This entry describes the wider place, and is not evidence of a direct family connection. See the research question on Rolf Schild’s story.
Sardinia, the large Italian island in the Mediterranean, was the site of a wave of ransom kidnappings in the late 1970s. In August 1979, Rolf Schild, his wife Daphne, and their teenage daughter were kidnapped there for ransom by a gang calling itself Red Guerrilla, one of more than a dozen kidnappings on the island that year. Rolf was released after roughly sixteen days; Daphne was released in January 1980 after a ransom payment; their daughter was released in March 1980, days after a family approved public appeal from Pope John Paul II helped break a news blackout on the case. In 1982, thirteen people were convicted and jailed for the kidnapping.