KIDNAP DRAMA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 157, 4 June 1934, Page 8

KIDNAP DRAMA.

RESCUE AND ESCAPE. William Gettle, the Californian oilman whose kidnappers demanded 75,000 dollars (£15,000), was rescued from a house at La Crescenta, in the hills. Two men who had charge of him exchanged shots with the police. One was arrested, but the other escaped. Mr Noon, attorney for William Gettle, sorted out the imposters from among numerous telephone calls and made contact with the kidnappers. He agreed to pay 75,000 dollars (£15.000) in soiled five-dollar bills, but insisted that he must have Gettle’s personal authority. At midnight, a messenger delivered to him Gettle’s lodge card, bearing his genuine signature, together with typewritten instructions signed in Gettle’s handwriting to pay the ransom and rescue him. Noon accordingly proceeded alone in a motor car to a certain corner 10 miles outside Los Angeles and kept a sharp lookout for a white rag on a stake. Eventually he found a note, with correctly signed instructions to go to a second and then to a third stake for new instructions, but by this time the lawyer became aware that three motor cars were following him. Realising that he was being pursued by hijackers, he turned his car abruptly and sped into open country, closely pursued by tlie gangsters, who evidently were trying to get the ransom away from him before he could deliver it to the real kidnappers. Firing at Ins pursuers, he returned to Los Angeles with the money.