0:00

This is a Glassbox Media Podcast.

0:18

The world, from of old

0:20

to our day, is full of

0:22

stories of stolen children. They

0:24

are stories of bereavements sharper

0:27

than death. From

0:29

the 1876 memoir of Christian Ross. One

0:35

summer afternoon in 1874,

0:38

five-year-old Walter and his four-year-old

0:40

brother, Charlie, were out

0:42

playing in their front yard in Germantown, an

0:45

affluent neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia,

0:48

when two men pulled up in a carriage. These

0:51

men were known to the boys, though

0:54

not by name, as they'd been by on a

0:56

few occasions to give them candy. This

0:59

time, the two men offered candy

1:01

and something even more enticing, firecrackers.

1:05

So Walter and Charlie hopped into the carriage

1:08

and were taken across the city. Walter

1:11

was given 25 cents to go and

1:13

buy firecrackers inside of a store. But

1:16

when he exited the shop, the

1:18

two men and Charlie had disappeared. The

1:22

four-year-old was never seen again.

1:27

Thus begins one of the most infamous

1:29

kidnappings in American history. Today

1:32

we'll learn about Charlie's disappearance and

1:34

the mayhem that ensued, including

1:36

botched police investigations, conspiracy,

1:39

political subterfuge, and

1:41

the River Pirate gangs that patrolled

1:44

the Delaware. This is

1:46

Jennifer Amell, filling in for your regular missing

1:48

hosts, pun intended. Tim

1:50

Pilleri and Lance Ream-Cerna will be right back

1:52

after a word from our sponsors. Before

2:00

we begin today's episode, you're about to

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hear a word from our sponsors. These

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the feed. Now a word from our

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sponsors. Do you

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tattoos? I'm Sean Williams. And I'm Danny

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Underworld Podcast. We're journalists that have

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traveled all over reporting on dangerous people and

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places. And every week we'll be bringing

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you a new story about organized crime from all over

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the world. We know this stuff because

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we've been there, we've seen it, and we've got the

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mix in reporting with our own experiences in the field

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and we'll throw in some bad jokes while we're at it. The

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Underworld Podcast explores the criminal underworld that

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affect all of our lives, whether we know it or

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not. Available wherever you get your

3:24

podcasts. Tim

3:26

and Lance here. Lance, I got a

3:28

question for you. Yes sir. Am

3:30

I the butt head for stealing

3:32

an engagement ring or for ruining

3:34

an entire dog Olympics? Is that

3:36

something you've actually done Tim? Or

3:38

are you presenting me with a

3:40

hypothetical scenario? I'm presenting you with

3:42

a hypothetical scenario that's based on

3:44

Rslash, which is a new podcast

3:46

that I've been listening to. It's

3:48

fantastic. Tim, and you know that

3:50

I love a good Reddit scroll,

3:53

so Rslash is my kind of

3:55

show. I think it's your kind

3:57

of show as well. And for those who don't know, Rslash

3:59

is my kind of show. Slash is a

4:01

hilarious podcast where Dabney Bailey

4:03

uses ridiculous voices and emotions

4:05

to read aloud the week's

4:07

craziest Reddit posts. He reenacts

4:09

various Reddit threads covering wild

4:11

stories and secrets, petty revenge,

4:13

relationships, and much more. So

4:15

if you're looking for a

4:17

daily distraction and a laugh,

4:19

check out r slash wherever

4:21

you get your podcast. Tim,

4:24

can you spell that for me? Sure

4:26

can Lance. That's R-S-L-A-S-H. The

4:34

kidnapping of Charlie Ross not

4:36

only predated the infamous Lindbergh baby

4:38

kidnapping, but garnered equivalent

4:40

public interest. Which is to

4:42

say, it swept through the nation like

4:45

a wildfire. It shaped

4:47

American history and culture, from

4:49

stranger danger to sinister

4:51

ransom letters to the modern-day Charlie

4:53

Project, which might be familiar to

4:55

some listeners. The Charlie

4:58

Project was named after Charlie Ross, and

5:01

it's the internet's largest index of

5:03

missing persons cases. Since

5:05

its disappearance, no less than 570

5:07

people around the world have claimed to be Charlie

5:11

Ross. For scale, this

5:13

far surpasses the mere dozens of

5:15

people who came forward claiming

5:17

to be Princess Anastasia, who

5:20

was said to have escaped the massacre of a

5:22

royal family in Russia. Charlie's

5:28

story and its aftermath is an

5:30

epic. So to help

5:32

us understand it, I contacted Carrie Hagan,

5:35

author of the authoritative book on this case.

5:39

Carrie Hagan, welcome to Missing. So

5:41

Carrie is the author of We

5:43

Is Gottem, The Kidnapping That Changed

5:46

America. Now Carrie, can you

5:48

give us some context for how important

5:50

Charlie's case was for America? Like

5:52

why even talk about an historical case like

5:54

this? Sure. So

5:57

historians agree in saying that.

6:00

that the kidnapping of

6:02

Charlie Ross was the first recorded

6:04

ransom kidnapping in American history. And

6:06

I know that's a very big

6:09

statement. But I found that to

6:11

be you know, of course, children

6:13

had been trafficked and kidnapped and

6:16

Philadelphia was a kidnapping

6:18

ground before the Civil

6:21

War for free black children and slave

6:23

traders slave traffickers, you know, we're the

6:25

first major city north of the Mason

6:27

Dixon line. The project I'm working

6:29

on. I'm working on a project now for University of

6:32

Georgia, about Philadelphia's underground railroad.

6:34

And one of the really shocking things

6:36

for me and researching that has just

6:39

been how, how

6:41

just rampant the that

6:44

battle for the bodies of black children

6:46

was then you know, Charlie wasn't the

6:48

first child kidnapped. But in terms of

6:51

kidnapping for ransom and certainly receiving the

6:53

attention that it did. That's the

6:55

catchphrase that that drew me to the story.

6:58

And the fact that, you know,

7:00

just spoiler alert right up front that

7:02

he was never found. I

7:06

know really allowed this story

7:10

to permeate American

7:12

folklore and American history. When

7:14

the book first came out

7:16

in 2011, I received

7:18

just a small flurry of

7:21

emails. You know,

7:23

so and so told my

7:25

grandfather that that his dad was

7:28

the missing Charlie Ross. I mean, there are there are

7:30

little stories like that,

7:32

that I heard a decent amount of

7:34

and that the family for years

7:36

heard a decent amount of so, you

7:39

know, it went from this horrible

7:41

event that captured America's attention 50

7:44

years before the Lindbergh baby

7:46

was taken to this kind

7:48

of ongoing almost

7:52

I don't want to use the word whimsical because

7:55

it was such a tragic event. But the ways

7:57

in which I've heard about the story from you

7:59

know, the a piece of

8:01

cut glass to, you

8:04

know, the mention of Charlie Ross

8:06

almost humorously in folklore songs that,

8:09

you know, the saga of what

8:11

happened to this unfound child became

8:15

very much a part of American

8:17

culture for, I would say, that

8:19

50-year period. In

8:22

1874, Philadelphia announced

8:24

that it would be hosting

8:27

the much-anticipated Centennial Exposition, something

8:29

that New York City was pretty mad

8:31

about. The Centennial Exposition was the first

8:34

World's Fair in commemoration of America's 100th

8:37

anniversary. It was expected

8:39

to showcase all the latest from industry

8:41

to social reform, from the

8:43

first presentation of the telephone, typewriter, and

8:45

sewing machine to a women's pavilion,

8:48

which was the first international event

8:50

to showcase the contributions of women

8:53

and in support of the suffrage movement,

8:55

millions from across the world

8:57

were expected to attend. But

9:00

Philadelphia didn't have enough room to

9:03

host the crowds that were coming in. So

9:05

pretty soon, as word is getting out that

9:07

this little boy is taken and, you know,

9:09

the mayor feels some pressure to offer a

9:11

reward of $20,000 for information leading to the

9:15

child and, you

9:17

know, all of that drama is being built

9:19

up, he's trying to figure

9:21

out, you know, how do we take care of

9:23

the story to get people to come into this

9:25

city? The city

9:28

starts asking people through its

9:30

editorial pages to host strangers

9:32

during the Centennial. There's

9:34

not enough space. The New York Crested already

9:37

identified that very loudly. And

9:40

you know, so people were, you know,

9:42

people were being

9:44

really encouraged to host

9:47

strangers at the same time that, you know, the idea of

9:49

the stranger coming in and preying upon this child. But

9:52

yes, at any rate, I think that as

9:54

the Centennial is coming, that creates a huge

9:56

mass of public, you know, PR. nightmare

10:00

for the mayor and his people.

10:02

And everything was, in

10:05

some ways, power money was smaller and

10:07

more connected. And there was this group

10:09

of advisors that the mayor had that

10:11

included a newspaper publisher.

10:14

And he would

10:16

definitely the newspapers talk about how

10:18

he answered to them and this group of men

10:21

would get around and kind of, you know, talk

10:23

about how to handle Charlie Ross. A

10:30

few hours after being left outside the

10:32

fireworks store, a kindly

10:34

stranger found Walter Ross crying

10:36

on the street corner. This

10:39

stranger brought Walter back to his

10:41

home at East Washington Lane in

10:43

Germantown. Christian

10:46

Ross, Walter and Charlie's father, tells

10:49

of the moment when he found out Charlie was

10:51

missing in his memoir, A Father's

10:54

Story. At about 8 p.m.

10:56

that evening, as Christian was preparing

10:58

to go alert the police, he

11:00

saw Walter walking down Main Street in the

11:02

company of a Mr. Peacock. When

11:06

we joined them, I asked Walter where he

11:08

had been. The child was so

11:10

much frightened that he could not reply. Mr.

11:14

Peacock answered for him that

11:16

he had found him in Kensington. I then

11:19

asked Walter where Charlie was. He

11:22

answered, why he's all right, he's

11:24

in the wagon, supposing that

11:26

he himself was the lost

11:28

one and not doubting that Charlie would

11:30

be brought back. And

11:34

Christian, Christian went on to the

11:36

police station and informed them that Charlie

11:38

was missing and told authorities

11:40

Walter's story. In

11:43

so many ways, the police acted,

11:45

you know, again, it was

11:47

a young force, but, you

11:49

know, at the time, police officers were

11:51

still in the beginning, they were still

11:54

working on the side, a lot of

11:56

them as private investigators. So there was

11:58

definitely corruption. There was definitely, definitely

12:01

stomping ground, a territorial feuding between who

12:03

was in charge of the story and

12:05

who wasn't in charge of the story.

12:08

So in that sense, I feel like the story

12:10

of Charlie Ross definitely calls

12:13

attention to a city at a

12:15

time when it was really becoming

12:17

defined as a city. I mean, America, you

12:19

know, is getting ready to enter in second

12:21

century. In Philadelphia, at the same time that

12:24

Charlie Ross was taken, the very day the

12:26

mayor finds out that this little boy was

12:28

taken and that there's a

12:30

kidnapper involved and the newspapers

12:32

are being used, he

12:34

is getting ready to, or he

12:37

is announcing that the city is welcoming the

12:39

centennial exposition and he's, you know, getting ready

12:41

to try to figure out ways to draw

12:44

all kinds of attention to Philadelphia and to

12:46

welcome tourists to Philadelphia. So

12:49

you know, people know Philadelphia's iconic

12:52

city hall, right? The building that

12:55

for years was the highest

12:58

point in the city was the statue of William Penn,

13:01

right? And the

13:03

cornerstone of that building was

13:06

laid the very same day that, you

13:08

know, the lost

13:10

advertisement for Charlie Ross hit the newspaper.

13:12

So in the cornerstone of city hall,

13:14

it just so happens that there's a

13:17

newspaper from that day when it was

13:20

dedicated that saying this child

13:22

was missing. Christian's

13:26

wife, Sophie Ross, had

13:28

been in poor health and had taken

13:30

the oldest children to Atlantic City for a

13:32

few weeks for a summer vacation. For

13:35

this reason, Christian didn't want any mention

13:37

of Charlie's disappearance in the papers, hoping

13:39

to recover him before she returned and

13:42

not wishing to cause her, quote, undue

13:46

alarm. After searching all night, Christian woke his

13:49

son Walter around 7 a.m. Here's

13:52

what he writes, quote, I

13:55

awakened Walter and refrain from saying anything

13:57

to him about his adventure the preceding

13:59

day. Until he had his breakfast. He

14:02

was pale and nervous, not

14:04

having wholly recovered from his fright. The

14:08

story that Walter told was that two men

14:10

driving on the lane in a buggy had

14:12

given him and his brother Charlie candy on

14:15

Saturday June 27th, Monday June 29th, Tuesday

14:17

June 30th, and Wednesday

14:21

July 1st. And

14:23

that Charlie had asked them for a ride and

14:26

also whether they would not buy him

14:28

firecrackers, which they promised to do.

14:32

After driving to the top of the hill,

14:34

they turned around and took them into the wagon.

14:38

Walter asked them to go to the main street to

14:40

get the firecrackers. To

14:42

this request, the men said, no, we will

14:44

take you to Aunt Susie's, a

14:47

fictitious person who

14:49

keeps the store and will

14:51

give you a pocket full for five cents. He

14:54

said Charlie was placed on the seat between

14:56

the men and he sat on the knee of the one

14:58

who was not driving. He

15:00

also said that the men talked to them as they

15:03

drove along, but said

15:05

more to Charlie than to him that

15:07

they did not talk much to each other. About

15:10

all he remembered they're saying was that the one

15:12

on whose knee he sat took off

15:14

his hat and showing it to his

15:16

companion remarked that it was about

15:18

worn out and that he would have to get

15:20

another one. And the

15:24

rest of Walter's story remains unchanged. They

15:27

reached Palmer in Richmond Street, and

15:30

he was given money to buy some firecrackers. When

15:33

he exited the store, the men and Charlie were gone.

15:36

And this was confirmed by a little girl

15:38

who witnessed the two men give Walter money.

15:42

This little girl also saw the men drive

15:44

up Palmer Street to the

15:46

first small street, then turn the

15:48

corner, and disappear in

15:50

an easterly direction. Walter

15:52

also mentioned that the two men shared a

15:54

tincture of liquor and water between them, stopping

15:57

periodically to add more water from the

15:59

store. public taps. Walter

16:02

went on to describe the appearance of the men. The

16:06

driver was medium-sized, about 5'9",

16:09

rather full and red in the face, and

16:12

with a red or sandy moustache, a

16:14

no beard, eyeglasses, and

16:17

an open-faced gold watch, gold vest

16:19

chain, and green sleeve buttons.

16:23

The other man Walter described as, quote,

16:25

older, taller, and heavier than the

16:27

driver. He had whiskers

16:30

about 3 inches long of a red

16:32

or sandy color, and a

16:34

nose which was turned up or in some way deformed.

16:37

He wore gold bowed spectacles and

16:40

two gold rings on one of his middle fingers, one

16:42

plain and the other set with a red stone,

16:45

end quote. The

16:47

police told Christian that they believed the two

16:49

men had taken Shirley because they

16:52

were drunk. Once they had

16:54

sobered up and realized what they had done, the

16:56

police theorized. Shirley would turn

17:00

up. This was not comforting to Christian Ross.

17:04

Detectives went on to question Christian about the

17:06

kidnapper's possible motives. Christian

17:09

couldn't think of anyone who wanted to harm him

17:11

or his family. Later

17:13

speculation for the targeting of Charlie Ross

17:16

is that he lived in an affluent neighborhood,

17:18

and perhaps the kidnappers thought the Rosses had

17:20

money. But it turns out they

17:23

didn't, and Christian was in a lot

17:25

of debt due to the stock market

17:27

crash of 1873. Then

17:30

Christian got word that a quote,

17:32

band of gypsies were breaking camp

17:34

and were passing down Germantown Lane.

17:38

Someone saw a little boy in their company who was crying.

17:41

They assumed the child did not belong to that group,

17:44

and they thought that it might just be

17:46

Charlie Ross. It's

17:49

important to mention that so-called gypsies

17:52

could have meant any kind of nomadic

17:54

people from Romanes to Mexicans

17:56

to Hungarians. Gypsy

17:58

is a derogatory. term for those

18:01

groups, and the stereotype

18:03

around them is that they were a

18:05

group engaged in criminal activity and

18:07

routinely stole children. So

18:10

to Christian's 19th century understanding, this

18:13

tip could have proven true. Three

18:18

officers were dispatched and

18:20

approached this group and

18:22

made a thorough search of their plan, but

18:25

no trace of Charlie or of any

18:27

children for that matter were found. That

18:30

same day, Christian decided to

18:32

print several advertisements promising

18:34

a $300 reward for

18:37

Charlie's safe return. All

18:39

Christian could do was sit back and wait

18:41

for some kind of result. While

18:44

he waited, he went to the Central Police

18:46

Station. That day, Christian's

18:48

brother came bursting inside waving an

18:51

envelope in the air. It

18:54

was postmarked Philadelphia, July the 3rd, 8am.

18:59

It read in unruly black ink

19:02

the following. Mr.

19:05

Ross, be not uneasy.

19:08

You son Charlie Brewster will be

19:10

all right. We as Gotham and

19:12

no powers on earth can deliver out of

19:14

your hand. He

19:16

will have to pay us before you get him from us and

19:19

pay us a big cent too. If

19:22

you put the cops hunting for him, he is only

19:24

defeating you on end. We

19:26

as Gotham. Put

19:29

so no living power can get him

19:31

from us alive. If

19:33

any approach is made to his hiding place, that

19:36

is the signal for his instant

19:38

annihilation. If you regard his

19:40

life with no one to search for him,

19:42

you money can fess him out alive and

19:45

no other existent powers. Don't

19:47

deceive yourself and think the

19:49

detectives can get him from us, for

19:51

that is impossible. You

19:54

hear from us in few day. And

20:21

we'll be right back after a quick word

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saving the day. Happy Holidays.

22:54

Happy Holidays, indeed. Rex Howardman

22:56

is a demon that walks among

22:59

us. A

23:01

predator that ruined

23:03

families. The List podcast team was shocked by

23:05

the recent news

23:07

of Rex Howardman's arrest in connection with the

23:09

Gilgolf War murders. After more than a

23:12

decade of searching, law enforcement officials

23:14

finally pieced together enough evidence to bring

23:16

formal charges against him. I'm

23:19

your host, Chris Moss, and the List podcast

23:22

will be releasing new episodes every week to

23:24

unpack how Howardman was caught. We'll track developments

23:26

in the case as well as conduct interviews

23:28

with officials and witnesses familiar to all the

23:30

troubling details. We are relieved by the arrest,

23:33

but with new information coming to light every

23:35

day, there's still so much to learn. Look

23:37

for new episodes every week, and if you

23:40

haven't already, please listen to seasons one and

23:42

two of List's Long Island Serial Killer wherever

23:44

you listen to podcasts. the

24:00

absolute chill this sent through not only

24:02

of the Ross family, but the

24:05

larger community of Philadelphia. Christian

24:09

Ross writes, quote, So

24:11

overwhelming was the astonishment and

24:14

indignation that for a

24:16

time everyone was silent. The

24:18

disguised writing, the evident effort

24:21

and bad spelling, the

24:23

absence of the fact that my child had been taken

24:25

away from any, indicated that

24:27

the rat should design the plot and

24:29

carefully prepared to guard himself and

24:31

to file accomplices from detection. Tell

24:36

us about those ransom letters. How are

24:38

they distinct? It is,

24:40

you know, and they really offer a window

24:42

into this kind of 19th century criminal psychology

24:45

in a way. They're very,

24:47

they're very eerie. They're very, they vary

24:49

in length. They're eerie.

24:51

At times they use

24:53

poetic metaphor and this kind

24:55

of sing song quality. When

24:59

you compare the handwriting

25:03

between the letters, sometimes words are spelled incorrectly. Sometimes

25:06

they're not. But

25:08

they span, you know, a couple

25:10

of months from when they begin and when they end.

25:13

And that's how we have the 23 and a half

25:15

as they say. That's

25:17

the piece of the story that like makes

25:19

it mythical to me. I don't know. Maybe

25:21

it's just the way in which they're written.

25:23

But yeah, it does lend this like haunting

25:25

quality to the story. I mean,

25:28

despite the fact that it's a kidnapped child

25:30

we're talking about. It looks

25:32

like, you know, so when we think

25:34

about ransom letters now, you

25:38

know, and what we see on TV, right?

25:40

Because that's where most of us, you

25:43

know, have experienced looking at other

25:45

ones, what we see on the crime shows.

25:48

You know, we'll see the cut out

25:50

words put together. There's

25:53

something horrific about the Joker-esque

25:56

kind of quality to how they're presented

25:58

as the person's character. trying to

26:01

disguise their identity. These kidnappers

26:03

are too, but you can definitely tell

26:06

and looking at them that like the

26:08

person who won't shut up, like

26:10

just say what you have to say in a

26:12

sentence or two and be done with it. That's

26:15

going to be freaky enough, right? So they go

26:17

on and on and on. It's almost just like

26:19

this unraveling and, you know,

26:21

you wonder, they're creating

26:23

a character of themselves.

26:25

There's some kind of failed

26:29

something at play and the way that these

26:31

are written because, you know, the family is

26:33

not releasing them to the press. The only

26:35

people reading them, you know, we have the

26:38

family and we have the police officers

26:40

and they want the money. So why the

26:44

long prose? And I don't know, on

26:46

the website, on my website, I have

26:49

an image or two of them, but you can see in the book, I mean,

26:52

here's one of them, like letter 10. I mean,

26:54

we're talking two page, that's

26:56

the font we're looking at. I

26:59

mean, for just the length, a very

27:01

long sum of them. So much theatrical.

27:03

Very theatrical. And they come from July and

27:05

they come during a very short period of

27:08

time. So we go from July of 1874.

27:10

And I believe

27:13

the last one is written

27:15

in October, September, October. They

27:19

go until November 6th

27:22

and then they stop. And

27:24

that's right around the time that the

27:27

mother and her brothers have arranged

27:29

a hotel meetup that is botched.

27:33

Christian went on to say that he was

27:35

sure the letter had come from Charlie's real kidnappers

27:38

because they had correctly said Charlie's middle

27:40

name Brewster. Now,

27:44

no one really called him Brewster, except

27:46

Walter on occasion. And

27:49

Walter remembered calling Charlie Brewster

27:52

while on that carriage ride with the

27:54

kidnappers. This was the first

27:56

known or at least well publicized kidnapping

27:59

for Rams. and

28:01

this letter, along with up to 23

28:03

more letters from the kidnappers, infused

28:06

or created the mythos of ransom

28:08

litters, such

28:10

as purposely disguised handwriting and spelling.

28:14

And now knowing that Charlie was kidnapped,

28:17

the police redirected their investigation. They

28:29

deployed a massive manhunt, searching every

28:31

vessel in the Delaware and Schuylkill

28:33

Rivers, all vehicles crossing

28:35

the bridges, all railroad

28:38

depots, and even abandoned houses

28:40

and barns. Even

28:45

some wealthy friends of the Ross family hired

28:47

the Pinkertons, a fabled

28:50

detective agency. Nothing,

28:53

however, was found of Charlie

28:55

Ross. But

28:58

then on July 6th, a

29:00

second letter arrived from the kidnappers, demanding

29:02

a $20,000 ransom, but

29:06

also promising that Charlie had not been harmed.

29:10

Christian was floored. $20,000 then would

29:12

be about half a million today. It

29:17

was an impossible sum. Christian

29:19

was instructed by authorities not

29:22

to even try negotiating with the kidnappers, as

29:25

their correspondence thus far had

29:27

been published in the local

29:29

paper, and they didn't really want the

29:31

public to know what was going on. Even

29:35

if they managed to agree on a reasonable

29:37

ransom, how would they exchange the money

29:39

for the child? It came

29:41

down to a question of logistics. One

29:44

newspaper correspondent came up

29:46

with what's known as the Bridge Story, where

29:50

Christian would find a bridge on a flat

29:52

land somewhere, and through a

29:54

ridiculous setup of a series of

29:56

code phrases to three of the

29:59

kidnappers' henchmen, would deliver the money and

30:01

just, I don't know, hope that

30:03

they'd honor the exchange and give him

30:05

Charlie. One other guy

30:07

all the way in California suggested that

30:10

Mr. Ross hollow out some large logs

30:12

and place them under the bridge, in

30:15

which the police would hide and then

30:18

jump out and shoot the kidnappers once

30:20

Charlie was secured. Meanwhile,

30:22

and understandably, Christian

30:25

decided to try and raise the ransom

30:27

money anyway. After

30:29

a few correspondences with the kidnappers, they

30:32

suggested Christian deliver the full amount and

30:35

wait five hours for them

30:37

to release Charlie. They

30:39

also threatened that if Christian didn't give them all the

30:41

$20,000 or tried to trick them

30:44

in any way, they would kill

30:46

Charlie. They required

30:48

that the money be delivered in bills no

30:50

larger than $10 denominations so

30:53

that the notes couldn't be traced by the banking

30:55

system. Still, the

30:57

problem remained that the Ross family simply didn't

31:00

have that kind of money. One

31:03

evening, a gentleman rang the bell. He

31:06

was unknown to the Ross family, but

31:08

he was invited in and he proceeded to

31:10

ask about all the details surrounding

31:13

Charlie's disappearance. He

31:15

said to Christian, Do

31:18

you wish to pay the ransom and

31:20

run the risk of getting the child in five

31:22

hours? If you

31:24

do, I will give you $20,000 and

31:26

never ask you to return one cent. Enqua.

31:36

Christian wrote in his memoirs that

31:38

he felt overwhelmed by this

31:40

generosity and that he could not accept

31:42

it. The gentleman, however,

31:45

decided to ask his wife, whom by

31:47

now was back from Atlantic City, and

31:50

sick with worry. Mrs.

31:52

Ross, said her husband, would,

31:55

quote, make almost any sacrifice

31:57

to get her child back as

31:59

any mother. would do. They

32:02

decided to accept. Great

32:06

exigencies, wrote Christian, bring

32:09

out great virtues. This

32:11

great crime thus brought out this

32:13

generous offer. We'll

32:29

be right back after a quick word from our

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33:08

a hot summer night in 1988, Jane Borosky was

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33:15

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33:18

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33:21

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is the lone survivor of the Valley Killer,

33:26

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33:29

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33:31

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33:34

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33:36

and I didn't set out to solve this, but

33:39

in the course of a two-year investigation, this

33:42

happened. You know,

33:44

the police aren't going to be happy with me

33:46

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Thanks to our sponsors, and now we're back to the

34:38

program. Two

34:42

weeks had now passed since Charlie's

34:44

kidnapping. The public was in an

34:47

uproar, and many started to blame the police. Others

34:50

saw that all the intensive search efforts

34:53

had amounted to nothing and started

34:55

to concoct conspiracy theories. Not

34:59

much has changed in modern missing persons

35:01

cases. One letter addressed to

35:03

the chief of police went something like this.

35:08

Has it ever occurred to you that the Ross

35:10

boy was stolen by his own father? Signed, $20,000.

35:15

End quote. Many

35:18

other false leads came in by way of

35:20

personals published in the paper. There

35:22

were some letters to police and

35:25

even to the mayor of Philadelphia. Around

35:28

the same time, another letter arrived from

35:30

the kidnappers. By the

35:32

language, it seemed like

35:34

Charlie was no longer being held by

35:36

the original kidnappers, but at a

35:38

different location and with different people.

35:42

They said that Charlie, quote, wants

35:44

to come home, wants to come

35:46

home to Walter, and that he

35:48

is afraid he will not get home in time to

35:50

go to Atlantic City to be

35:52

with his mother when Sophie comes back, end

35:55

quote. It

35:57

was decided that three days from then,

36:00

On Saturday, they would

36:02

make the exchange. The

36:08

three intervening days, wrote Christian,

36:10

were spent in nervous anxiety. I

36:14

felt that it was a fearful risk involving

36:16

the life of the child, and

36:18

in painful agony that hours were passed.

36:22

The terrible threats enforced by

36:24

the dreadful blasphemies caused

36:26

me to feel that the life of our little

36:28

boy was hanging by a single

36:30

hair." Saturday

36:35

came and went, and

36:38

Christian did not hear from the kidnappers. Arrangements

36:42

were made, however, that police

36:44

would hide themselves at the Roth House and

36:47

be prepared to arrest anyone who would come to

36:49

collect the ransom money. What

36:51

ensued in the following weeks was a series

36:53

of attempts to exchange money for the child,

36:56

but none of them worked. No

37:02

one could figure out how to ensure

37:04

Charlie's safety, not spook the

37:06

kidnappers, and clandestinely set

37:08

a trap for them so they couldn't

37:10

get away. This

37:14

all came to a head later that year, on

37:17

the night of December 13th, in Bay

37:19

Ridge, Brooklyn. A

37:23

judge's home was broken into, but the judge's brother

37:26

actually lived next door, and saw that a commotion

37:28

was going on, so he armed himself and his

37:30

sons, and

37:33

the family set out to thwart the burglary.

37:37

And then, in a hail of gunfire,

37:39

the two robbers were shot. Their

37:44

names were Bill Mosher and Joe Douglas. Mosher

37:48

was killed at the judge's house, but

37:50

Douglas managed to live for a few

37:52

hours and communicate some last words. With

37:56

his dying breath, Joe

38:00

Douglas confessed that it was he

38:02

and Mosher who had kidnapped Charlie

38:04

Ross. There's

38:07

no consensus on what Douglas' actual

38:09

words were, but some say

38:11

that he said Charlie had been killed, and

38:14

others say that Mosher knew where the boy was being

38:16

hidden and that he was still alive.

38:19

Then Joe Douglas died. Years

38:25

later, Walter Ross, still only five

38:27

years old, was taken

38:29

to New York to see Mosher and Douglas'

38:31

bodies, to see if they

38:33

matched the guys who had taken him and Charlie

38:35

on that carriage ride. Walter

38:38

confirmed that it was them. And

38:41

listen, I wouldn't put too much stock

38:43

in the word of a five-year-old, but

38:45

remember one of the men Walter described,

38:47

had a deformed nose? Well,

38:50

the cartilage of Bill Mosher's nose had

38:52

been eaten away by some disease, like

38:55

syphilis or cancer. Bill

38:58

Mosher and Joe Douglas were career

39:00

criminals, and known as

39:03

river pirates. For

39:05

about a decade from the 1860s, the Hudson

39:08

River in New York was crawling

39:10

with gangs of river pirates. Mostly

39:13

these pirates would steal goods and cargo from

39:15

other vessels on the water. They

39:18

were pretty well organized, and usually were

39:20

made up of Irish immigrants. Among

39:23

the most notorious of these river pirate groups

39:26

were the Charlton Street Gang, Hook

39:28

Gang, and the Patsy Conroy. And

39:32

just to note, because it's kind of

39:34

awesome, the Charlton Street Gang was led

39:36

by a female pirate called Sadie the

39:38

Goat, who flew the Jolly Roger

39:41

and made people walk the plank. But

39:44

after Sadie the Goat led a raid that

39:46

escalated to murder in the Hudson Valley, the

39:48

Charlton Street Gang were targeted by

39:50

local vigilantes and taken down.

39:54

And the NYPD eventually cracked down on river

39:56

piracy by organizing the

39:58

Steamboat Squad, which could controlled the waters,

40:01

and arrested pirates. So

40:06

Bill Mosher and Joe Douglas must have left their

40:08

gang in the Hudson in favor of

40:11

bigger money on the Delaware. According

40:13

to an accomplice, William Westervelt, who

40:16

later stood trial for being complicit

40:18

in Charlie Ross' abduction, said

40:21

that Mosher was obsessed with kidnapping the child

40:23

of a wealthy family for ransom. He

40:26

wanted to go after a Vanderbilt child, but

40:29

settled on Charlie Ross instead because he

40:31

lived in a big house in Germantown.

40:36

Now, the fact that Mosher and Douglas

40:38

were Charlie's abductors is not

40:40

really disputed, but Charlie

40:42

himself was never located. Christian

40:46

Ross and his wife Sophie never

40:49

gave up, and

40:51

they died not knowing what had happened to

40:53

their son. But

41:01

the story doesn't necessarily stop there. Decades

41:04

later, in 1934, a

41:07

69-year-old carpenter in Phoenix,

41:10

Arizona, named Gustav Blair,

41:13

petitioned the court to legally

41:15

recognize him as Charlie Ross. Gustav's

41:19

story was that he was kidnapped

41:21

in Philadelphia by Bill Mosher and

41:23

Joe Douglas. Then

41:25

he lived in a cave for some reason,

41:28

and then was given to a man

41:30

who eventually adopted him and

41:33

told him his real identity. Charlie's

41:36

older brother Walter dismissed

41:38

Gustav Blair, saying that, quote,

41:41

The idea that my brother is still alive is

41:43

not only absurd, but the

41:46

man's story seems unconvincing. We've

41:48

long given up hope that Charles would ever

41:50

be found alive. End quote.

41:53

Gustav's claim in court, however, went

41:56

uncontested, and the Maricopa

41:59

County courts had to rule that

42:01

he was Charles Brewster Ross in 1939. So

42:04

Gustaf is legally Charlie

42:07

Ross. The Ross

42:09

family, however, refused to

42:11

recognize him and didn't grant him any

42:13

legal claim to property or inheritance. He

42:17

died in 1943, still claiming to be the lost Charlie Ross. And

42:24

this would be heartbreaking if in fact

42:26

Gustaf was Charlie, that

42:28

someone could come forward, tell

42:31

the truth, and not be

42:33

believed. But in

42:35

2011, DNA testing was

42:37

done to try and match Gustaf's DNA

42:40

to his adopted family. When

42:44

the results came back, the

42:47

tests proved that Gustaf was

42:49

not Charlie Ross. Gustaf was

42:51

not adopted, and in

42:53

fact belonged to the Miller

42:56

family. Despite

42:59

an investigation that carried on for over

43:02

a century, still the

43:04

mystery of Charlie Ross' disappearance was

43:07

never solved. There's

43:10

echoes of Charlie's story in

43:12

every missing child case. It's

43:15

touched every point of American crime

43:17

culture. A lot of people

43:20

who have studied missing persons cases speculate

43:23

that if Bill Mosher and Joe

43:25

Douglas actually did kidnap Charlie,

43:28

they likely killed him after a couple days. It's

43:31

hard to believe that they would have spent the money to

43:34

care for a child for that long, or

43:37

even that he was given to

43:39

responsible adoptive parents. I

43:42

like to think that because he was so young, Charlie

43:45

didn't really remember his original family. I

43:48

like to think he was given to someone

43:50

kind and lived out a good life.

43:54

But I guess we'll never know. I'm

43:59

gonna play a song. with a little tune you heard at

44:01

the beginning of this episode. It

44:04

was composed by Dexter Smith and

44:06

W.H. Brockway and

44:08

it's entitled, Bring Back Our Darling. It

44:12

was written about Charlie Ross's

44:14

disappearance. Unfortunately, I

44:16

can't really sing, but it

44:18

has some really lovely and sad lyrics.

44:21

So I'll post a link and if you're interested, you

44:24

can read the lyrics yourself. I hope

44:26

you enjoy. Carrie

45:09

Hagan is the author of We Is Gotham,

45:12

a non-fiction book about the disappearance of

45:14

Charlie Ross. It's only

45:17

available in ebook format currently, but

45:19

can be ordered through Amazon. I think

45:21

there's some used copies you can get on there too. And

45:25

then Carrie's fiction debut came out

45:27

in 2022 called The Muralist of

45:30

Matter Deep and Dangerous, set

45:33

in her beloved Philadelphia where

45:35

she still lives with her family. Please

45:38

find links in the show notes. Please find

45:40

the links in the show notes. At

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