KIDNAPPERS CAUGHT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20232, 16 February 1934, Page 1

KIDNAPPERS CAUGHT.

Engine Crew Became Leaders of Abduction Gang. CHICAGO. February 6. Last night the police surrounded a house in Addiscn Street, Chicago, and arrested Charles Francis Alcorn. Later Federal detectives announced that the kidnapping of Charles Boettcher had been cleared up, with the members of i the either in prison or on their Alcorn's arrest was the sequel to a confession by Verne Sankey, who was cleverly arrested in a barber's shop in Chicago earlier in the week. He confessed to having participated in the Boettcher kidnapping. Sankey, whom the police regard as the brains of most of the principal kidnappings during the last three years, was born in the United States, but he emigrated to Canada twenty years ago and became a naturalised citizen of the Dominion. A capable mechanic, he obtained work on the Canadian National Rail way, and soon was locomotive engineer of a crack passenger train operating out of Regina. Alcorn became his fireman, and it was aboard their engine that these two men became fast friends, and plotted a life of crime in the United States which led hundreds of detectives a merry chase. A remote ranch in the South Dakota prairie was their hang-out. There they kept hidden the people whom they abducted, and gained nearly half a million dollars (about £100,000) in ransom since 1929. Two other conspirators have alreadv been sentenced to gaol for the Boettcher kidnapping, and in the coming week Sankey and Alcorn will be sentenced to long terms. Both confessed to that and other crimes. The 60,000 dollars (£12,090) ransom paid in the Boettcher case was split three ways. Woman’s Tip to Police. Charles Boettcher, second, a member of a wealthy Denver, Colorado, family, was kidnapped on his doorstep last February. His wife witnessed the abduction, and she was handed a note demanding ransom from her rich father-in-law, Mr Claude K. Boettcher. A series cf communications passed between the kidnappers and the family, and finally Mr Boettcher paid £12,000 ransom and the young man was returned unharmed. Mr Claude Boettcher then offered 25,000 dollars (£5000) for the capture of the kidnappers. The police finally got on the kidnappers trail through a tip given by a woman. She was an associate of one Carl Pearce, an insurance agent in Denver, who talked indiscreetly to her and who aroused her suspicions b/ typing notes in which the name of Boettcher was mentioned. She told the police that Pearce said his boss was Verne Sankey. The police raided Peafce’s apartment and questioned a woman friend of Pearce's, Mrs Kohler. She said that she was a sister-in-law of Sankev. The trail then led to Sankey’s ranch in South Dakota, where evidence was found of occupation by Boettcher. In fact, 9600 dollars of the ransom. money -was found buried by a fence on the ranch. In the meantime, Pearce had been arrested, and .he gave descriptions of Sankey and Alcorn, who, he said, were concerned in the kidnapping. Pearce was sentenced to twenty-six years’ gaol and a fourth associate, Youngberg, to sixteen years’ gaol. The hunt for Sankey and Alcorn went on until, finally, they were run to earth this week. Sankey had employed a Chicago surgeon to remove some moles from his face, which formed part of his description in the police “wanted” sheet. The surgeon informed the police. Sankey's face became so sore that he could not shave himself. He arranged for special treatment at a barber’s shop. Detectives disguised as assistants and customers were waiting for him there and arrested him on his arrival. The Lindbergh Case. Listed among the first ten “ enemies of public safety,” Verne Sankey will be considered a “ first-class suspect ” in the fatal kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. The Federal Department of Justice, in making the announcement, stated that Sankey would remain in that category until developments convict him or utterly eliminate him from it. Sankey strenuously denies complicity in the Lindbergh case, but admits the abduction of the youth Boettcher, for whose ransom he collected 60,000 dollars (£12,000). | The Chief Federal Detective (Mr Kinkead) finds a strange similarity In handwriting between the Boettcher and Lindbergh ransom notes. There is one other circumstance which links Sankey to the Lindbergh case. A long-distance telephone call has been traced from New Jersey to Sankey’s ranch in South Dakota. It was made shortly after the Lindbergh J kidnapping.