Mysteries of the missing

by Edward H. Smith

Douglas died there on the lawn, with the rain drenching his tortured body. Both he and Mosher were identified from the police records by officers who had known them and by relatives. Walter Ross and a man who had seen the kidnappers driving through the streets of Germantown with the two boys, were taken to New York. The brother of the kidnapped child, though he was purposely kept in the dark as to his mission, immediately recognized the dead men in the morgue as the abductors, saying that Douglas was the one who gave the candy, and that Mosher had driven the horse. This identification was confirmed by the other witness.

The return of the stolen boy was, therefore, anxiously and hourly expected. But he had not arrived at the end of a week, and the police officials immediately moved in new directions.

Mosher had married the sister of William Westervelt, of New York, a former police officer, who was later convicted of complicity in the abduction. Westervelt and Mrs. Mosher were apprehended. The one-time policeman made a rambling statement containing little information, but his sister admitted that she had been privy to the matter of the kidnapping. She had known for several months, she said, that her husband had kidnapped Charlie Ross, but she had not been consulted in his planning, and did not know where he had kept the child hidden, and was unable to give any information.

Mrs. Mosher went on to say that she believed the child to be alive and stated her reasons. She did not believe her husband, burglar and kidnapper though he was, capable of injuring a child. He had four of his own and had always been a good father. The poverty of his family had driven him to the abduction. Also, Mrs. Mosher related, she had pleaded with her husband to return the stolen boy to his parents, saying that it was cruel to hold him longer, that there seemed to be little chance of collecting the ransom safely, and that the danger to the abductors was becoming greater every day. This conversation, she said, had taken place only a few days before the Van Brunt burglary and Mosher’s death. Accordingly, since Mosher had then agreed that the child should be sent home, she felt sure it was still living.

But Charlie Ross never came back. The death of his abductors only intensified the quest for the boy. Detectives were sent to Europe, to Mexico, to the Pacific coast, and to various other places, whither false clews pointed. The parents advertised far and wide. Mr. Ross himself, in the course of the next few years, made hundreds of journeys to look at suspected children in all parts of the United States. He spent, according to his own account, more than sixty thousand dollars on these hopeful, but vain, pilgrimages. Each new search resulted as had all the others. At last, after more than twenty years of seeking, Christian K. Ross gave up in despair, saying he felt sure the boy must be dead.

For some time after the kidnappers had been killed and identified, a large part of the American public suspected that Westervelt or Mrs. Mosher, or some one connected with them, was detaining the missing child for fear of arrest and prosecution in case of its return home. The theory was that Charlie Ross was old enough to observe, remember and talk. He might, if released, give information that would lead to the imprisonment of Mosher’s and Douglas’ confederates. Accordingly, steps were taken to get the child back at any compromise. The Pennsylvania legislature passed an act, in February, 1875, which fixed the penalty for abducting or detaining a child at twenty-five years’ imprisonment, but the new law contained a proviso that any person or persons delivering a stolen child to the nearest sheriff on or before the twenty-fifth day of March, 1875, should be immune from any punishment. At the same time Mr. Ross offered a cash reward of five thousand dollars, payable on delivery of the child, and no questions asked. He named more than half a dozen responsible firms at whose places of business the child might be left for identification, announcing that all these business houses were prepared to pay the reward on the spot, and guaranteeing that those bringing in the boy would not be detained.

All this was in vain, and the conclusion had at last to be reached that the boy was beyond human powers of restoration.

To tell what seems to have been the truth—though it was suspected at the time—the New York police had fairly reliable information on Mosher and Douglas soon after the crime. Chief Walling appears, though he never openly said so, to have been informed by a brother of Mosher’s who was on bad terms with the kidnapper. Not long afterwards he had Westervelt brought in for questioning. That worthy had been dismissed from the New York police force a few months earlier for neglect of duty or shielding a policy room. His sister was Bill Mosher’s (the suspected man’s) wife and it was known that Westervelt had been in Philadelphia about the time of the abduction of Charlie Ross. He was trying, by every device, to get himself reinstated as a policeman, and Walling held out to him the double bait of renewed employment and the whole of the twenty thousand dollars of reward offered for the return of the boy and the capture of the kidnappers.

Here a monumental piece of inefficiency and stupidity seems to have been committed, for though Westervelt visited the chief of police no fewer than twenty times, he was never trailed to his scores of appointments with his brother-in-law and the other abductor. Neither did the astute guardians of the law get wind of the fact that Mosher and Douglas were in and about New York most of the time. They failed to find out that Westervelt and probably one of the others had been seen with the little Ross boy in their hands. Indeed, they failed to make the least progress in the case, though they had definite information concerning the names of the kidnappers, both of them experienced criminals with long records. It might be hard to discover a more dreadful piece of police bluffing and blundering. First the Philadelphia and then the New York forces gave the poorest possible advice, made the most egregious boasts and promises and then proceeded to show the most incredible stupidity and lack of organization. A later prosecutor summed it all up when he said the police had been, at least, honest.

But, after Mosher and Douglas had been killed at Judge Van Brunt’s house and Douglas had made his dying statements, it was easy to lure Westervelt to Philadelphia, arrest him, charge him with aiding the kidnappers and his wife with having been an accessory. Walter Ross had identified Mosher and Douglas as the men who had been in the buggy but had never seen Westervelt. A neighboring merchant appeared, however, and picked him out as the man who had spent half an hour in his shop a few weeks after the kidnapping, asking many questions about the Rosses, especially as to their financial position and the rumor that Christian K. Ross was bankrupt. Another man had seen him about Bay Ridge the day before Mosher and Douglas broke into the Van Brunt house and were killed. A woman appeared who had seen Westervelt riding on a Brooklyn horse-car with a child like Charlie Ross. In short, it was soon reasonably clear that the one-time New York policeman had conspired with his brother-in-law and the other man to seize the boy and get the ransom. Westervelt’s motives were rancor at being caught at his tricks and dismissed and financial necessity, for he was almost in want after his discharge. Apparently, he had assisted in the preparations for the kidnapping, had the boy in his charge for a time and used his standing as a former officer to hoodwink the New York police. He had also had to do with some of the ransom letters.