GAOL FOR LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 138, 13 June 1934, Page 5

GAOL FOR LIFE.

THREE KIDNAPPERS. HOW THEY WERE CAUGHT. . DETECTIVES "LISTEN IN." (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, May 10. Little more than 24 hours after William F. Gettle, a kidnapped oil millionaire, had been returned to his wife • and four children, without payment of ransom, three men appeared at a briet -- Court session in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to 'life ini"prieonment in a penitentiary. . Mr. Gettle, who is a prominent Freemason of Southern California, and believed to be without an enemy in the world, was rudely disturbed while in . the garden of hie magnificent home at Arcadia; and was compelled by hie abductors to climb, over a high wall and fall upon the road, where he was swiftly placed in a motor car and rushed out to a secluded spot miles away. His captors demanded 75,000 dollars for his release. They later reduced the ransom to 60,000 dollars, and nearly collected that amount, but their plan was frustrated. "I'll Bet You're Scared." By a strange quirk of fate, the seizure of the gang resulted from a police trap set several weeks previously to watch men suspected of participating in or plotting bank robberies. For weeks a secret recording device had been installed in the apartments where the kidnappers resided. The detectives thought them bank robbers, until the Saturday night, when the ingenious apparatus record amazed them. "11l bet you're scared about that telephone call." "Oh, nertz! They can't trace a call from a pay phone." i

These remarks electrified the" detectives, and finally led to the raid on the Monday night of a little bungalow at La Crescenta, 15 miles north-west of Los Angeles, where sheriff deputies found the abducted millionaire and later cleaned up the gang. The detectives, however, did not act until the next day, when they heard these words, a man and woman speaking: "From the newspapers, it looks like the police are laying off." Then, with dramatic suddenness, the man's reply: "This place is getting hot—we'd better scram!" But the detectives knocked at the door. There were two women, Loretta Woody and Joan Burke, and a man, James Kirk; They were taken to the sheriff's office. In Kirk's pocket they found a card of a La Cresenta real estate man. "Look at this," said one of the officers, turning it over. On the back was written "William F. Gettle," the name of the man a thousand or more officers were seeking. An officer telephoned to the real estate man. "Do you know a short, heavy set man, with a red neck and a puffy face?" he asked, describing Kirk. "Sure," was the reply. "I rented him a house the other day at 4246, Kosemont Street, La Cresenta." Kidnapped Man Found. Captain Harry Brewster and six aides were rushed to this address in two autos. As they surrounded the house, one man escaped, and a second, Boy Williams, was captured as he leaped a hedge. Inside the officers found the abducted millionaire, trussed up on a bed, with adhesive plaster covering his face. Not long after this Captain Norris Stensland, of the sheriff's office, was summoned to the telephone. "Do you want Kerrigan?" That was the name of the third man sought, Larry Kerrigan. "Do I want Kerrigan?" cried Stansland. "Don't be silly! Where do I go?"' The voice, without revealing its identity, named a cafe, and Stensland was there in five minutes. On a stool in the cafe eating was Kerrigan, the only customer in the restaurant. "I want you, brother," said Stensland, mildly. So Kerrigan got off the stool and went quietly with the officer. Then at the Hall of Justice the "clean-up" scene occurred. There were fifty men in the room, many smoking,

cigars. Some wore blue uniforms of the police, some wore the forest green uniforms of the sheriff's office, but most of them wore civilian attire. In the centre was a table. Captain Stensland occupied a big chair, and on the other side was Captain Harry Seagar, police detective, whose men had manned the recording device leading to the solution of one of America's most daring crimes. At one end of the table Larry Kerrigan, manacled, was seated. At the other end was Boy Williams, also manacled. Then the door opened, and two deputies pushed in a little red-necked, puffyfaced man, James Kirk. "Now, Mr. Kirk," said Captain Stensland, in his soft, quiet voice, "these men say you're the brains of this kidnapping, that you fingered this man Gettle and outlined what to do." "No," said the red-necked man in a rasping voice. Ho flung a quick, sharp glance at his two accused confederates. "It ain't so." Captain Stensland motioned to a third man, working in shirtsleeves. He had been copying questions and answers between detectives and the two men for hours. "Bead your notes on what these boys say," was Stensland's orders. In a monotone the stenographer read. It was "Kirk told me this," "Kirk said to do this," "Kirk sent us here," "Kirk phoned us there," "Kirk mailed," and so on. "All right, I did it," came an interruption from Kirk, in a low but harsh voice. "But I didn't do it alone. He and Williams made the snatch." "Who mailed the letters?" asked Captain Seagar. "I mailed 'em." "How did Gettle get hurt?"—"He fell off the ladder—we didn't push him." "Why did you finger Gettle and not some other millionaire?" "That I can't tell you; I don't know." Kirk glared at Williams, then snapped around a glance at Kerrigan. "But if I had these things off my wrists"—he held up his manacled hands—"if I was loose a minute—" "Would you tell us how you got Gettle?" quietly interposed Stensland. "I'd go after these two chickenhearted —" continued Kirk, glaring at the two confederates. The prisoners then answered that they made their statements, of their free will. They asked for drinks, and when questioned about the arrested women, said the women knew nothing of the affair.