This 4-Year-Old Boy Vanished After Taking Candy From Strangers, Becoming The First Ransom Case In America
After a 4-year-old took candy from strangers during the summer of 1874, he vanished. His kidnapping ultimately became the first abduction for ransom in American history.
Charley Ross and his brother, 6-year-old Walter Ross, lived in the affluent Germantown neighborhood in Philadelphia.
Their large home falsely provided the appearance that the Ross family was rich. That’s precisely why the boys became targets.
Little did the kidnappers know that Charley and Walter’s father, Christian Ross, was actually in a large amount of debt following the stock market crash of 1873.
Two men in a horse-drawn buggy would drive past the Ross home regularly and befriended Charley and Walter while they were playing in front of their house.
Then, for five consecutive days, the two men would chat with the boys and provide them with candy. However, on July 1, 2874, things changed.
That day, the men arrived at the Ross home as usual, but they didn’t come bearing candy. Instead, they offered to take Charley and Walter to buy both candy and fireworks for the 4th of July, which was right around the corner.
The men lured the boys into their buggy, and after the four drove for a bit, they arrived at a shop. At that point, Walter was instructed to go inside and purchase the fireworks alone.
Walter obliged, but when he walked out of the store, he realized that the buggy, as well as his brother Charley, was nowhere to be found. A stranger wound up bringing Walter home, but Charley remained missing.
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Several days later, the boy’s father, Christian, received the first ransom letter from his son’s kidnappers. He would go on to receive 23 ransom letters in total.
“Mr. Ros: be not uneasy, you son Charley Bruster, be all writ we got him, and no powers on earth can deliver out of our hand,” read one of the letters.
The kidnappers initially demanded $20,000 in exchange for the safe return of Charley, yet Christian was unable to afford such a lofty ransom. So, rather than paying it, he got in touch with the police.
Charley’s case was first investigated by the Philadelphia Police Department. Authorities ran advertisements in the Philadelphia Inquirer, detailing the ransom notes Christian had received and offering a $300 reward to whoever brought Charley home.
The story of Charley’s disappearance caught on like wildfire, and he was the first missing child to make national news headlines. Newspapers spanning from Philadelphia to California covered the case; simultaneously, police departments in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey banded together to help with the investigation.
It wasn’t until December 1874 that a break came in Charley’s case while the police were handling another crime in Brooklyn, New York. There, a botched burglary led to two criminals, Joseph Douglas and William Mosher, getting shot.
William was killed instantly. As for Joseph, before he died, he confessed that both he and William had been behind Charley’s abduction.
The issue was that, according to Joseph, only the then-deceased William knew where Charley was being held. And merely two hours later, Joseph died as well.
“It’s no use lying now. Mosher and I stole Charley Ross from Germantown. God knows I tell you the truth; I don’t know where he is; Mosher knew,” he said during his confession, according to the Pennsylvania Center for the Book.
Walter was subsequently brought in to confirm the men’s identities as his and Charley’s abductors, which he did. Still, with both Joseph and William dead, they could never be punished, and Charley’s whereabouts remained a mystery.
The police eventually arrested a third man, William Westervelt. He was William Mosher’s brother-in-law and a disgraced policeman in Philadelphia.
Westervelt swore he wasn’t involved in the abduction; nonetheless, authorities believed he was complicit, and in August 1875, he went on trial.
In the end, he was found not guilty of Charley’s kidnapping. But he was convicted of conspiracy and given a six-year prison sentence.
The following year, Charley’s father, Christian, penned a book entitled The Father’s Story of Charley Ross, the Kidnapped Child. All the book proceeds fueled further searches for his son. Charley’s photo was posted in police stations, post offices, and railroad stations across the country.
Over the course of multiple decades, it’s said that over $60,000 was spent by the Ross family as they searched for Charley. The money covered the investigation of leads, as well as looking into thousands of imposters who tried to claim that they were Charley.
His disappearance has never been solved, and today, what exactly happened to Charley remains a mystery. His case also altered America’s perception of crime forever, as never before had a child been held prisoner in exchange for money.
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