Sussex prosecutors dismiss charges against Missouri man in 2010 botched kidnapping

Lori Comstock, New Jersey Herald
·4 min read

Authorities asked a judge to drop charges against one of three Missouri men convicted of a bungled kidnapping plot 12 years ago that led to the mistaken-identity abduction of Newton business owner Jeffrey Muller.

Sussex County First Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Mueller said last week that his office moved to close the case against Douglas Stangeland, citing the 58-year-old's ailing health as the reason. State Superior Court Judge Michael C. Gaus consented to the order.

Stangeland faced up to life in prison when a jury convicted him in May 2015, after a six-week trial, of conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, robbery and other charges. A day after the verdict, Stangeland suffered a heart attack, fell into a coma and was placed on life support, Mueller said. Stangeland regained consciousness in late 2018, but he was still unable to communicate.

Stangeland has been treated at the medical wing of South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton for almost seven years, but Mueller said it was agreed by doctors and staff at the prison that a transfer to a nursing home was ideal.

Douglas Stangeland, a Missouri man accused of kidnapping Newton business store owner Jeffrey Muller in January 2010, takes the stand during his trial in state Superior Court in Sussex County on April 30, 2015, in Newton.
Douglas Stangeland, a Missouri man accused of kidnapping Newton business store owner Jeffrey Muller in January 2010, takes the stand during his trial in state Superior Court in Sussex County on April 30, 2015, in Newton.

"His prognosis is very poor. He is not ambulatory. He's non-verbal," Mueller said, adding that the likelihood Stangeland would recover in any significant way "is not just very poor, it's probably just about zero."

Stangeland was involved in a bizarre scheme set in motion by Missouri developer Roy Slates, who admitted to committing theft by extortion by agreeing to pay a fee to four men to recover $500,000 that he believed was owed to him by a New Jersey man.

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Slates, who died in May 2017, a year after being released on parole, had casually mentioned a failed real estate deal at a bar that led a group of Missouri men, including Stangeland, to drive to Bergen County to find money broker Jeffrey Muller. The three men followed orders from William Barger, and authorities said they believed, incorrectly, that they were on a mission for the Heartland Chapter of the Hells Angels, of which Barger was a founding member.

The issue, though, was that the men — Stangeland, Lonnie Swarnes and Andrew Wadel — didn't know what Muller looked like.

Jeffrey Muller, a Newton business owner who was abducted while opening his store on January 8, 2010, gestures how his captors held a gun to him and told him that they had his wife as he testifies in state Superior Court in Sussex County during the trial of one of his alleged abductors Douglas Stangeland, of Missouri, Tuesday, April 14, 2015, in Newton.

When the trio arrived at Muller's home in Mahwah, it was empty, so they began searching other areas and wound up in Sussex County, where they found a different Jeffrey Muller who owned a pet store in Newton.

The men used a stun gun to shock Muller outside the store and stuffed him in the back seat of a car, bound and gagged him and zip-tied his ankles and wrists.

The men had planned to hand Muller off to some members in Pennsylvania to be killed, but changed plans and instead headed west 1,200 miles to Nevada, Missouri, where Slates and Barger were, according to court records.

The car eventually broke down in Lake Ozark, Missouri, and Muller was left in the car alone with Stangeland. Muller slipped his hands from the zip ties and attempted to get help from a nearby driver, but was subdued by the men before breaking free again. He ran inside the convenience store and screamed that he was from New Jersey and had been kidnapped. By chance, a parole officer was inside having coffee and told Muller he was safe and the cashier was calling the police, and the men were arrested.

Douglas Stangeland, a Missouri man accused of kidnapping Newton business store owner Jeffrey Muller in January 2010, holds back tears as his son Derek takes the witness stand in his defense in state Superior Court in Sussex County on Tuesday, May 5, 2015, in Newton.
Douglas Stangeland, a Missouri man accused of kidnapping Newton business store owner Jeffrey Muller in January 2010, holds back tears as his son Derek takes the witness stand in his defense in state Superior Court in Sussex County on Tuesday, May 5, 2015, in Newton.

Swarnes and Wadel pleaded guilty to their roles in the kidnapping: Swarnes was sentenced to 25 years and is eligible for parole release in November, and Wadel was sentenced to 18 years and could be paroled in 2025. Barger, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit kidnapping, was paroled in September 2020 after serving roughly five years of a 12-year sentence.

The order dismissing the charges against Stangeland have purposely omitted whether they are with or without prejudice, at the request of the judge. Stangeland's attorney, Martin Morrison, consented to the provision and said it could be addressed down the line, if necessary.

Mueller said the likelihood that prosecutors would ever open the case again "is virtually zero," noting that while the charges were very serious, Stangeland's recovery is unlikely.

Muller and his wife did not oppose the application to dismiss, Mueller said.

Lori Comstock can be reached on Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH, on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/LoriComstockNJH or by phone: 973-383-1194.

This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Sussex County NJ kidnapping: Prosecutors dismiss charges