12 Disturbing Ransom Notes

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. The Mafia took him to a mountain hideaway. Soon after, Getty's family got a ransom note asking for $17 million. Getty's grandfather refused payment. The next letter contained one of Getty's ears and the threat.the threat:

This is Paul's ear. If we do not get money in 10 days, the other ear arrives. This means he will arrive in pieces.

Getty's family paid the reduced ransom. Their son returned safely. Italian authorities convicted two kidnappers. The rest of the men involved were acquitted.twoof the kidnappers, but the other men involved walked free.

William Edward Hickman, age 19, abducted 12-year-old Marion Parker from her Los Angeles school in 1927. After the abduction, Hickman sent letters to her father demanding gold certificates. He signed them "FOX-FATE". One letter stated, "Your daughter's life hangs by a thread and I have a Gillette ready and able to handle the situation."FOX-FATEOne 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 spots many times, the "Fox" and Marion's father finally met on a street corner. Marion's father saw his daughter in the passenger seat of the kidnapper's car, hidden by clothing and unable to move. When her father gave the ransom, Marion's body was thrown from the car. A coroner later said she died twelve hours prior. The courtshung Hickmanfor his 1928 offenses.

In September 1934, 6-year-old Dorothy Ann Distelhurst left kindergarten. She started walking three blocks to her Nashville home but never arrived. A few days after her disappearance became public, a postcard appeared at her family home. It threatened to burn the girl's eyes with acid if her father did not pay $175,000.

More letters and postcards arrived from all over the country demanding ransoms. Even though the police told her father the messages were likely hoaxes, he flew to New York and tried to pay $5,000.pay $5,000to a man who claimed to have his daughter. Investigators later found that man had never visited Nashville.

About a month after the postcard incident, Dorothy's body was found in a shallow grave.shallow grave. An unknown assailant hit her head with a hammer and used acid to burn her face.

In 1934, an unknown man took 6-year-old June Robles. He was the son of Fernando Robles, owner of the Robles Electric Company. He abducted her outside 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 return. The mystery man only called himself "Z" and told Fernando not to speak to the police.

After much back and forth, "Z" cut contact with Fernando. Then the Governor of Arizonareceived a postcardSomeone mailed from Chicago giving instructions on where June was held in the desert. Highway patrolmen took two hours to find June, locked in a small metal cage and buried under brush. She was alive and unharmed.

Late in 1945, the Lipstick Killer left a note in lipstick on the wall of the second victim's Chicago-area apartment after killing two women. The note read: "For heavens Sake catch me Before I kill more I cannot control myself."

One month after that message, police found six-year-old Suzanne Degnan missing from her room. Her parents recovered her.A ransom note.Outside her bedroom window, the note read: "GeI $20,000 Reddy & wAITe foR WoRd. do NoT NoTify FBI oR Police. Bills IN 5's & 10's." The back of the note said: "BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY."

The Chicago mayor got a note saying: "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 suggested they look in the sewer near the Degnan home, police found...The police found the severed head and torso of Suzanne Degnan near the Degnan home in the sewer.Police found Suzanne Degnan's severed head and torso near the Degnan home. A city-wide manhunt and some wrong leads led police to arrest William Heirens. Courts convicted Heirens, but people still guess if he did the deed.

In 1988, 72-year-old Annie Laurie Hearin, wife of Robert Hearin, owner of Mississippi's largest gas distribution company, Mississippi Valley Gas Co., was abducted from their home after a violent attack. Police found a typed...A ransom letter.:

Mr. Robert Hearin, put these people back in the shape they were in before they got mixed up with School Pictures. Pay them whatever damages they want and tell them all this so you know what you are doing, but don't tell them why you are doing it. Do this before ten days pass. Do not call the police.

Instead of paying the ransom, Robert made a public appeal for his wife's return. Then he got a second note, this time allegedly...from Annie:

Bob, If you don't do what these people want you to do, they will seal me up in the cellar of this house with only a few jugs of water. Please save me, Annie Laurie.

Even after paying the ransom, he never saw his wife again. In 1990, law enforcement caught Newton A. Winn and convicted him of...conspiracyconspiracy in relation to Hearin’s disappearance. The courts never filed charges, and investigators never found Hearin’s body; she was declared dead in 1991.

Before the JonBenét Ramsey case, the 1932 disappearance of the Lindbergh Baby was the largest child abduction case the world had ever seen. The son of a famous pilot was only two years old when he vanished from his house and replacedwith a notethat demanded $50,000 for the child. The ransom also included threats: "We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the Police The child is in gut care."

Captors increased the money for more ransom notes.They paid $70,000.After paying, kidnappers told the Lindberghs their son was on a ship calledThe Nelly.Investigators found Charlie's body less than a mile from the Lindbergh mansion. Coroners thought he died the night of the abduction.

Unknown assailants took CEO Bobby Piper’s wife, Virginia Piper, in 1972. The ransom note made Virginia’s husband search the Twin Cities to unload$1 millionfor her return. The letter stated if the money deliverer made one mistake, Virginia would die.

After Bobby deposited the cash, the captors released Virginiafrom a tree.She had been chained up there for two days. Despite two arrests for Piper's kidnapping, no one went to prison for the abduction.

In 1923, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb planned to kidnap a child for money, kill the victim in a rental car, and dispose of the body. They chose Loeb’s cousin, 14-year-old Bobby Franks. The duo planned steps the boy's wealthy family needed to take to pay the$10,000ransom.

Leopold and Loeb typed theransom notea stolen Underwood 3 typewriter. The note described a building but ended with "this is the only chance to recover your son." What the boy's parents did not know was their son wasalready dead.

Soon after, a police investigation started into Leopold and Loeb because Chicago authorities foundLeopold's glassesnear Bobby's body.

This is possibly the most famous and debated ransom letter ever. On Christmas morning 1996, Patsy Ramseyfound a 2.5-page letteron her kitchen staircase demanding $118,000 for her daughter's safe return. 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 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 getting the letter, Patsy's husband and JonBenét's father, John, found her body in the family basement. The note itself was strange for several reasons. Investigators said they never saw such a long ransom note. The paper came from a notepad at the Ramseys' home, meaning it was written at the crime scene. Former Police Chief Mark Beckner stated, “No note has ever been written at the scene and left with the dead victim there, except for this case.” John and Patsy both gave handwriting samples. John was ruled out as the writer; Patsy's sample showed no match. Beckner said, “Handwriting experts saw strange things,” including Patsy writing "118,000.00" in words.

John and Patsy had oddities with the ransom letter.ruled out as suspects in their daughter's murder. Mishandling the investigation by local and federal authorities leaves JonBenét's case mostly a mystery. However, many theories float online, ranging from an accidental fatal blow to the head to an international conspiracy.Local and federal authorities mishandled the investigation into JonBenét's murder. This makes JonBenét's case mostly a mystery. Yet, there is a large amount of evidence.many theoriesInternet theories range from an accidental fatal blow to the head to an international conspiracy.

In 2012, a Philadelphia school librarian found what might be the first ransom notes in American history. The 22 letters, addressed to the kidnapped boy’s father, Christian Ross, appeared after unknown people took 4-year-old Charley Ross from his Germantown home in 1874.

You must pay us before you get him; pay us a large sum. If you have the cops hunting for him, you only defeat yourself.

Then asecond letter appeared:

This is the lever that moved the rock hiding him from you; pay $20,000. Not one dollar less—impossible—impossible—you cannot get him without it.

Despite the Ross family's long efforts, they never found Charlie. Courts convicted William Westervelt of aiding Charlie's kidnapping. Some debate exists over whether he was just a scapegoat or if he actually knew about the abduction.

On February 20, 2015, an unknown person kidnapped Cara Cosson's African Gray parrot, JoeJoe, from her Bedfordshire home in England. Someone left a cut-and-pasteransom 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. Bedfordshire authorities made one first arrest about the abduction, but no convictions occurred. Investigators never found JoeJoe.