The 6 worst kidnapping stories of the last century have been selected

Some people are kidnapped for money hoping to get a ransom from their loved ones, others are victims of sexual maniacs. A large proportion of those kidnapped successfully return to their homes. However, many of them suffer tremendous psychological trauma. Often so strong that there is life it is destroyed forever. The History Collection has compiled six high-profile kidnapping stories from the past century.

Frank Sinatra Jr. (1963)

The kidnapping of the son of legendary singer Frank Sinatra on December 8, 1963 shocked the entire United States. The nineteen-year-old wanted to follow in his famous father’s footsteps and had already embarked on a concert tour of the states. But Joe Amsler and Barry Keenan, two criminals who had kidnapped him for ransom, had their own plans.

The country had not yet recovered from the shock caused by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Perhaps this prompted the actor’s perpetrators to take action just weeks after the event that rocked the country.

That night, Junior Sinatra performed at a Nevada casino. Around 9 p.m. He was lounging in the locker room when Keenan, pretending to be a messenger, knocked on the door. When the door opened, he was greeted by two assailants who tied up his friend, who had been in the room together, and led young Sinatra to the car blindfolded.

The artist’s friend was able to quickly break free of the shackles and report the kidnapping to the police. All the surrounding roads were soon blocked, but the criminals, despite being detained at one of the posts, managed to escape. 40 minutes later, FBI agents joined the search. They contacted the perpetrator’s family and recommended waiting for a ransom request to locate the perpetrators.

The next day, Keenan called his acquaintance, John Irwin, and asked him to be a mediator demanding a ransom. Irwin contacted Sinatra and said he was awaiting further instructions. The following day, the Sinatra family received another call in which the man demanded 240,000 for the life of their son. Dollars F. Sinatra obeyed the instructions of the FBI and raised the money. A bag of money was left at a preset location in Sepúlveda, California, “between two buses,” on the morning of December 11.

At a time when Mr. Keenan and Mr. Amsler were happy to take the money, Mr. Irwin, less cheerful, who was held hostage, decided to release him. The young man was found by officials in the exclusive Bel Air area of ​​California. The police hid him from the media and took him to his mother’s house. Even though Junior Sinatra couldn’t tell much about his kidnappers, the FBI found the house where he was being held. Not only that, the terrified Mr. Irwin confessed to the crime committed with his brother, who called the police. On December 14, the three criminals were arrested. The Sinatra family managed to recover almost the entire ransom.

In court, the men claimed that the kidnapping was simply a wish to joke, but did not provide any evidence to that effect. Despite the fact that the court imprisoned them for many years in prison, all three left the prison prematurely. Keenan spent 4.5 years in prison and later became a real estate salesman.

Steven Stayner (1972)

On December 4, 1972, Steven Stayner’s 7-year-old nightmare began in California and lasted up to seven years. That day, Ervin Edwar Murphy, 31, approached him on the street, declaring that he was raising money for the church. He asked the boy if his mother would like to contribute to charity, the kind-hearted boy agreed. After offering to take the matter home, she took Steven to the car, where her husband’s pedophile Kenneth Parnell was already waiting.

The seven-year-old boy was taken to a rural cabin, right next to the boy’s grandmother’s house. Parnell, 41, raped the boy the first night of his kidnapping. Continuing with his sexual assault, the kidnapper slowly tried to convince Steven that his parents no longer needed him. Mr. Parnell told the boy that he was now his guardian, whom he should call “dad.” He even started calling the boy Dennis Gregory Parnell, which allowed him to go to different schools in California. The pedophile constantly sent the boy to buy him alcohol and allowed him to leave the house freely. However, the crushed Steven did not take the opportunity to escape. The boy was broken by his predator.

Growing up, Stayner began to doubt that Parnell was telling him the truth about his parents. The boy was constantly searching the newspapers or television reports for information about his searches. It was a tragic coincidence, but the photos sent by his parents to the schools he attended were left unanswered: no one recognized the boy.

Parnell soon lost interest in Steven’s “aging” and in the 1980s kidnapped another boy, Timothy White, 5.

The five-year-old boy cried and pleaded for release. Stayner realized that if he didn’t take action, Timothy would face the same fate as his own. After 16 days, Steven took the boy with him and drove to the Ukij City Police Station in a passenger car. The authorities detained the kidnappers, but Murphy spent only 2 years in prison and Parnell only five. In 2004, the latter was sentenced to another 25 years in prison for trying to “buy” a 4-year-old boy for $ 500. He died behind bars in 2008.

The Stayner story did not have a happy ending. The boy did not receive enough psychological help, he had to leave school early due to the constant bullying of other children. Later he had problems with alcohol, which he tried to drown in his experience. He managed to recover a little and when he was 20 years old, Steven started a family. He and his wife Jody had two children. At just 24 years old, he died in an accident between a car and a motorcycle.

Patty Hearst (1974)

The Patty Hearst kidnapping is one of the most famous in the entire history of the United States. Not only because she was the daughter of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, but also because of the dramatic events that followed her kidnapping.

On the night of February 4, 1974, someone knocked on the door of Hearst House. When 19-year-old Patty opened the door, a group of armed men and women entered. Members of the Symbionan Liberation Army (SLA) beat her fiancé and kidnapped Patty.

The SLA paramilitary organization fought against the United States government and was determined to “destroy the capitalist state.” Patty Hearst has been a target because she comes from a well-known and wealthy American family. His kidnapping gave the strikers exactly what they wanted: media attention. They demanded a multi-million dollar ransom in the form of a food charity from the start, but soon found a better way to use their sacrifice.

They began the psychological pressure of a young member of the Hearst family to tip her over to her and turn her into a “revolution.” Just a couple of months later, the smog released a voice recording of the girl, claiming that she had joined the fight and was even “ordered” with a new name. In April 1974, Patty was seen on bank video recordings during an SLA robbery. He had a gun in his hand and seemed to be acting on his own.

The FBI has launched a massive operation aimed at locating Mr. Hearst and ending the SLA. A month later, an SLA hideout was discovered in Los Angeles. The siege ended in a shooting that killed six strikers, including their leader Donald DeFreeze. But Patty herself, who helped the gang commit the crimes (including the theft of nearly 2 million of her father’s assets), could not be found. In September 1975, FBI agents caught her in San Francisco. The woman was arrested and charged with robbing a bank. Despite a defense attempt to demonstrate that she acted under pressure from gang leaders, the woman was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Such a judicial decision has received much criticism. Psychologists saw clear signs of psychological trauma in his behavior, one of whom described Patty as a “low-intelligence zombie.” Despite the obvious signs that the girl had been “brainwashed”, she had not been diagnosed with any mental disorder that could have saved her from prison. It is true that President Jimmy Carter had already forgiven him in 1979, for which he was in prison for only 22 months.

Aldo Moro (1978)

One of the most tragic kidnappings of the 20th century. The story took place in Italy. The former prime minister and leader of the Christian Democratic Party, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped on March 16, 1978 by the Red Brigades. They stopped a politician’s car, killed his bodyguards and three accompanying policemen. The terrorists demanded the release of 13 left-wing extremists from the prison.

Even today, the location of Moro’s “prison” is not precisely defined. It was officially said that he had been detained by strikers from the Red Brigade at the Via Camillo Montalcini villa in Rome. However, Aldo’s brother Carlo Alfredo believes that he was held on the beach. In captivity, he wrote up to 86 letters to various people, including his family or Pope Paul VI.

Mr. Moro was kidnapped for 55 days. During them, the Red Brigades negotiated an exchange with the Italian authorities. Initially, they demanded of the thirteen strikers, then they landed until one of them was “returned”.

The strikers soon lost patience and on May 9, 1978 they held a “people’s court” during which Moro was “found guilty”. On the morning of the execution, the kidnappers woke up to politics at 6 p.m. morning and declared that they had to go somewhere else. One of the bandits even told him that the man had decided to release. Instead, however, they put him in a basket, took him to his base site, and shot him there.

There were allegations of kidnapping of 10 terrorists, but only 8 of them were captured and arrested. Several managed to escape to Switzerland and Nicaragua.

Elizabeth Smart (2002)

14-year-old Elizabeth survived a terrible 9-month experience after being kidnapped in Utah on June 5, 2002. This crime has caught the attention of the whole of America. Then the media reported nightmarish news: The fourteen-year-old girl had been kidnapped directly from her room, a place where she had to be completely safe. That night Brian Mitchell crashed into the girl’s room, stabbed her in the throat with a knife, and told her not to say a word. He took Elizabeth from his home to a camp in the woods, where his wife, Wanda Barzee, was already waiting for them.

B. Mitchell was convinced that there was a prophet Emanuel. He performed a macabre wedding ceremony, informing E. Smart that she is now his wife. Brian and Wanda kept the girl in captivity for 9 months, constantly changing her location in Utah and California. Immanuel really raped his victim every day. He also often forced her to starve and use alcohol or drugs. At the same time, he tried to convince her that he was indeed a prophet.

Sister Mary Katherine, broken by Elizabeth’s kidnapping, slept in the same room as her sister that somber night. She fell asleep, but pretended to be asleep and tried to remember what the attacker was like. For many months, she was unable to do so due to the stress she was experiencing. But one day she remembered a man who had worked at her home, named Immanuel, whom she recognized as the horrible guest that night.

Police soon found his name and in February 2003 showed a photo of the criminal in America’s most wanted program at the time. On March 12, 2003, bystanders recognized Mitchell, who was walking with the teenager, and called the police. On the same day, Mitchell and his wife were arrested and the girl was found at their home.

Despite doubts about the man’s mental condition, which only prolonged the trial, in 2011 he was sentenced to 2 prison terms to life in prison. His wife was sentenced in 2009 to 15 years in prison for complicity.

Elizabeth was able to return to a normal life. He graduated from college in 2008, and in 2013 published the book My Story, a memoir about the horrors he experienced in the predator.

Michelle Knigt, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus (2002-2004)

Three girls were kidnapped at different times (2002-2004) in Cleveland. The three agreed to be transported by Ariel Castro, forty. The man took them all to his home, where he kept them locked in the basement.

Michelle Knight, 21, was first kidnapped on August 23, 2002. Amanda Berry, 16, on April 21, 2003, and Gina DeJesus, 14, on April 2, 2004. Later The police admitted that the searches for Mr. Knight had not received sufficient attention. Officials were misled by the fact that Ms. Knight had to appear in court on the day of her kidnapping to recover her son, who was not allowed parental rights. The police decided that Mr. Knight fled angry that the girl had taken her away.

Both teens appeared on America’s most wanted shows, but to no avail. Castro cruelly treated his three hostages during his captivity. Mrs. Knight later said that she had become pregnant five times, but the kidnapper had tortured her so severely that she had had a miscarriage all those times. Berry gave birth to a son of Mr. Castro, who he took with him and took him to his mother or adult daughter. He told the latter that he had a son with a “friend”.

Castro fed his victims only once a day and was constantly beaten and raped. Despite active police searches, the man did not enter the circle of suspects. There was a time when the police even visited his home, but on a completely different matter.

The nightmare ended on May 6, 2013, when A. Castro left the house, leaving the heavy basement door open. He used to “test” his hostages by leaving the doors and exits “half closed”, and if any of the women tried to flee, they would be rejected. That day, Mr. Knight did not try to break because the front door was closed, but was able to summon the neighbors, who called the police. After inspecting the house, the officers found two other kidnappers. In 2013, he was sentenced to life in prison for another 1,000 years. His property was confiscated and 100,000 were assigned to him. A USD fine.

The rapist himself found no peace in prison. As early as August 2013, he was found suicidal, just one month after the sentence went into effect.