky, Montana, United States.
Ming Sen Shiue is a Taiwanese-American murderer, kidnapper, stalker, and rapist convicted of the murder of six-year-old Jason Wilkman, the kidnapping of Mary Stauffer and her daughter Elizabeth, and multiple counts of rape of Mary Stauffer.
On July 15, 1976, in Chowchilla, California, three armed men hijacked a school bus. They abducted the driver and 26 children, ages 5 to 14, and imprisoned them in a truck trailer buried in a quarry in Livermore, California. The bus driver and children managed to escape before the kidnappers could issue their ransom demands. All of the victims survived but many suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Jessica Lynn Heeringa was a 25-year-old woman from Norton Shores, Michigan, who disappeared in the Exxon gas station where she was working the late shift on April 26, 2013.
James Jerold Koedatich is an American serial killer who kidnapped and murdered two young women within a two-weeks span in Morris County, New Jersey, in late 1982. Following his arrest, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death, but was resentenced to life in prison in 1990. Prior to the murders, Koedatich murdered his roommate in Florida, for which he served eleven years in prison, and while in prison he killed his cellmate, but that was ruled to be self-defense.