I realize this may devolve into an IMHO thread, and if it reaches that point, I leave it to a mod to move it, but I’m putting it here first, because I think my actual question is straightforward:
Has anyone ever paid a ransom in exchange for a kidnapped hostage in the US, and had the person returned unharmed, as promised? I realize there’s the possibility there may be unpublicized cases, if people followed orders not to call authorities, but you’d think most people would call authorities at least after the fact, or someone would talk eventually, so the story would eventually come out.
There’s a thread where there’s a question regarding whether one would pay the ransom or call the authorities. I said I would call the authorities, because there isn’t much correlation, historically, between paying the ransom and getting the hostage back. Since the thread was posted, I’ve found examples (by Googling, mostly, so, no real, serious research, I admit) of successful ransoms like the Dan Cooper hijack, but no “classic” stranger abductions for money that came off as expected. Even when the (usually) family members don’t call the authorities and try to pay the ransom, they don’t get a live hostage back. They get nothing, ever, or eventually a body is found. There have been a couple of cases where a hostage escaped, and in the Patty Hearst case, the family tried to ransom her more than once, but the SLA kept changing demands.
Does anyone know of a successful example of a kidnapping of the Lindbergh type, that came off the way it was supposed to (notwithstanding the kidnappers possibly captured at a later date)?
So, we have an American who was kidnapped in Italy, and an American whose ransom was paid under the watch of the authorities as a means of capturing, successfully, the kidnappers. One assumes the Sinatras got their money back.
Thanks for the responses. I have no doubt that in other countries paying the ransom is probably the way to go if you want your hostage back relatively unharmed, but in the US, I still don’t think it’s the way to go. At this point, even if someone does come up with a case where paying the ransom brought the person home unharmed, it still doesn’t look like it balances out statistically.
I was wondering, because I read a couple books on this, including a really comprehensive one, called Ransom Kidnapping in America, but I just looked up that book (which I read back in the 90s), and realized it was already pretty dated when I read it, and things could have changed, but I doubted they’d changed in favor of paying ransoms, and that does seem to be true.
Unless lots of kidnappings are happening on smaller levels, and somehow not making the press, and ransoms are being carried out successfully and silently, which I doubt.
Yes, successful from the perspective of the criminals. It bears on whether paying the ransom appears to be a good gambit, at least for most of the people on the board, who are in countries with pretty good police forces, and FBI-type organizations. It appears that it is not, and calling the authorities, despite threats, is a better plan.
The John Paul Getty III kidnapping was just sad all the way around. The kidnappers demanded $17 million, which the family wouldn’t pay. After three months the kidnappers cut off Getty’s ear. They eventually dropped the ransom to $3 million. Getty’s grandfather eventually paid $2.2 million – supposedly because that was all the accountants said he could write off on his taxes – and lent Getty’s father enough to pay the rest, while charging him interest.:eek:
Whether it was “successful” is strictly a judgement call.
Wikipedia’slist of kidnappings suggests that U.S. kidnappings for ransom rarely end well.
OP was only looking for US cases, but there is the extraordinary kidnapping of Jan Philipp Reemtsma, heir to the Reemtsma tobacco company.
Reemtsma was kidnapped in 1996 and held by his kidnappers for a month. A ransom of 15 million German marks and 12.5 million Swiss francs was paid. The kidnappers were caught (years after the crime) and served lengthy prison sentences, but they have been released since. Most of the ransom was never recovered and it is assumed that the kidnappers (at least the mastermind, Thomas Drach, whose current whereabouts are unknown) have access the money.
IIRC from news at the time, Getty disappeared while in Italy and part of the reason for refusal was that the Getty with all the money (and authorities in general) were at first pretty skeptical that it was not just a hoax for young Getty to get his hands on some money (it seems the elder granpa Getty was pretty much a skinflint.) When the ear arrived there was some debate whether this was his, and the family started to entertain the possibility the kidnapping was real.
The trouble with kidnapping in the USA was that Lindbergh spoiled it for everyone. The crime was so notorious kidnapping was made a federal crime (no need to prove inter-state activity, IIRC). That meant now the full weight and resources of the feds also came to bear much more quickly, making it a much riskier crime and far more difficult to get away with.
