Bonus: Of Mountains & Men: The Kari Swenson Story
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In July 1984, a 22-year-old athlete was abducted from a Montana mountain trail during a training run. Her abductors, father and son survivalists living off-grid in the wilderness had decided to steal a bride to establish and grow their very own mountain colony. When the woman didn’t return, her friends alerted authorities and inadvertently set off a tragic chain of events that not everyone would walk away from. This episode covers the abduction of Kari Swenson.
On the Mountain
Kari Swenson sat up a little straighter. She could feel her muscles tense, and her heart begin to beat faster. She looked to her abductors, a dishevelled older man, and a younger man, and then to the horizon. She was chained and immobilised and had no immediate way to free herself. Her abductors did not see what she saw. Not straight away, at least. She had been found, but rescue would not be possible.
She weighed up her options. Her abductors were armed and had assured her that they would shoot and kill anyone who tried to take her away from them. Her rescuers came in the form of her friends, Alan Goldstein, a 36-year-old horse wrangler, and Jim Schwalb, two colleagues from the ranch. She called out to warn them against coming any closer and that the men were armed. In the process, she inadvertently alerted her captors.
The older man trained his gun on one of her rescuers. It all happened in an instance, she was pleading with Alan and Jim to stay back. The older man told the younger one to ‘shut her up’. With that, Kari Swenson was met with the barrel of a shotgun aimed directly at her torso. She saw a flash and heard the deafening blast of a shotgun.
Kari Swenson’s Background
Kari Swenson was born in in 1961 in Philadelphia to parents, Bob, and Janet Swenson. One of three children, Kari was the middle child, with a younger brother, Paul and an older sister, Johanna. Janet was a nurse and later ski patrol volunteer, and Bob, the head of the Physics Department at Philadelphia’s Temple University. In 1970, when Kari was nine, the family moved west across the country for Bob’s career. He took up a new position as head of Montana State University’s Physics Department. The family permanently relocated to the small city of Bozeman, Montana.
After the move, Kari took up cross-country skiing, after a family friend introduced her. This accelerated her interest in the sport. She also began to learn how to shoot, preferring to use a .22 calibre rifle. In 1980, while studying pre-veterinary medicine at Montana State University, she joined the Nordic ski team and was recommended for the U.S. Biathlon Association’s first women’s team.
By the early 1980s, Kari was actively training for biathlons. Biathletes train in two separate yet related winter sports, cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. In late February and early March 1984, Kari travelled to France to participate in the Biathlon World Championships, as part of the U.S. relay team. Here, along with her team, Kari won the bronze medal. She also stood out among her peers, as her performance in the 10-km final, where she achieved fifth place, was, at the time, the best-recorded performance of an American athlete of any gender in the history of the event.
The Day of the Abduction
By July 1984, 22-year-old Kari had moved to Big Sky in the Rocky Mountains, Montana, to take up a summer job at a tourist ranch. The location, nestled in the majestic Spanish Peaks, has snow from November to April. While she couldn’t ski, Kari took this opportunity to train daily at altitude to maintain her fitness levels. This also involved running for cardiovascular fitness and endurance. She trained seven-days-per-week, including running, hiking, weightlifting, and roller-skiing.
The 15th of July 1984 was a Sunday. Kari left the ranch that afternoon and drove partway up the trail near the Ulerys Lakes area, approximately 13 kilometres or 8 miles northwest of Big Sky. She parked her car and set off for a long training run to condition her body for her chosen sport.
As she ran deeper into the trail, she found herself in a clearing surrounded by trees. Out of nowhere, she saw a young man approach her and try to make awkward conversation. She indulged him momentarily, before being approached from behind by another man. This one was much older. Kari immediately felt uneasy and attempted to turn back and get away from the strange men.
The two men who had accosted her in the clearing began to interrogate her as to whether she was married, or if she had children. She lied to them, and said that she was married, but they claimed to not believe her, stating that ‘all women lie’. The older man asked the younger one, if they ‘should keep her’. To which the younger man nodded. This is when the older man punched her in the face and grappled her to the ground. The younger man tied her hands with rope and began to march her through the wilderness.
The Investigation
By Sunday evening, Kari’s absence was noticed at work. Her friends and colleagues were aware of her gruelling training regime, and knew that she was responsible and conscientious, and wouldn’t simply skip work without letting anyone know. When she failed to return to the ranch, they began to worry.
A friend retraced her steps and found her car, still parked where she had left it at the mouth of the trail. There was no sign of Kari. When he returned to the ranch, the workers came together and organised their own search party, comprising of more than 20 volunteers. The ranch manager notified Kari’s parents of her disappearance. When they contacted local police to inform them that one of their employees was missing, they were met with indifference. Authorities informed them that it was policy not to conduct searches at night. Her parents, Bob and Janet had both travelled to Big Sky to help with the search.
The controversial decision of the local sheriff’s office not to search for Kari once night had fallen was a controversial one. Bob and Janet Swenson would later slam authorities for several lapses and errors in the investigation. By Monday morning, local police, along with a large group of volunteers initiated a grid search. Volunteers divided into pairs, including colleagues of Kari’s from the ranch. Two such colleagues, Alan Goldstein, and Jim Schwalb, teamed up to help find their missing co-worker. Each pair were given a walkie-talkie radio to keep in touch with the rescue base. Alan held onto the walkie-talkie for his team.
The initial working theory was that she had become lost or injured on the trail. The search party fully expected to find an injured Kari near one of the running trails and transport her to get the medical attention she likely needed. The isolated nature of the mountains where Kari disappeared, and the inaccessibility to vehicles meant that most of those involved in the ground search could not imagine that something more nefarious may be at play. They couldn’t possibly have known that two dangerous men had been surviving off-grid for years and were just waiting for unsuspecting prey to cross their path.
Don & Dan Nichols’ Background
Don Nichols was born in 1931 and was 53-years old in 1984. His son, Dan Nichols was born in 1964 and was 19 years old at the time of Kari’s abduction. Dan was estranged from his mother, and along with Don, his survivalist father, had been living on-off in the mountains for twelve years. Don had exerted his influence over Dan like a tyrant, and by the time he was a teenager, he fully believed in his father’s flawed doctrine.
The father and son duo had been eking out a living as survivalists for several years, taking breaks of several months to stay in isolated mountain towns during harsh winters and taking up temporary work. In 1983, the two turned their back on American society, and transitioned to living in the mountains full-time. They had several camps in different locations across the mountain range, including caves, dug-outs and other makeshift structures where they took shelter from the elements.
They were self-proclaimed ‘mountain men’, who shunned modern society, and instead lived off squirrel meat, stolen livestock, and red beans. Since they didn’t live within the confines of modern society, they decided that the established laws and customs did not apply to them. Abducting a wife for Dan was not only acceptable, in their mind, but necessary for the men to begin their own ‘mountain tribe’. They had spotted Kari running along the waterline of one of the lakes and tracked her until they were able to corner her in the forest clearing and subdue her.
The Ordeal
Kari tried to reason with her captors, begging them to just let her go. They told her that they would just keep her for a few days, and that they were sure that she would grow to like their lifestyle so much that she wouldn’t want to leave. We don’t know if this was a kind of delusion on their part, or if they were just trying to string her along to make her more amenable to being moved to a secondary location.
Kari was acutely aware of the danger that she was in. She was alone with two potentially unhinged strangers on a desolate mountainside, far from any human civilisation. The chances of another hiker, camper or hunter stumbling on them and realising she was in danger were slim. Even though her hands were bound, she was allowed to walk freely, with the younger man, Dan, leading the way, and the older one, Don, taking the rear position.
She used the opportunity to break branches, tear off leaves and otherwise disturb items on the trail, in the hopes that if someone was tracking her, the breadcrumbs she left them would be enough to find her. This was soon noticed by the Don, and she was unable to leave any more clues for potential rescuers.
As darkness fell, the uneasy trio stopped to set up camp. The rope was replaced with a heavy padlocked chain secured around Kari’s waist, fastening her to a pine tree. Escape was always on her mind. Don ranted about being ‘free’ and about the perils and constraints of modern society. He disclosed that the younger man, Dan, was his son. He also told her that he had bought the chain and padlock six years previously, with the intention of using it on a woman.
Overnight temperatures had significantly dropped, and Kari was not dressed for the extreme drop in temperature. There was a real danger that hypothermia could set in. She was given some oversized clothing that belonged to the men to drape over her like a blanket and a sleeping bag for her lower body.
The Discovery
By morning, Kari was exhausted. Still chained to the tree trunk, her inability to move freely caused her body temperature to drop even lower. She was freezing. This is when she saw her colleagues from the ranch, Alan, and Jim approach the camp. She had called out to warn them, but Don had swung around, shotgun in hand, aimed directly at Alan. Jim stood a little further back, partially sheltered by the trees. Kari was still calling out to Alan and Jim, and Don shouted to his son, Dan to ‘shut her up’. There are conflicting accounts as to what happened next, and who fired the first shot.
Dan looked directly at Kari, pointed the gun, and shot her directly in the chest. She was still conscious but struggling to breathe. Each raspy breath caused her excruciating pain. She didn’t know it yet, but her lung had been punctured.
Don, still training his rifle on Alan, took aim, and fired a single shot, blasting him in the face. He fell backwards down the trail, and Kari could no longer see him. She had witnessed the shot and knew that her friend was likely dead. Panicking, and knowing that others would soon be searching for them, Don, and Dan Nichols, removed the chain and padlock from Kari and abandoned their camp, leaving her to bleed out and die. Jim was nowhere to be seen, so Kari hoped that he had gotten away and was getting help.
Kari waited on the ground, bleeding into the dirt. She could hear chatter on the walkie-talkie, but it was too far for her to reach. Then, the radio went silent. She didn’t know if the batteries had died. They hadn’t. Unbeknownst to her, Jim Schwalbe had scrambled down the mountainside to alert the rescue team of what had transpired.
Those in charge of the rescue had made the decision to stop all radio contact in case the perpetrators had possession of the walkie-talkie and were following each of their moves. Kari tried to calm herself to slow the bleeding. She used relaxation breathing techniques that she had learned during her athletic training as a form of mindfulness to keep herself focused. She waited on the mountain for another four hours before hearing the unmistakeable whirr of a helicopter in the distance. It had been 18 hours since her abduction.
Aftermath
Kari was airlifted off the mountain and taken to the nearest hospital, where she was reunited with her parents. She was taken into surgery, and it was confirmed that the bullet had passed through her body. It had entered her chest just below the collarbone, passed through her lung, collapsing it, and exited below her shoulder blade.
After she was discharged from hospital, she had long lasting physical and emotional scars. She was nervous of crowds and strangers, particularly men. By November, she had recommenced her training regime, but was hindered by pain and an inability to fully get back to her prior levels of strength and fitness. However, this would not be the end of her athletic career. She has shied away from media attention, preferring to live a private life.
Don and Dan Nichols fled the crime scene and absconded, disappearing back into the mountains. Authorities searched for them, but it would be another five months before they would be apprehended. They were arrested after a lengthy manhunt in the mountains of southwestern Montana. Much to the dismay of Kari and her family, a kind of myth had emerged surrounding her abductors.
Trial & Media Attention
The public were entranced with the idea of these self-made ‘mountain men’, rejecting society, and embracing the rugged life of the mountain. They were seen to make their own rules and had the traditionally masculine skills needed to survive an inhospitable terrain.
The Swenson family believed that the Nichols’ were glamorised by the media, and Kari’s ordeal minimised. Janet Swenson wrote a book in 1989, Victims: The Kari Swenson Story, to tell Kari’s story, with Kari’s heavy involvement. Janet said that ‘every time they snapped their fingers, the reporters ran to them’. The ‘they’ being Don and Dan Nichols.
Two separate trials took place in Virginia City, Montana. Dan Nichol’s trial happened first. Outside the courts, vendors sold unofficial ‘Nichols Boys’ merchandise, including t-shirts, and photographs. Morbid tourists arrived looking for autographs from the defendants. The prosecutor put legal restrictions in place to prevent this kind of behaviour.
At trial, Dan claimed that he had shot Kari accidentally, a claim that Kari strongly denied. Dan Nichols was convicted of kidnapping and assault. Later, Don Nichols was convicted of kidnapping, assault, and deliberate homicide in the murder of Alan Goldstein. He was sentenced to 85 years in prison.
Perpetrator Release
Don Nichols became eligible for parole in 2012. Kari Swenson wrote a letter to The Bozeman Daily Chronicle calling for him to remain behind bars. She referred to the father and son as being ‘crazy misfits’ and described her ordeal in more detail. She said that she 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’.
In the letter, she said that shrapnel from the bullet is still lodged in her chest and continues to cause her pain, even decades later. She also stated that her attack prematurely ended her athletic career. At this point, Don Nichols was denied parole.
Dan Nichols was released from prison on parole in 1991 and has had several minor skirmishes with the law in the intervening years. In 2012, federal drug and weapons charges were levied against him for participating in an alleged marijuana distribution ring. Don Nichols served 32-years in prison and was granted parole in April 2017. He was eventually released from prison in August that same year.
Kari Swenson Now
Kari went on to compete in the World Biathlon Championships in 1985 in Egg, Switzerland and in 1986 at Falun, Sweden, before retiring from the sport to pursue veterinary medicine at Colorado State University, graduating in 1990. She spent many years practicing small animal medicine in Colorado, before returning to Bozeman, Montana, where she still lives.
Kari and her 1984 teammates were inducted into the U.S. Biathlon Hall of Fame in 2015. While she no longer competes, Kari is an active mentor in the biathlon community in Montana. A made-for-TV movie was released in 1987, titled The Abduction of Kari Swenson. It starred actress Tracy Pollan, who would later marry Michael J. Fox, in the role of Kari Swenson.
Sources:
Anez, Bob, ‘KARI SWENSON: A Year After Ordeal, Biathlete Aimes for Another World Medal’, Los Angeles Times, 16th June 1985.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-06-16-sp-2815-story.html
Associated Press, ‘Kari Swenson Kidnapping: After 23 Years , Abductor Freed’, Patch, 24th August 2017.
https://patch.com/montana/across-mt/kari-swenson-kidnapping-after-32-years-abductor-freed
Associated Press, ‘’Mountain Man’ freed 32 years after kidnapping athlete to be son’s bride’, The Guardian, 24th August 2017.
‘Biathlon’, Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biathlon
Japenga, Ann, ‘Kidnap Victim Decries Myth of Mountain Men’, Los Angeles Times, 10th July 1989.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-07-10-vw-2601-story.html
‘Kari Swenson’, US Biathlon.
https://www.usbiathlon.org/hall-of-fame/kari-swenson
‘Kari Swenson’, Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Swenson
Swenson, Milek Janet (1989), Victims: The Kari Swenson Story, Pruett Publishing Company.
Hitt, Tarpley, ‘Kari Swenson Survived Abduction, a Shooting, and a Media Nightmare. Now She’s Reclaiming Her Story’, The Daily Beast, 28th November 2019.
U.S. News, ‘’Mountain man’ who kidnapped athlete Kari Swenson on run again’, NBC News, 20th April 2012.
French, Brett, ‘Podcast recounts kidnapping, shooting, recovery of Bozeman biathlete Kari Swenson 30 years ago’, Spokesman, 5th December 2019.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/dec/05/podcast-recounts-kidnapping-shooting-recovery-of-b/