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(#1) John Paul Getty III
- Dec. at 55 (1956-2011)
In 1973, nine members of the Calabrian Mafia abducted John Paul Getty III - the grandson of an oil tycoon. Getty, 16, was on holiday in Rome when the Mafia took him to a mountain hideaway. Shortly afterward, Getty's family received a ransom note asking for $17 million. Getty's grandfather refused to pay the ransom, so the next letter they received came with one of Getty's ears and the threat:
This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits.
Getty's family reluctantly paid the decreased ransom, and their son was safely returned. Italian authorities convicted two of the kidnappers, but the rest of the men involved were acquitted.
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(#2) Marion Parker
- Dec. at 12 (1915-1927)
William Edward Hickman, 19, abducted 12-year-old Marion Parker from her Los Angeles school in 1927. After the abduction, Hickman began sending letters to her father demanding to be paid in gold certificates. He signed them as "FOX-FATE." One letter read: "Your daughter's life hangs by a thread and I have a Gillette ready and able to handle the situation."
After changing meeting places multiple times, the "Fox" and Marion's father finally met on a street corner, where Marion's father could see his daughter sitting in the passenger seat of the kidnapper's car concealed up to her neck by clothing and unable to move. Once her father handed over the ransom, Marion's body was thrown out of the car and a coroner later testified that she'd been dead for 12 hours. The courts hung Hickman for his offenses in 1928.
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(#3) The Parents Of Dorothy Ann Distelhurst Received Fake Ransom Notes
In September 1934, 6-year-old Dorothy Ann Distelhurst left kindergarten and began walking the three blocks to her Nashville home, but she never made it. A few days after her disappearance went public, a postcard showed up at her family home that threatened to burn the girl's eyes out with acid if her father didn't pay the exorbitant fee of $175,000.
More letters and postcards arrived from all over the country demanding ransoms. Even though the police told her father that the messages were all likely hoaxes, he still flew to New York and attempted to pay $5,000 to a man who claimed to have his daughter. It was later found that man had never even been to Nashville.
About a month after the postcard incident, Dorothy's body was found in a shallow grave. An unknown assailant had bashed her head in with a hammer and used acid to burn off her face.
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(#4) June Robles
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In 1934, an unknown man abducted 6-year-old June Robles - daughter of Fernando Robles, the owner of the Robles Electric Company - outside of her school in Tucson. After the kidnapping, the man paid a young boy 25 cents to deliver a note to Fernando demanding $15,000 for June's safe return. The mystery man only referred to himself as "Z" and instructed Fernando not to speak with the police.
After a lot of back and forth, "Z" cut contact with Fernando. Then the Governor of Arizona received a postcard mailed from Chicago that gave him instructions as to where June was being kept in the desert. It took highway patrolmen two hours to find June, who was locked in a small metal cage and buried under some shrubbery. She was alive and unharmed.
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(#5) The Lipstick Killer Left A Note For Police Begging To Be Caught
In late 1945, the Lipstick Killer left a note for police scrawled in lipstick on the wall of the second victim's Chicago-area apartment after slaying two women: "For heavens Sake catch me Before I kill more I cannot control myself."
One month after that message, 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan’s was found missing from her room. Her parents recovered a ransom note outside her bedroom window: "GeI $20,000 Reddy & wAITe foR WoRd. do NoT NoTify FBI oR Police. Bills IN 5's & 10's." And on the back of the note: "BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY."
At the same time, the mayor of Chicago received a note that read: "This is to tell you how sorry I am not to not get ole Degnan instead of his girl. Roosevelt and the OPA made their own laws. Why shouldn't I and a lot more?"
After an anonymous tip suggesting they look in the sewer near the Degnan home, police found the severed head and torso of Suzanne Degnan. After a city-wide man hunt, and a few false starts, the police arrested William Heirens. Even though the courts convicted Heirens, there's still speculation as to whether he was actually responsible.
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(#6) Annie Laurie Hearin Allegedly Pleaded With Her Husband To Pay Her Ransom
In 1988, 72-year-old Annie Laurie Hearin - the wife of Robert Hearin, the owner of Mississippi's largest gas distribution company, Mississippi Valley Gas Co. - was abducted from their home after a violent attack. During the initial investigation, police found a typed ransom letter:
Mr. Robert Hearin, Put these people back in the shape they was in before they got mixed up with School Pictures. Pay them whatever damages they want and tell them all this so then can no what you are doing but dont tell them why you are doing it. Do this before ten days pass. Don't call police.
Rather than pay the ransom, Robert made a public appeal for his wife's return. Then he received a second note, this time allegedly from Annie:
Bob, If you don't do what these people want you to do, they are going to seal me up in the cellar of this house with only a few jugs of water. Please save me, Annie Laurie.
Even after paying out the ransom, he never saw his wife again. In 1990, law enforcement apprehended Newton A. Winn and convicted him of conspiracy in relation to Hearin’s disappearance. The courts never filed charges, and investigators never recovered Hearin’s body, as she was declared dead in 1991.
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(#7) Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr
- Dec. at 2 (1930-1932)
Prior to the JonBenét Ramsey case, the 1932 disappearance of the Lindbergh Baby was the biggest child abduction case that the world had ever seen. The son of a world-famous pilot was only 2-years-old when he was abducted from his home and replaced with a note that demanded $50,000 in exchange for the child. The ransom also included veiled threats: "We warn you for making anyding [sic] public or for notify the Police The child is in gut [sic] care."
Over the course of more ransom notes, the captors increased the money to $70,000. After paying the fee, the kidnappers told the Lindberghs that their son was on a ship named The Nelly. Later, investigators recovered Charlie's body less than a mile away from the Lindbergh mansion. Coroners believed he had died the night of the abduction.
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(#8) Virginia Piper's Husband Paid $1 Million For His Wife's Safe Release
Unknown assailants kidnapped CEO Bobby Piper’s wife, Virginia Piper, in 1972. The ransom note led Virginia’s husband on a scavenger hunt across the Twin Cities in order to unload $1 million for her return. According to the letter, if the person delivering the money made one wrong move, Virginia would be killed.
After Bobby deposited the cash, the captors released Virginia from a tree where she'd been chained up for two days. Despite two arrests for Piper's kidnapping, no one ever went to prison for the abduction.
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(#9) Leopold And Loeb Typed A Ransom Note On A Stolen Typewriter
In 1923, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb orchestrated a plan where they planned to kidnap a child for money, kill the abductee in a rental car, and dispose of the body. They decided on Loeb’s cousin, 14-year-old Bobby Franks. The duo then devised a series of steps the boy's wealthy family would have to take in order to pay the $10,000 ransom.
Leopold and Loeb typed the ransom note a stolen Underwood 3 typewriter. The note is mostly a description of a building, but it ends with "this is the only chance to recover your son." Shortly afterward, a police investigation began into Leopold and Loeb because Chicago authorities had found Leopold's glasses near Bobby's body.
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(#10) JonBenét Ramsey
- Dec. at 6 (1990-1996)
This is quite possibly the most famous and heavily debated ransom letter ever. On Christmas morning 1996, Patsy Ramsey discovered a 2.5-page letter on her kitchen staircase demanding $118,000 for the safe return of her daughter. Some of the letter reads:
You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account. $100,000 will be in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure that you bring an adequate size attached to the bank. When you get home you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you between 8 and 10 am tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested.
The day after receiving the letter, Patsy's husband and JonBenét's father, John, discovered her body in the family's basement. Due to a mishandling of the investigation by local and federal authorities, JonBenét's case is still largely a mystery. However, there are a considerable amount of theories floating around the Internet that range from an accidental fatal blow to the head to an international conspiracy.
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(#11) The Ransom Note For Toddler Charley Ross Was The First In US History
In 2012, a Philadelphia school librarian uncovered what may be the first ransom notes in American history. The 22 letters, addressed to the kidnapped boy’s father, Christian Ross, first appeared after unknown assailants abducted 4-year-old Charley Ross from his Germantown home in 1874:
You wil have to pay us before you git him from us, and pay us a big cent to. if you put the cops hunting for him you is only defeeting yu own end.
Then a second letter appeared:
This is the lever that moved the rock that hides him from yu $20,000. Not one doler les - impossible - impossible - you cannot get him without it.
In spite of the Ross family's lifelong efforts, they were never able to find Charlie. Although the courts convicted William Westervelt of being complicit in Charlie's kidnapping, there's some debate about whether he was just a scapegoat or if he had actual knowledge of the abduction.
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(#12) Thieves Stole A Parrot And Left Behind A Cut-And-Paste Ransom Note
On February 20, 2015, an unknown assailant kidnapped Cara Cosson's African Gray parrot, JoeJoe, from her Bedfordshire home in England. In his place, someone left a cut-and-paste ransom note: "Want your Bird back alive Txt ****** contact Police bird Dies a Slow Agonising Death."
Cosson offered over $2,000 for the bird’s safe return. Although Bedfordshire authorities made one initial arrest in relation to the abduction, no convictions have been made. Investigators never recovered JoeJoe.
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About This Tool
Nowadays, the crime of kidnapping is so common in the storylines of various cultural and artistic forms. We can only say that art comes from life. As early as the early 1930s, television and the Internet were not invented. The concept of investigative journalism has only just emerged, and there have been several political and profitable kidnapping crimes that shocked the world. Criminals usually blackmail cash, and these tragedies usually happened in wealthy families.
No family can be prepared without fear when discovering that their child is missing, they all heartbreaking and scared when they got the ransom notes. The random tool shows 12 disturbing ransom notes of some tragedies in history.
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