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Eugene

(62,648 posts)
Thu Aug 24, 2017, 10:00 AM Aug 2017

'Mountain man' freed 32 years after kidnapping athlete to be son's bride

Source: Associated Press

'Mountain man' freed 32 years after kidnapping athlete to be son's bride

Associated Press
Thursday 24 August 2017 05.54 BST

Self-described “mountain man” Don Nichols has been released on parole after serving 32 years for kidnapping a world-class athlete out on a training run in 1984 and killing her would-be rescuer – an attack that drew widespread media coverage and became the subject of a made-for-TV movie.

Nichols, 86, was sentenced to 85 years in prison for kidnapping biathlete Kari Swenson in the mountains near Big Sky and killing Alan Goldstein, a friend helping to search for Swenson when she failed to return home from her run.

Swenson, who was 22, said she was chained up during her ordeal and spotted her would-be rescuers before her abductors did. She yelled at them to leave because Nichols had threatened to shoot anyone who tried to help her.

Nichols shot Goldstein, and Nichols’s son Dan apparently accidently shot Swenson. She said she was left for dead with a chest wound for hours as Goldstein’s body lay nearby.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/24/mountain-man-freed-32-years-after-kidnapping-athlete-to-be-sons-bride
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