STOLEN BABY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 376, 18 March 1932, Page 12

STOLEN BABY.

Strange Case of Charlie Ross. MYSTERY KIDNAPPING. The following account of the famous Charlie Ross kidnapping case in 1874, the first of its kind to stir the whole American nation profoundly, is of special interest in view of the wave of intense popular feeling created in the United States by the recent abduction of Colonel and Mrs Lindbergh’s nineteen-months-old son. On July 1, 1874, the two little sons of Mr Christian K. Ross, a Philadelphia business man, were playing by the roadside in Germantown. The boys were Walter, who was nearly six, and Charlie, four years and two months. Charlie was a charming youngster with merry brown eyes and curly golden hair which fell in ringlets on his neck. Like most children, he and his brother were fond of sweets, and for several days two men, who drove in a kind of waggon, stopped to talk to them and gave them gifts of candy. The children got to know the men and came to expect their visit, and when, on July 1, they drove up with the usual offering, Charlie asked for a ride and for crackers to celebrate Independence Day on July 4. After having promised the crackers, the men drove on a certain distance, and returning, took the children on board. They drove on for some time when Charlie began to be alarmed at the distance they were from home, and asked to be taken back. Waggon Disappears. To quieten him Walter was given some money and told to buy some crackers from a shop which had a display in the window. When the boy emerged again he found the waggon and his small brother had gone. Crying loudly, he attracted a crowd and was taken home by a kindly person. On returning in the evening, Charlie’s father was alarmed at the story of his son’s disappearance. Inquiries at police stations elicited no news. At taverns and livery {.tables no one knew of the two men, and all inquiries proved vain. The neighbourhood was combed and inquiries made by telegraph and advertisement. The presence of a band of gipsies in the district seemed to offer a clue, but nothing could be found to connect them with Charlie’s disappearance. There was a great wave of popular sympathy for the parents, and much speculation as to the motive of the crime. Kidnapping for ransom was an unknown thing in Pennsylvania or in any other North American State at the time. Ransom Demanded. On July 3 Mr Ross heard from the kidnappers. They told him not to worry about Charlie, but that a heavy ransom would be required to secure his return. An intensive search of Philadelphia where the men and the child were thought to be hidden, yielded not result, and the extension of operations up and down the Delaware River and into neighbouring States also proved fruitless. The local authorities spared no effort, and the feeling of the whole community was behind them. The day after he received the letter Mr Ross advertised a reward of £6O for the return of the child. To this there came a dramatic response, dated from Philadelphia on July 6. A letter, mis-spelt and badly written, informed the anxious father that nothing less than £4OOO would restore his child to him. On July 7 Mr Ross advertised that he would negotiate. A further demand on the same day required him to advertise definitely whether or not he would come to terms. If he agreed to do so, the ransom of £4OOO was insisted upon. If not, the child’s blood was on his father’s head. In reply to this unequivocal demand, with its hint of a terrible alternative, Mr Ross agreed to pay the ransom. But difficulties arose which proved insurmountable. There was disagreement about the kind of notes to be paid, but the greatest difficulty of all —as it is likely to be the greatest in the case of Colonel Lindbergh’s baby—concerned the effective exchange of the boy for his ransom. Nation Wide Search. The whole country had been roused, newspapers in every State, from New Orleans to the Canadian border, and from New York to San Francisco, were featuring the story. It was apparent that the abductors were dazed by the nation-wide reaction their crime had excited, and that they were alarmed at the dangers which surrounded its proper conclusion. The usual number of despicable creatures took advantage of the situation and attempted to extract money from the distracted parents, and added to their sorrow and bewilderment. Mediums also volunteered assistance, but no two of them gave identical directions for the child’s recovery. Kir Ross did not relax his efforts to find the bov, and travelled about the northern States in response to communications from the kidnappers. These eventually led him to New York, and the names of the child's captors were established as Mosher and Douglas. But reports of them showed that the child was not with them. The New York police intensified their efforts, but in that city the men seemed to have discovered an impenetrable hiding place. They were, however, at the end of their resources and took to burglary. Run to Earth. They broke into the house of a Supreme Court judge on Long Island. The judge and his family were absent, but the house was fitted with an elaborate burglar alarm which communicated with the judge’s brother’s house nearby. The alarm violently awakened Mr van Brunt early in the morning on December 14. The house was surrounded and, in the murderous affray which followed an attempt to capture the men, one of them was killed outright and the other fatally wounded. Douglas, the wounded man, died two hours later. Before he expired he confessed that he and Mosher had abducted Charlie Ross, but when asked for information about the boy, he referred his questioners to Mosher. When told that Mosher was dead and pressed for information, he insisted that he did not know where the child was hidden, that Mosher had the secret, but that the boy would be returned home safe and sound in a few days. Walter Ross, Charlie’s brother, identified the two men, and there remained no doubt that they were the child’s abductors. But where was the lost

child? Mosher’s wife was found, but protested her ignorance of his whereabouts. The child had not been left with her, and her husband had kept secret the names of his guardians. The only information she could give was that the child was being well cared for. Faced with this terrible disappointment when the return of the boy might have been expected, the anguish of his parents can well be imagined. Mrs Ross’s brothers offered a further 5000 dollars for the child’s return within ten days. But the only response was a renewal of the dastardly attempts to exploit the case fraudulently.

Later William Westervelt, a brother of Mosher’s wife and a notorious associate of criminals, was connected with the crime. In 1875 he was tried and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. During the trial not one single clue as to the child’s whereabouts was elicited and the fate of the goldenhaired Charlie Ross, who so innocently took that fatal ride under the lure of sweets and crackers on July 1, 1874, has remained an unsolved mystery ever since.

The explanation of the sad affair seems almost certain to lie in the fear aroused by the nation-wide feeling of horror and revenge provoked by the crime. It is quite possible that Charlie Ross lives to-day, a man of 62, ignorant of the cruel circumstances which surrounded his early years.