The Time of the Kidnap: Who snatched then murdered 10-year-old Charles Mattson in Tacomain 1936
Apr 15, 2019 22:04:39 GMT
Post by hi224 on Apr 15, 2019 22:04:39 GMT
Their parents were attending a holiday social function, and had left their children - the oldest a boy of 16 - home alone.
It did not go well.
An intruder broke the glass in a door and held the startled youths at gunpoint. When he left, he took the youngest of them.
“I want you to come with me,” the man said as he grabbed the boy. “You’re your father’s favorite so you’re worth more money.”
Dr. William Whitlock Mattson, the boy’s father, was a well-known figure locally. The Mattson house was described as a mansion.
At first, it had seemed that the kidnapping of Charles Mattson, 10, on the evening of December 27, 1936, would follow the same pattern as the case, also in Tacoma, of nine-year-old George Phillips Weyerhaeuser, son of a lumber baron, the year before: a ransom requested and ransom paid; the child returned to grateful parent; and, in that case, the culprits sunsequently caught and jailed.
The ransom requested and paid for Weyerhaeuser was $200,000; for young Mattson, the kidnapper set a lesser fee - the ransom note (sic throughout) read:
"The price is 28,000 10000 in fives and 10s 18000 50 & 100s. Old bills pleasd no new ones. Put ad in Seattle Times personal colum read Mable — What's your new address Tim. Put this ad Times no other paper. If no answer from you within week price gos up double and doubl that each week after. Dont fail & I wont't. The boy is safe. Tim"
It was the time of the kidnap. In addition to the Weyerhaeuser incident in 1935, a month before the Mattson kidnapping, and also in Tacoma, two attempts to snatch John Franklin, six-year-old son of a grocery magnate, were foiled; on the second attempt, the intruder fired a handgun at a guard while escaping.
The Franklin mansion was in the same vicinity as the Mattson home. The kidnapper bore strong resemblance to the man who took the ten-year-old. According to the witnesses,
A white rag over the man's face slipped down, revealing a full beard, high cheekbones, a dimpled chin and a dark complexion (“swarthy” was the word used repeatedly in FBI statements). The man spoke with an accent later described as “Southern European.”
The ransom note in the Mattson case was soiled and crumpled; as it made no specific family mention, police believed it may have been first intended for the Franklins.
Several ads were subsequently placed in the Seattle Times, in attempts to contact the kidnapper.
Just over two weeks went by. The bold kidnapping created a fury of press coverage, and, with it, an array of "leads, cranks, and 'crystal gazers.'"
The sad ending came on Jan. 11, 1937, when Charles’s body was found south of Everett by a teenager hunting rabbits. The corpse was nude. A coroner’s report found the boy had probably been beaten and bound, stabbed in the back and struck in the head with a blunt instrument.
Five days later, Mattson gave a statement in which he confirmed that he had spoken to the kidnapper over the phone. He said the man’s instructions had been "confusing and incoherent." Mattson concluded that the man was an amateur and would soon be tracked down.
“I am confident his man and whoever his colleague is, are crooks who have never handled a job of this magnitude, and when they advanced to the stage where they were ready to receive the ransom, they found Charles knew too much and they dared not release him, so they destroyed him.”
Leads dwindled; rumors led nowhere. Eighteen months later, a mental patient, Frank Olson, also known as Lester Mead, confessed. It turned out to be fantasy - he was hospitalized at the time of the kidnap, records revealed.
Every few years a new lead appeared, communicated sometimes by prisoners who, in hopes of lessening sentences, relayed what another had said about the case.
Charles Mattson's parents died without learning who took their child from them.
Today, the case is one of the few active unsolved cases investigated by the FBI.
--
A break-in, despair and a manhunt — the story of Tacoma’s oldest unsolved kidnapping
Ten-year-old Charles F. Mattson is kidnapped in Tacoma and held for ransom on December 27, 1936.
It did not go well.
An intruder broke the glass in a door and held the startled youths at gunpoint. When he left, he took the youngest of them.
“I want you to come with me,” the man said as he grabbed the boy. “You’re your father’s favorite so you’re worth more money.”
Dr. William Whitlock Mattson, the boy’s father, was a well-known figure locally. The Mattson house was described as a mansion.
At first, it had seemed that the kidnapping of Charles Mattson, 10, on the evening of December 27, 1936, would follow the same pattern as the case, also in Tacoma, of nine-year-old George Phillips Weyerhaeuser, son of a lumber baron, the year before: a ransom requested and ransom paid; the child returned to grateful parent; and, in that case, the culprits sunsequently caught and jailed.
The ransom requested and paid for Weyerhaeuser was $200,000; for young Mattson, the kidnapper set a lesser fee - the ransom note (sic throughout) read:
"The price is 28,000 10000 in fives and 10s 18000 50 & 100s. Old bills pleasd no new ones. Put ad in Seattle Times personal colum read Mable — What's your new address Tim. Put this ad Times no other paper. If no answer from you within week price gos up double and doubl that each week after. Dont fail & I wont't. The boy is safe. Tim"
It was the time of the kidnap. In addition to the Weyerhaeuser incident in 1935, a month before the Mattson kidnapping, and also in Tacoma, two attempts to snatch John Franklin, six-year-old son of a grocery magnate, were foiled; on the second attempt, the intruder fired a handgun at a guard while escaping.
The Franklin mansion was in the same vicinity as the Mattson home. The kidnapper bore strong resemblance to the man who took the ten-year-old. According to the witnesses,
A white rag over the man's face slipped down, revealing a full beard, high cheekbones, a dimpled chin and a dark complexion (“swarthy” was the word used repeatedly in FBI statements). The man spoke with an accent later described as “Southern European.”
The ransom note in the Mattson case was soiled and crumpled; as it made no specific family mention, police believed it may have been first intended for the Franklins.
Several ads were subsequently placed in the Seattle Times, in attempts to contact the kidnapper.
Just over two weeks went by. The bold kidnapping created a fury of press coverage, and, with it, an array of "leads, cranks, and 'crystal gazers.'"
The sad ending came on Jan. 11, 1937, when Charles’s body was found south of Everett by a teenager hunting rabbits. The corpse was nude. A coroner’s report found the boy had probably been beaten and bound, stabbed in the back and struck in the head with a blunt instrument.
Five days later, Mattson gave a statement in which he confirmed that he had spoken to the kidnapper over the phone. He said the man’s instructions had been "confusing and incoherent." Mattson concluded that the man was an amateur and would soon be tracked down.
“I am confident his man and whoever his colleague is, are crooks who have never handled a job of this magnitude, and when they advanced to the stage where they were ready to receive the ransom, they found Charles knew too much and they dared not release him, so they destroyed him.”
Leads dwindled; rumors led nowhere. Eighteen months later, a mental patient, Frank Olson, also known as Lester Mead, confessed. It turned out to be fantasy - he was hospitalized at the time of the kidnap, records revealed.
Every few years a new lead appeared, communicated sometimes by prisoners who, in hopes of lessening sentences, relayed what another had said about the case.
Charles Mattson's parents died without learning who took their child from them.
Today, the case is one of the few active unsolved cases investigated by the FBI.
--
A break-in, despair and a manhunt — the story of Tacoma’s oldest unsolved kidnapping
Ten-year-old Charles F. Mattson is kidnapped in Tacoma and held for ransom on December 27, 1936.