A Botched Robbery Link to a Kidnapping

On July 1st  the four year old son of a rich Philadelphia grocer had been snatched from the front lawn of his house. On July 4th the kidnappers delivered the first of 23 poorly spelt ransom notes, several days later the ransom was agreed as $20,000. The details for the ransom were set and the money left at the designated spot, nobody came to pick up the money.

After all the leads on the kidnapping dried up it became another unsolved mystery. Then one evening in December of the same year as wealthy New Yorker Holmes Van Brunt was about to retire for the night he heard burglars attempting to break into the house next door. With the assistance of three others they surprised the intruders and a firefight began. Each of the robbers was severely wounded, one of them as he was dying stated that he  was responsible for the kidnapping of the four year old boy, he promised that the boy would be returned safe and well.

The kidnapping had generated lots of publicity, it became the first widely followed kidnap for ransom incident and over the next 50 years there was an increase in this type of crime. It culminated with the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s son in 1932. Following that high profile crime the governments power was greatly broadened over criminal matters and the penalties for kidnapping were greatly increased. Despite the confession of the dying criminal, the fate of the four year old kidnapped boy was never established, no trace of him was ever found.