Friday Follow-Up: Charley Ross: America's First Kidnapping for Ransom

Crimes of the Centuries

Amber Hunt and Audioboom

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this Friday Follow-Up, we update with information brought to us by two descendants of an important latter-day figure in the case. After 4-year-old Charley Ross vanished in a carriage with two men who'd offered him candy and fireworks, police at first told his father to wait it out. Surely the men had no bad intentions. Then came the first ransom letter. And another. And another. In 1874, the Charley Ross case marked the first time in American history that a child had been stolen for money.

"Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history. You can get early and ad-free episodes on the Grab Bag Patreon page.

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Transcript

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0:31.2	need. Hello listeners, I timed today's follow-up Friday episode on purpose to follow Monday's episode about Marion Parker
0:39.4	because both cases are among the highest profile kidnapping for ransom cases in American history.
0:45.8	When stories ran in newspapers about Marion's kidnapping, several mentioned little Charlie Ross.
0:50.7	It so happened that after this episode initially ran in 2020, I was contacted by some
0:56.5	people with direct ties to the case who had some interesting information that I was able to include
1:01.9	in my book, Crimes of the Centries, and now it's here in podcast forum. Thanks much for listening.
1:14.0	Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking
1:17.1	that they earn the label Crime of the Century.
1:22.1	But the stories that made headlines and decades past
1:25.5	aren't necessarily remembered today.
1:30.0	I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist and author,
1:33.4	and in each episode of this show,
1:36.2	I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser known today,
1:39.2	but was huge when it happened.
1:42.8	This is Crimes of the Centuries.
1:46.0	Little Walter Ross looked ashen, scared.
	...

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