Tripped Up By Technology

Television crime dramas typically provide viewers with a sampling of life's invaluable lessons. One is that kidnapping, generally, is a high-risk method of making a buck. That venerable cop-show counsel apparently went unheeded by a New Jersey couple, indicted last week on six counts of kidnapping and extortion in the case of missing Exxon International president Sidney Reso. Last April Reso, 57, vanished from the driveway of his posh Morris Township, N.J., home while on his way to work.

Soon after his disappearance, FBI agents recovered letters demanding a ransom of millions of dollars from Exxon for his safe return. In one note the '90s-style kidnappers made a particularly unsophisticated request: that a cellular-telephone number be established through which further contact would be made. As the alleged culprits, Arthur and Irene Seale, later learned to their dismay, calls received on such phones can be traced.

Ultimately sold out by cellular, the Seales were apprehended after a fast- paced four-hour chase that ended at a Hackettstown, N.J., car-rental agency. There, Mrs. Seale was caught with a briefcase containing some extraordinary items: three .38-cal. bullets and a 1985 directory of home addresses for Exxon executives. A search of the house where the Seales had been staying turned up the scribbled phone numbers of banks in Zurich and Karachi, and a book on money laundering. Former Exxon security guard Seale and his wife, both 45, face life in prison if convicted. Investigators last Saturday discovered a body in the New Jersey Pine Barrens suspected to be Reso's.