One of the earliest kidnap-for-ransom scams ended unsatisfactorily.
Wealthy New Yorker Holmes Van Brunt and three men got into a shotgun battle with thieves who were trying to break into his brother’s home next door. One of the burglars was shot and confessed on his deathbed that he had been responsible for the high-profile kidnapping of 4-year-old Charley Ross earlier that year. He promised that the child would be returned alive before dying.
The kidnapping of Charley Ross, the young child of a rich Philadelphia grocer, was the biggest crime story of its day. Two men had snatched the young boy from his front lawn in July. The kidnappers sent 23 poorly written ransom notes to Ross, asking for $20,000.
Ross agreed to pay the ransom, but no one showed to pick up the money.
Despite the dying criminal’s confession, Charley Ross was never found.
Over the next 50 years there was a spike in the number of kidnap-for-ransom cases, culminating with the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s baby in 1932.
