Exxon Exec Kidnapped, Shot At His Morris Co. Driveway: Remembering The 1992 Murder

MORRIS TOWNSHIP, NJ — Thirty years ago, with three days left to live, Sidney Reso went outside to fetch his newspaper. The Exxon executive found a white van with two people later identified as his kidnappers and killers in a murder case that garnered national attention.

The kidnapping occurred April 29, 1992. Reso was shot in the arm, bound, gagged and placed in a wooden box that was hidden inside a practically airless storage space. Two months later, a chase involving more than 100 FBI agents culminated in the arrests of husband and wife Arthur and Irene Seale.

Arthur was a former Hillside police officer and an Exxon employee, The New York Times reported in 1992. He was in charge of supervising guards supplied to the company by a contractor at the former Exxon company international facility in Florham Park. One of his responsibilities was to protect the company's executives from kidnappers, according to New York Daily News.

In 1986, Arthur Seale took a buyout and moved to South Carolina to start an interior design business. When it flopped, he and Irene bounced around and searched for get-rich-quick schemes. They returned to New Jersey in 1992, about $750,000 in debt.

That's when Arthur Seale came up with the idea of kidnapping an Exxon executive. He chose Reso, because he was predictable — leaving his home and stopping by the mailbox at the same time each day.

Early in the morning on the day of the kidnapping, Irene Seale jogged past Reso's driveway and kicked his newspaper away, so Reso would need to walk further to pick it up. The Seales returned later in the early morning hours in a 1988 Volkswagen Quantum.

When Reso fetched his newspaper, Arthur Seale took Reso in at gunpoint. Reso tried to break free when he saw a wooden box in the back of the van, but the executive was shot, bound, gagged and placed in the box.

Reso died days later, but the kidnappers continued with ransom plans. The next day, police received a call from a woman claiming to be Reso's kidnapper, directing them to a letter in a highway street sign. In the note, the kidnappers claimed to be members of the Greenpeace Environmental Group, furious at Exxon for catastrophes such as the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The note demanded $18.5 million in $100 bills for Reso's release. The money was to be placed into several Eddie Bauer laundry bags and dropped outside a restaurant. The FBI had the money ready and waited outside for more than an hour, but the kidnappers never showed.

Over the next few weeks, the FBI and investigators received phone calls and letters leading them throughout Morris and Somerset counties. Investigators noticed that the letters were placed in points that only someone with strong knowledge of Morris Township could have been aware of.

The investigators also traced the kidnappers' calls from local pay phones, and they began to suspect the kidnappers weren't affiliated with Greenpeace. Several clues eventually led the FBI to its answer: a witness who saw a jogger and then a white van near Reso's home, along with golden retriever hair found in one of the letters. The van was Arthur's, the jogger was Irene, and the dog belonged to the Seales.

On the night of June 18, the kidnappers called the FBI for another ransom drop. The agents got to the drop-off location late, but then authorities received another call with an alternate plan. During that call, an agent saw a man wearing rubber gloves and picking up a public phone. She took down his license plate number as he drove off.

The FBI discovered that the vehicle belonged to a nearby rental car agency. Although the agency was closed, the owner agreed to meet with the FBI and told them someone named Arthur Seale rented the car. Seale arrived in the car soon after, as FBI agents waited there to arrest him. Irene came to the shop minutes later and was also arrested.

Within 10 days of their arrests, Irene Seale turned on Arthur. She told authorities that they planned the kidnapping for weeks, that they stuffed Reso in a wooden box with air holes. They left the box, with Reso, inside a storage facility where temperatures reached 100 degrees during the day.

Reso died three days later. The Seales buried him 50 miles away in the Pine Barrens, where Irene led agents to his body.

The Seales both pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Reso. Arthur was sentenced to 95 years in federal prison. Irene was sentenced to only 20 years because of her cooperation with police. She was released in 2009.

Arthur Seale, 75, remains at the Federal Medical Center in Massachusetts. While in prison, Seale earned a doctorate in consulting psychology from Capella University.

“I cannot change what I did,” he wrote in an application for compassionate release, according to New Jersey Advance Media. “The past is unchangeable. But I hope I have demonstrated sincere remorse for my crime and a lasting attempt at atonement.”

U.S. District Judge Anne Thompson denied his application in 2020.

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