WHOLE FAMILY KIDNAPPED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21598, 19 March 1932, Page 15

WHOLE FAMILY KIDNAPPED

ARMED ROBBERS RIFLE VAULT, Five American robbers lately kidnapped the entire family of Mr M. C. Mott, an officer of the Mundelien branch of the Illinois State Bank and held them pris oners for six hours before rifling the bank vault and taking the 3000 dollars (£60 a at par) it contained. The gang is blieved to be the same as that which kidnapped a family last April. The bandits paid a call at the Mctt < home at 2 a.m., climbing through the window. Threatening the family with guns, they herded Mr Mott, his wife, her sister, and four children into a motor car and drove to the bank through the deserted streets. After repeated threats. Mr Mott finally convinced the bandits that he did not know the combination of. the lock on the vault door, declaring that a time-lock was set for 8.15 a.m. The robbers, therefore, waited for the arrival of the cashier, whom they forced to open the doors, later imprisoning him with the Mott family in the basement. The bandits escaped in the car, taking Mr Mott’s son as hostage, though they released him 10 miles away.