The Kidnap Years: by David Stout (popular books of all time TXT) 📗

For a moment, a sickening silence enveloped the investigators. The kidnappers must have found out, somehow, that the law was coming. They had fled with their captive.

But a rifle and pistol were visible in one corner. The kidnappers wouldn’t have left their weapons behind, would they?

“Jimmy!” an officer shouted in desperation.

“Yes, sir! Yes, sir, here I am!” came a boy’s voice from behind a wall.23

A couple of lawmen kicked at the wall, which was only plasterboard covered with wallpaper. And there stood James DeJute Jr., shivering and pale, between two young men. One of the men held a revolver, but he surrendered it at once.

“Take me home, please, to my father and mother,” the boy pleaded, breaking into tears.

Home Jimmy went, in a police car with siren screaming, to a joyful reunion with his parents. Neighbors and hundreds of other well-wishers swarmed over the DeJutes’ property.

Outside of seizing him in the first place, the abductors had treated him kindly, the boy said. “They were good to me and told me I could call them both ‘Mister.’” Most of the time, he was kept in a dark closet, the boy said. He was given soft-boiled eggs and was promised that he’d go free as soon as his father paid money.

A special grand jury was to convene the following Monday to indict the culprits, identified as John Demarco, thirty, and Dowell Hargraves, twenty-seven. “Both are habitués of Youngstown pool rooms and speakeasies, with questionable records,” the Times reported.

Hargraves waived his right to a trial by jury, perhaps fearing that ordinary people not well versed in the law would be eager to find him guilty, especially with the Lindbergh kidnapping the talk of the land. He put his fate in the hands of an Ohio state court judge, who promptly found him guilty of kidnapping and sentenced him to life in prison.

Demarco, too, would be convicted and sentenced to life in prison, as would a third man, Anthony Lauri, thirty-seven, of Youngstown.

In sentencing Hargraves on March 16, 1932, the judge said kidnapping was a crime that “strikes a blow at the tenderest and most sacred affections of human blood” and was becoming all too common.24

And there was a chilling footnote to the DeJute case. According to a March 4 report in the New York Times, Jimmy’s father had received a note the day after his son’s abduction. The note demanded a ransom of $10,000; otherwise, the boy would be returned “in installments.” And just so there would be no misunderstanding, at the top of the note were the words “Remember Marion Parker.”**

*Here, I am indebted to David Anthony DeJute, Anthony’s son, for sharing his father’s recollections.

**“Kidnappers Demand $10,000 for Return of Ohio Boy,” New York Times, March 4, 1932.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE YOUNGER TWIN

Los Angeles

Thursday, December 15, 1927

Marion and Marjorie Parker were identical twins, but they were by no means the same. By the time they turned twelve, on October 11, 1927, their distinctive personalities had emerged. Marion was more of a tomboy, and she was happier playing with toy trains than with dolls, which Marjorie preferred.

And Marjorie was content helping her mother, Geraldine, around the house, while Marion liked to accompany her father, Perry, to the First National Trust and Savings Bank, where he was a mid-level officer.

Their personality differences notwithstanding, the girls loved each other’s company, and both adored their brother, also named Perry, who was eight years older. (Marion had been given her first name, instead of the more common “Marian” for a girl, after her father’s middle name.)

On this Thursday, which was chilly by Southern California standards, the girls were happy as they rode the streetcar to Mount Vernon Junior High School. Part of the day was to be devoted to Christmas parties in each classroom.

Around noon, a wavy-haired young man walked into the school office, where he was met by Mary Holt, the teacher in charge of attendance and registration. “I need to see the Parker girl,” the man announced. “I work with Mr. Perry Parker at the bank. Mr. Parker has been in an accident and is calling for his daughter.”25

Holt was confused. “We have two Parker girls at our school,” she said.

“He wants the younger one,” the man replied.

The younger one? In fact, Marjorie was the younger twin by a few minutes, but she was slightly larger than Marion. So the girls occasionally joked that Marion, not Marjorie, was the younger sister.

“Do you mean Marion?” Holt asked the stranger.

“Yes, ma’am, that is her name.” Sensing that Holt was uneasy, the visitor urged her to call the bank to confirm his account.

Holt was a seasoned administrator, a stickler for rules and procedures, which was why she was acting school administrator on this Thursday when Principal Cora Freeman happened to be away for several hours. She was known to be protective of the children and cautious about strangers in the building. She would sometimes call the parents before releasing a child to someone else.

Which is why what Mary Holt did—or did not do—next was so strange and heartbreaking.

The young man had such a friendly, self-assured manner that Holt decided there was no need to check out his story, even though she should have found it implausible on its face. So she summoned Marion from the Christmas party.

And here was another fateful what-if moment. Marion knew that her father was staying home from the bank on this day to celebrate his birthday with his wife. Yet she apparently did not ask details about the “accident” that had befallen him. Perhaps she was too stunned by the news to think clearly, or perhaps she was charmed by the cheerful stranger. Perhaps she felt comfortable with the man after meeting him in the company of a trusted authority figure, Mary Holt. For whatever reasons, Marion left the school with him.

Later that afternoon, Principal Freeman returned. Holt told her Perry Parker had been in an accident and that a family friend had fetched Marion. Freeman was not alarmed; she