Certainly there are some, although they are rare here in the US. Frank Sinatra's son was abducted and held for ransom back in the mid 1960's. Also, the Getty boy was abducted and his ear cut off before ransom was paid. There was also the abduction of the heir to the Coors Beer fortune. These were high visability crimes and they were aimed at people with a lot of money.mere said:Suppose the ransom demands were not crank calls. This could mean that the girls' abduction was premeditated. Are there any other known cases where the perpetrator stalked or pre-selected a child victim?
Welcome to the discussions. You make some very good observations and points.jttnewguy said:I'm a big Jon Douglas fan, and in one of his books, he discusses child kidnappings at length. The ransom demand is probably unrelated to the case because according to Douglas, generally speaking, there are three kinds of strangers who kidnap kids (not counting family abductions): sexual predators, childless people who can't adopt (and probably have some mental problems), and genuine ransom cases. The first two want nothing to do with the parents of the kids and will never communicate with them, and in the third case, the ransom demands will be very persistent because it's the money they want.And, as Thrasher points out in another thread in this section, it's unlikely that someone genuinely interested in collecting ransom would ask for it to be delivered to a courthouse bathroom, since there would be police everywhere and most courthouses are designed with limited escape routes.
I agree with your assessment of this Ransom story, in that it was most likely a hoax. With no solid information or evidence, the Ransom call was checked into, and police and family played along. It was not the police or the family that released the news of the call and ransom drop, but rather a news reporter who first broke the story, some days after it all took place. Since there had been no further contact with the caller at that point, the police went ahead and confirmed the details of the operation.Thrasher said:I believe that the Annapolis incident was nothing more than a desparate hope. ... I don't think John felt there was any risk in getting angry at the caller, because he was convinced it was a hoax. ...
Did police refrain from releasing this information to the news media because they actually believed the guy and wanted to protect his privacy? If they thought his story plausable, why didn't they show his photo to all of the TRM witnesses to try to narrow things down?
As far as the ransom calls go, just the fact of the court house drop off makes it seem like a hoax to me.
Richard, do we know that LE didn't show TRM2's photo to the TRM witnesses? ...
I wonder if they knew each other and TRM2 was covering for TRM knowing that he wouldn't be a suspect due to his alibi? Maybe just trying to shake up LE a little. Is it possible that TRM2 knows who we are looking for?
The problem was that after releasing the first TRM sketch, and after witnesses were interviewed, the sketch was altered slightly. Was it altered based on statements and input from these PG County witnesses? I know of one witness who saw the TRM at Wheaton Plaza and reported his sighting, but he was never shown the photo of this PG TRM guy.
So, do we know if LE showed a photo of the PG TRM to ANY of the witnesses? It's so frustrating,you would think that they would. Well, given PGTRM's alibi, it appears that we had 2 guys doing the same think at the same time. This would be kind of hard to believe unless you assume that maybe one of the men saw the ruse working and decided to try it also. That could very well be how we ended up with 2.
Also,I thought that I read that PGTRM had told LE that he was just getting a female voice for his answering machine message. Am I remembering that right? I just think that is odd considering that his wife would hear that message.
WOW!! That's so odd. What day did that actually happen? Did the girls make it home safe?
I agree with your assessment of this Ransom story, in that it was most likely a hoax. With no solid information or evidence, the Ransom call was checked into, and police and family played along. It was not the police or the family that released the news of the call and ransom drop, but rather a news reporter who first broke the story, some days after it all took place. Since there had been no further contact with the caller at that point, the police went ahead and confirmed the details of the operation.
Regarding the amount of money left in the briefcase at the Court House lavatory: Although the caller demanded $10,000, it was decided that $100 in marked bills would be in the briefcase, along with a lot of blank paper. The amount was chosen for legal reasons, as there was a law which stated that it would be a more serious crime if the amount was $100 or more. It was clearly the intent of the police to make an arrest immediately after the pick-up.
No details regarding the actual kidnapping or the girls were ever given by the caller to confirm that he actually had them, or that he had any first hand knowledge of them.
.Although most investigators and observers of the Lyon Case tend to think that the various ransom calls and in particular the one calling for Ten Thousand Dollars to be left in the Anne Arundel County Courthouse, were either hoaxes or extortion plots, it should be remembered that they are still Unsolved Cold Cases as well. Nobody was ever identified, arrested, or charged with committing those offenses.
Following the Court House stake-out, the Ransom Caller made one last phone call to John Lyon, complaining that there were too many police around for him to get the money. He said that he would call back with further instructions, but never did.
This story was soon forgotten when news of the possible sighting of the girls, bound and gagged in the back of a tan 1968 Ford Station Wagon broke.