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Posted on 04/04/2004 10:55:18 AM PDT by Wally_Kalbacken
Posted on Sun, Apr. 04, 2004
'This is not the Audrey we knew'
BY MARA H. GOTTFRIED
Pioneer Press
Audrey Seiler was the golden girl of Rockford, Minn. Captain of the basketball and volleyball teams, ranked third in her high school class, a member of the homecoming court — known by practically everyone in the small town.
The 20-year-old left home for the city, to study speech pathology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She told friends back home she was doing well.
That's why no one can really explain what led Rockford's hometown girl to stage her own abduction in Madison last week, leading police to launch an extensive manhunt for her and drawing massive local and national media attention.
Did she miss the attention she came by so easily in Rockford? Was there something troubling lurking under her seemingly perfect existence all along or did a problem emerge recently?
People close to Seiler are short on answers, but they all say one thing: "This is not the Audrey we knew."
Sue Francis, a close family friend from Rockford, said Seiler remained hospitalized Saturday and under psychiatric care. Counselors worked with Seiler, "trying to pinpoint" what was wrong, Francis said.
"I don't think people knew she had a problem beforehand," Francis said. "I think the signs became apparent once she did this. The bottom line is she was a missing person, she was found. She has this issue and she needs to be treated. And she will go back to being the person she always was."
The person Francis said Audrey Ruth Seiler "always was" is rooted in Rockford, a city of 3,500 about 35 miles west of St. Paul. It's a close-knit community and the Seilers, who bought their home there in 1978, are "very ingrained and respected, visible members of the community," said Gale Bacon, who manages the local library and is a school board member.
Seiler, born in St. Louis Park, attended elementary, middle and high school in Rockford. Her mother Stephanie Seiler works with at-risk youths at the middle school and her father Keith Seiler works for the family painting and decorating business. Her 17-year-old brother Kyle Seiler is also a star student and athlete.
In her hometown, Audrey Seiler was a straight-A student active with the school's choir and band. She was president of the National Honor Society and an accomplished athlete others looked up to.
"She was not necessarily a vocal, out in the front, take charge person, but you could look to her for leadership," said Rockford High School Principal Roman Pierskalla.
Logan Gerleman, now a student at Iowa State University in Ames, said she and Seiler became good friends during the bus rides to and from high school basketball and volleyball games. The two had much in common — they were both dedicated to their schoolwork, had steady boyfriends and shared a similar sarcastic sense of humor, she said.
After high school, Seiler went to Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., for a year and did well academically. Last fall, she transferred to the University of Wisconsin to pursue a major in communicative disorders. It is also where her high school boyfriend, Ryan Fisher, whom she has dated four years, is a student. In the fall semester, Seiler earned all A's, Fisher's roommate said.
Since Seiler has been out of high school, Pierskalla has had little contact with her. But when she was a student there weren't signs that anything was amiss, he said.
"I wish somebody could shed some light on it for me," he said. "Is there something there we weren't aware of? Stresses, pressures, mental health issues — were they there?"
'COMPLETELY OUT OF CHARACTER'
Police, family and friends spent three-and-a-half days looking for Seiler after she left her Madison apartment at 2:30 a.m. Saturday with no coat or purse. She suddenly reappeared on Wednesday, spotted in a nearby swamp.
She told police she'd been kidnapped and held captive by a man with a knife, who was still in the swamp. They found a knife, duct tape and rope Seiler said her abductor used to restrain her, but couldn't find the man.
Investigators announced Friday Seiler's abduction was a hoax, noting a videotape showing Seiler buying the knife, duct tape and rope herself. Witnesses had told police they saw her walking around town freely. And a search of Seiler's computer revealed maps of wooded areas and weather forecasts.
Detectives suspected Seiler hadn't been abducted even before she turned up unhurt, police spokesman Larry Kamholz said. The department still went by the book, because it couldn't "take the chance that there's somebody still out there loose," he said.
What Marsha White, whom Seiler worked for as a summer school tutor for elementary school students in Rockford, saw on the news about Seiler's hoax was "completely out of character from when Audrey worked for me. She was always in a good mood, always smiling."
Friends and families say Seiler has no history of abusing drugs or alcohol. She didn't party more than an average high school student, Gerleman said. They last spoke at a basketball game over Christmas break. The exchange was brief and Gerleman, along with others from Rockford who saw her as recently as a few weeks ago, said Seiler seemed normal.
'A REASON WHY THIS HAPPENED'
Many have theories about why Seiler staged her disappearance.
"I think it's just a cry for help," said Lisa Wangstad, whose daughter went to high school with Seiler. "She was a star here, well known, and then she went there and didn't get the attention she wanted."
Francis, the family friend, said stress between Seiler and her boyfriend could have been a contributing factor, but she didn't cite anything in particular.
In February, Seiler reported to police someone knocked her unconscious and dragged her two blocks. There was no evidence that she was robbed or sexually assaulted.
After it happened, Seiler was "freaked out," Adam Morris, roommate of Fisher, Seiler's boyfriend, said early last week. Fisher sometimes spent the night at her apartment because she was afraid and couldn't sleep, said Morris, of Amery, Wis.
Seiler's parents couldn't be reached for comment, but Seiler's grandmother, Joanne Dale, said Saturday the media coverage is compounding the family's pain.
David Fisher, brother of Seiler's boyfriend, Ryan, said he wishes people would stop judging her.
"We need to stand by her and help her through this. She is a great person. The real Audrey we know wouldn't do something like this. But this isn't the Audrey we know right now," he said.
Though there's not a lot of research about people who fabricate crimes because it's rare, a forensic psychologist said someone who does could be driven by mental illness or some other trouble — substance abuse, for instance.
"Sometimes there's a mental illness that's on-setting and the lie stems out of delusional thinking," said Wayne Siegel, who practices in the Twin Cities.
People "can appear quite normal and have no signs beforehand," he said.
Siegel doesn't know the details of the Seiler case, but said the fabricated abduction "does seem to be very out of character for someone who seemed high functioning. There's a reason why this happened, but I don't think anybody knows at this point what it is." Lisa Donovan, Paul Sand and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at mgottfried@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5262.
Thoughtful fellow. As long as we are stripping away falsehoods here, the probability that a college male sleeps at a college female's apartment to calm her fears and ease her sleep is something less than .000000000001. On good days.
Having had the experience of a former wife who was schizophrenic (about whom the same remarks could have been made - 'This is not the Julie we knew'), I'm going to go out on a limb (as a non-psychiatrist) and make a diagnosis here. Schizophrenia. Anyone want to start a wagering pool?
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She picked a way to have everyone finally notice her.
LOL! Hey - he's just a sensitive new age guy! (The probability that ANY unrelated MALE sleeps at a female's apartment to calm her fears and ease her sleep is probably the same percentage.)
Making up a story and then planting the evidence doesn't sound like schizophrenia.
I say it's more likely she noted the sympathy she garnered after the first attack (which, one should note, is still unsolved and may have been the outcome of a confrontation with someone she knew), and with the kind of lack of foresight typical of the young decided she might find her way out of whatever personal problems are plaguing her by garnering that kind of attention again, only this time on a bigger scale.
She's confused. But schizophrenic? I doubt it.
Well... herself, the friend who was injured rushing to her side, and the taxpayers.
The fact that she picked a PC crime to stage resulted in more notice being given than is usually focused on stuff like this. Nevertheless, it'll all die out in a few days. Though I suspect she'll be paying the costs of the search for quite some time to come.
Now, if she'd claimed to have been attacked by a vicious atheistic, gay, Kerry supporter we'd never have heard anything about it.
I don't think that is entirely accurate. I have read reports that the investigation costs will reach $70,000, presumably taken from law enforcement budget. There also were volunteers from her hometown who drove five hours to help in the search. More important, I wonder about any criminal investigations during that period that suffered (or may suffer in the future) because resources, including staff, weren't directed toward them... they instead were directed toward this hoax. Finally, it would be very sad if someone were to dismiss a future criminal investigation by saying "it's probably another scam." I would hope that people still would volunteer, search, etc., but there is no way ever to tell. It is truly fortunate that no one was harmed physically, but to say there was no harm at all, I think, isn't correct.
I think you're off by a factor of about 100,000. :)
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