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(#9) Leopold And Loeb Typed A Ransom Note On A Stolen Typewriter
In 1923, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb orchestrated a plan where they planned to kidnap a child for money, kill the abductee in a rental car, and dispose of the body. They decided on Loeb’s cousin, 14-year-old Bobby Franks. The duo then devised a series of steps the boy's wealthy family would have to take in order to pay the $10,000 ransom.
Leopold and Loeb typed the ransom note a stolen Underwood 3 typewriter. The note is mostly a description of a building, but it ends with "this is the only chance to recover your son." Shortly afterward, a police investigation began into Leopold and Loeb because Chicago authorities had found Leopold's glasses near Bobby's body.
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(#11) The Ransom Note For Toddler Charley Ross Was The First In US History
In 2012, a Philadelphia school librarian uncovered what may be the first ransom notes in American history. The 22 letters, addressed to the kidnapped boy’s father, Christian Ross, first appeared after unknown assailants abducted 4-year-old Charley Ross from his Germantown home in 1874:
You wil have to pay us before you git him from us, and pay us a big cent to. if you put the cops hunting for him you is only defeeting yu own end.
Then a second letter appeared:
This is the lever that moved the rock that hides him from yu $20,000. Not one doler les - impossible - impossible - you cannot get him without it.
In spite of the Ross family's lifelong efforts, they were never able to find Charlie. Although the courts convicted William Westervelt of being complicit in Charlie's kidnapping, there's some debate about whether he was just a scapegoat or if he had actual knowledge of the abduction.
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(#12) Thieves Stole A Parrot And Left Behind A Cut-And-Paste Ransom Note
On February 20, 2015, an unknown assailant kidnapped Cara Cosson's African Gray parrot, JoeJoe, from her Bedfordshire home in England. In his place, someone left a cut-and-paste ransom note: "Want your Bird back alive Txt ****** contact Police bird Dies a Slow Agonising Death."
Cosson offered over $2,000 for the bird’s safe return. Although Bedfordshire authorities made one initial arrest in relation to the abduction, no convictions have been made. Investigators never recovered JoeJoe.
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(#3) The Parents Of Dorothy Ann Distelhurst Received Fake Ransom Notes
In September 1934, 6-year-old Dorothy Ann Distelhurst left kindergarten and began walking the three blocks to her Nashville home, but she never made it. A few days after her disappearance went public, a postcard showed up at her family home that threatened to burn the girl's eyes out with acid if her father didn't pay the exorbitant fee of $175,000.
More letters and postcards arrived from all over the country demanding ransoms. Even though the police told her father that the messages were all likely hoaxes, he still flew to New York and attempted to pay $5,000 to a man who claimed to have his daughter. It was later found that man had never even been to Nashville.
About a month after the postcard incident, Dorothy's body was found in a shallow grave. An unknown assailant had bashed her head in with a hammer and used acid to burn off her face.
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(#1) John Paul Getty III
- Dec. at 55 (1956-2011)
In 1973, nine members of the Calabrian Mafia abducted John Paul Getty III - the grandson of an oil tycoon. Getty, 16, was on holiday in Rome when the Mafia took him to a mountain hideaway. Shortly afterward, Getty's family received a ransom note asking for $17 million. Getty's grandfather refused to pay the ransom, so the next letter they received came with one of Getty's ears and the threat:
This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits.
Getty's family reluctantly paid the decreased ransom, and their son was safely returned. Italian authorities convicted two of the kidnappers, but the rest of the men involved were acquitted.
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(#6) Annie Laurie Hearin Allegedly Pleaded With Her Husband To Pay Her Ransom
In 1988, 72-year-old Annie Laurie Hearin - the wife of Robert Hearin, the owner of Mississippi's largest gas distribution company, Mississippi Valley Gas Co. - was abducted from their home after a violent attack. During the initial investigation, police found a typed ransom letter:
Mr. Robert Hearin, Put these people back in the shape they was in before they got mixed up with School Pictures. Pay them whatever damages they want and tell them all this so then can no what you are doing but dont tell them why you are doing it. Do this before ten days pass. Don't call police.
Rather than pay the ransom, Robert made a public appeal for his wife's return. Then he received a second note, this time allegedly from Annie:
Bob, If you don't do what these people want you to do, they are going to seal me up in the cellar of this house with only a few jugs of water. Please save me, Annie Laurie.
Even after paying out the ransom, he never saw his wife again. In 1990, law enforcement apprehended Newton A. Winn and convicted him of conspiracy in relation to Hearin’s disappearance. The courts never filed charges, and investigators never recovered Hearin’s body, as she was declared dead in 1991.
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About This Tool
Nowadays, the crime of kidnapping is so common in the storylines of various cultural and artistic forms. We can only say that art comes from life. As early as the early 1930s, television and the Internet were not invented. The concept of investigative journalism has only just emerged, and there have been several political and profitable kidnapping crimes that shocked the world. Criminals usually blackmail cash, and these tragedies usually happened in wealthy families.
No family can be prepared without fear when discovering that their child is missing, they all heartbreaking and scared when they got the ransom notes. The random tool shows 12 disturbing ransom notes of some tragedies in history.
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