WEIRD HOAX.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 21, 25 January 1936, Page 11

WEIRD HOAX.

"KIDNAPPED" HIMSELF. WEALTHY YOUNG AMERICAN. FACES SERIOUS CHARGE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, December 31. At a time when America was intensely excited over the flight of Colonel Lindbergh and his family to England, and when Government agents had been combing the country ridding the United States of criminals, Caleb J. Milne IV., the 23-year-old heir of a textile fortune, struck the country with surprise when he calmly admitted he had kidnapped himself after an almost unbelievable adventure in which he had been depicted as a victim of one of the worst cases of abduction in the annals of America. When the "kidnap case" fell apart the drama-loving Caleb Milne found himself a prisoner in truth instead of fancy. He admitted he inspired the hoax by need of money, and by a belief that the resultant publicity would help him get a job on the stage. His confession, made to Government agents, was followed within a few hours by his , arraignment on a charge of attempted extortion, and he was ordered 111 default of 7500 dollars bail to come up for a hearing thirteen days' hence. The Federal Assistant Prosecutor asked bond to be fixed at 10,000 dollars, but U.S. Commissioner Cotter fixed the lower amount when the prisoner said he did not think he could supply a 10,000 dollar bond. The specific charge was that Milne deposited "a letter in the U n States mails demanding 20,000 dollars." Milne, an amateur actor who wanted to act professionally and who also had the urge to write mystery stories— ambitions which met'with little success — disappeared a fortnight previously from the modest room he and a younger brother occupied in New York. He was found four days later lying bound and gagged, and with one arm punctured as though hy hypodermic - were

pinpricks, his confession, explained— beside a roadway near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Story Realistic. So realistic was young Milne's plight that he was taken hurriedly to a hospital and kept in seclusion for hours, his condition being described as "too serious" to permit questioning. The slip in young Milne's plot lay in the manner in which he was trussed. Federal agents spent several nours having the men who found Milne and who cut away his bonds, show in what way Milne was bound. Their demonstrations convinced the agents that Milne could easily have slipped from his bonds —a most suspicious circumstance. They questioned him repeatedly, but his story [ was well organised. Only after being required to repeat it many times did it develop flaws, the agents said. Eventually in the early hours of the morning the youth confessed. While Government agents went ahead with plans to prosecute Milne, some of them wondered how successfully such prosecution might result. They recalled an Indiana youth who kidnapped himself early in 1935, was discharged when a Federal Judge dismissed the indictment. Milne's confession told of his "kid- | napping" in detail. | "I admit that my alleged kidnapping | was perpetrated by myself," it began. "Because of my desperate financial condition and inability to find a job, I felt | that if ' I could get some publicity I i could get a job." I He prepared the ransom letters in his j apartment and stamped them for mailing later. i He left his apartment on Saturday, ! December 14. leaving word he had been ! called to Philadelphia by news that his i grandfather, Caleb Milne Jr., a wealthy retired textile manufacturer, was ill. Fled to Trenton. He went to Trenton. New Jersey, and there until the following Wednesday, when he went by bus to New Hope,' Pa., and started walking to Phi'fdelphia. "When I reached a few miles from Doylestown." lie said-in his confession, "I threw away my overcoat, hat, grey gloves and a pair of scissors,and resumed walking a few miles. "I then stopped, taped my eyes and mouth with tape and then tied my ankles, knees and hands with slipknots. Then-I-rolled- down-» hill- load.

"Within ten minutes a car stoppe<| and picked me up." It was to his grandfather that Milne directed demands for 20,000 dollar^ ransom. The story young Milne told after hi# "rescue" was that he had been kidnapped by four men, one of whom posed as ai doctor who was taking him to Philadelphia. They took him to a cabin near Doylestown, he said-, and kept him in a! stupor with narcotics. "The Perfect Crime." Milne thought he was perpetrating "the perfect crime," Federal agents said, for a fortnight prior to his disappearance the young mystery story writer submitted to a magazine a story entitled "The Perfect Crime." "If this story is not acceptable," he said, "don't return it to me. I will call for it."