SEIZED BY KIDNAPPERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 May 1935, Page 5

SEIZED BY KIDNAPPERS

TIMBER MAGNATE’S SON

LARGE RANSOM DEMANDED (BY CABLID —PBESB ASSN. —COPYBIGHT.] WASHINGTON, May 25. A message from Tacoma, Washington. states that George Weyerhaeuser, the nine-year-old. member of a wealthy lumber family,, was kidnapped yesterday, and is being held for ransom. The ransom asked is variously reported as between fifty thousand and two hundred thousand dollars. The family are maintaining strict secreev as to any negotiations which they might enter, but, meanwhile, the City and State police, under the direction of Federal agents, are conducting a widespread search. The lad left school at noon for lunch at home. Nobody has seen him since. To-day a large white cloth hung from a window of the Weyerhaeuser mansion, which could be seen for miles, as the house stands on an elevation overlooking Puget Sound. It is assumed that this was a signal to the kidnappers, indicating presumably that the family are ready to pay the ransom. It is reported that a ransom note, written in a woman’s hand, threatened the death of the child if the police were notified. The Weyerhaeuser family are immensely wealthy. The kidnapped child’s great grandfather, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, was the son of a German immigrant. He started in the lumber industry as a dollar-a-day sawmill worker in Minnesota, in 1852. Gradually he accumulated timber lands from Ohio to the Pacific Coast, and even into Alaska. The son of Frederick, John Philip Weyerhaeuser, died a fortnight ago, leaving the control of most, of the fortune to John Philip Weyerhaeuser junior, the father of the boy who has been kidnapped. It is said that the family control ninety-four corporations in the lumber milling and allied industries, with a value of almost a billion dollars. The family owns two million acres of timber and a vast amount of other property.

PARENTS WILLING TO PAY.

(Reed. May 27, 1.30 p.m.) TACOMA, May 26. Although by coded message, published in the newspapers, the parents of George Weyerhaeuser indicated their readiness to pay a ransom, which is now definitely stated to be 200,000 dollars, the child has not been Returned home. Nineteen agents were hurriedly rushed to Tacoma, to assist in the search for the kidnappers, independent of the family’s negotiations. The white signal at the window of the Weyerhaeser home yesterday, has been changed to a blue sweater, but the meaning is not divulged. The police suspect Alvin Karpis, America’s current Public Enemy No. 1, as being responsible for the crime, as he is known to be in the northwestern area, and is reported to be short of funds. BANKER AND GANGSTERS. NEW YORK, May 26. Federal agents in' Los Angeles thwarted the effort of a gang to extort 70,000 dollars from Herbert Ivey, Bank President. With an agent posing as the extortionists in a remote section. In the exchange of shots, one of the gangsters was seriously injured, but the others escaped. One policeman was slightly injured,