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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, who must report to a parole office in Great Falls, Montana, US, was granted parole in April, The Missoulian reported.
Nichols (86) was sentenced to 85 years in prison for kidnapping bi-athlete 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’ son Dan apparently accidentally shot Swenson. She said she was left for dead with a “sucking chest wound” for hours as Goldstein’s body lay nearby.
Fled the scene
Don and Dan Nichols fled and were arrested five months later after a manhunt in the mountains of southwestern Montana.
During the parole hearing in April, board members noted Nichols’ clean record in his more than 30 years in prison and his completion of educational programs, including anger management and life skills.
Don Nichols, who kidnapped Swenson to be a bride for his then 19-year-old son, told the board members they would not regret their decision and he felt bad about his crimes.
Before Don Nichols’ 2012 parole hearing, Kari Swenson wrote a letter to The Bozeman Daily Chronicle calling the father and son “crazy misfits” who chose to live apart from society and defy its laws.
“I endured being grabbed by both wrists, hit in the face, thrown to the ground, chained to Dan, threatened with knives and guns, marched through the woods, secured like an animal to trees and spent a terrifying night chained next to Dan,” she wrote.
She said she spent years in counselling and still has shrapnel in her chest that hurts her and brings back haunting memories of the ordeal that ended her athletic career.
Dan Nichols was convicted of kidnapping and assault and was released from prison in 1991.
The case was the subject of a 1987 made-for-TV movie The Abduction of Kari Swenson, starring Tracy Pollan. It was featured in an episode of Investigation Discovery’s TV show Your Worst Nightmare.
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Is this like jobsbridge but overseas?
How many billions have the countries mentioned spent on arms and wars in the past few decades alone?
There are thousands of Irish families in severe need, get that sorted before looking overseas for people to help.
we need all our volunteers at home to try and sort our own country out,could we just curtail the do gooding for a while,i think at this stage we are not respected for all our relentless do gooding we do,,we are probably look on as fools in some quarters.
What? Volunteering to help the worlds poorest is a bad thing? Encouraging people to expand their horizons and to help others, while doing good is bad?
Noel we have many volunteers in this country, I’m in my final year studying community development with little job prospects at the min of a job in what I’d like to. I’d rather use my 4 years education in overseas development as a volunteer and gain experience as in Ireland if I were to volunteer in this kind of work people would be saying it’s job displacement which of course it is. Now you see my situation which of the two is more beneficial to me and the community here and overseas, a year overseas working and developing my professional skills or be another statistic on the live register
Large scale aid, corruption, mass immigration along with the other globalisation policy of fractional reserve banking foisted onto the 3rd world thereby creating a massive debt burden have a lot to do with keeping Africa in poverty. The worst thing one can do is strip a country’s people of their will to fight, become resourceful or independent & siphon off the people who are most capable & energetic to effect that change. A draw down of aid, end to mass immigration, whilst fostering help in other ways would in the longer term end the cycle of constant impoverishment in the 3rd world.
How many billions in aid have we sent in addition to the above volunteer efforts for decades. Yet if indigenous Europeans wish to protect their ethnicities, protect their ethnic territories, they are told by the recipients of our generous never-ending aid, that we are evil & racist.
Volunteers me ar*e! They’ve been goin out foreign for the past 50 years and what have the done to help long term??? Nothing!! Leave them fend for themselves for once and they might start getting off their arses and help themselves!
Charity begins at home!
The immigration industry & Immigrant Council of Ireland have deemed your comment to be racist. You are being investigated for hate-speech & thought-crime.
Volunteer my arse, for what? To make some CEO a nice bonus on the back of my hard work or provide a nice election setup to a candidate claiming my work. Thats what it is really about. money ,power ,political movement, not helping people.
Some very disappointing negative opinions around volunteering. I had the pleasure of volunteering in Malawi in a clinical professional capacity for almost 6 months in 2012/13. The opportunity was very worthwhile and I believe one grows and matures in many ways from the experience. I self-funded this time away. Many are unaware that volunteering is very costly. Including opportunity cost and actual costs of flight and daily expenses I estimated that it costed €30,000 for 6 months. On this basis might it be worthwhile that the Irish government perhaps contribute less financially to individual countries but support individuals who wish to go to these countries? Additionally, I would like by law (similar to mat leave) job protection for individuals who volunteer in developing countries. In other words if an employee wants to volunteer abroad the same job protection right are afforded as a female going on mat leave.
So true it ain’t like there’s too many jobs out at home
I am too self obsessed for the volunteering lark but at least I admit it.
Though I would gladly volunteer to help the needy in Australia providing I got my flight, food and accommodation all paid for me.
have your say