Kidnappers' Week

Last week's developments in U. S. kidnapping :

P: Two grandchildren of Manhattan Lawyer Henry Waters Taft, brother of the 27th President of the U. S., were quietly shipped off to Europe on the S. S. Majestic because the family was in constant dread of snatchers.

P: John J. ("Butch") O'Connell Jr., 24-year-old nephew of the Democratic bosses of Albany, N. Y., had not been freed. For the first time since he was spirited away three weeks ago his uncles agreed to talk. To a list of 13 questions put to him by newshawks, Uncle Edward gave brief staccato answers over the telephone. He admitted that he had not succeeded in establishing direct contact with the kidnappers, denied rumors that he had already paid a ransom. "We are waiting for news," said he.

P: For snatching August Luer, aged Alton, Ill. banker, St. Louis police and Federal agents tracked down and arrested one Percy Michael Fitzgerald, ex-convict and burglar, known as the "Dice Box Kid." His confession led to the arrest of three other men and two women. The police also found the place where Banker Luer had been hidden on a farm between East St. Louis and Madison. Shiny new screws in the floor of the tool shed aroused their suspicion. They ripped up planks, discovered beneath them a pit from which a narrow tunnel led into a dark cave--the cave where Luer was kept.

P: Chicago police rounded up Roger Touhy and three members of the "Terrible Touhy" gang as suspects in the kidnapping of John Factor. The gang had been arrested at Elkhorn, Wis. for smashing into a telephone pole. Having paid a $22 fine they were about to drive on when a policeman found in their car seven pistols, a rifle, a golf bag full of ammunition, a roll of adhesive tape and 20 ft. of gauze--regular kidnapping equipment. One gangster explained: "We were up here fishing. We got one 17-lb. muskie. The guns? Why, we had those to shoot the fish. They catch 'em big up here."

P: To a vacant house near Haverford, Pa., Frank A. McClatchy, rich real estate broker, took two men who said they wanted to buy a home. The minute they stepped inside the "customers" seized Broker McClatchy, bent his arms behind his back, shouted: "You're kidnapped!" McClatchy flung them off, punched one in the jaw, the other in the stomach. "Give him the works!" cried one of the snatchers, and a pistol bullet pierced McClatchy's chest, buried itself in his belly. The kidnappers fled. McClatchy died four days later in a Philadelphia hospital.

P: In Oklahoma City, Oilmen Charles F. Urschel and Walter R. Jarrett were playing bridge on a porch with their wives when two black-haired bandits sneaked up with a machine gun. "Don't move or well blow your heads off!" cried one. "Which is Urschel?" No one answered. "Well, come along, we'll take both of you," he said. An hour later the kidnappers dumped Jarrett, unscathed, out of their car ten miles from town, sped away with Urschel. Mrs. Urschel, rich widow of the late Thomas B. Slick, "king of oil wildcatters" whose fortune once exceeded $75,000,000, arranged to pay ransom as soon as contact was established with the kidnappers.

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