The Kidnapping of George Weyerhaeuser
On May 24, 1935, 9-year-old George Weyerhaeuser was kidnapped off the street in broad daylight in Tacoma, Washington. What would come of this case would make it one of the most famous in the American Northwest.
On a regular day for Weyerhaeuser, he would walk from Tacoma’s Lowell Elementary School to his sister Anne’s school, Annie Wright Seminary. The two would be picked up by the family chauffeur and taken to their home for lunch. The Lowell Elementary School released students 15 minutes early for lunch, and arrived at the seminary early.
Instead of waiting, he decided to walk home. When he arrived on Borough Road, he saw two men sitting in a 1927 Buick Sedan. The passenger left the vehicle and asked George for directions to Stadium Way. He quickly grabbed the boy, placed him in the backseat, covered him with a blanket, and drove away.
The Weyerhaeuser family soon realized George was missing and notified the Tacoma Police Department.
At about 6:25 p.m., a postal carrier delivered a ransom note to the family addressed “To Whom It May Concern” demanding $200,000. They also had George sign the ransom note to prove it was real. George’s captors wanted the money within five days, and write a personal column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer saying that “we are ready” and to sign it Percy Minnie.
The FBI quickly took over the investigation once they learned of the ransom letter being sent through the mail. The Federal Kidnapping Act (also known as the Lindbergh Law) made it a felony to send extortion threats through the postal service. A dozen FBI Agents descended upon Tacoma to investigate George’s kidnapping.
Once the money was acquired in over 20,000 bills, the FBI collected all the serial numbers and distributed this collection of numbers to banks and other places where money flowed routinely. The next day, two advertisements were published in the personal column of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, with no response from George’s captors.
On May 28, Mr. Weyerhaeuser placed an ad in the paper again, saying exactly what the kidnappers wanted to see: “We are ready. Percy Minnie.” Law enforcement agreed to not intervene in the ransom negotiations until George was released.
On May 29, Mr. Weyerhaeuser received a letter from the kidnappers telling him to register at 7 p.m. at the Ambassador Hotel in Seattle under the name John Paul Jones. Included was a written note from George to prove he was safe.
Mr. Weyerhaeuser was then given more instructions to drive to S Renton Avenue and 62nd Avenue in the Rainer Valley with the money and look for a stake and a white cloth. Weyerhaeuser stayed there for three hours, but nothing happened, so he went back to the Ambassador Hotel.
On May 30, 1935, Weyerhaeuser received an anonymous phone call at the Ambassador Hotel asking why he hadn’t followed the instructions of a second note, which he never found. He was told that he had one more chance to save his son. He was told to drive to 1105 East Madison Street, where a tin can with a note in it would reveal his further instructions. Mr. Weyerhaeuser would keep finding instructions until he reached a dirt road off the main highway from Seattle to Tacoma.
The note which was on this dirt road instructed him to walk back to Seattle and leave the car, and that George would be released within 30 hours. After hearing some rustling in the bushes, he watched as a man drove away with the car and the $200,000.
George was released at a shack near Issaquah, Washington on the morning of June 1st, 1935. In his account of events, George says he waded across a stream with the men before being placed in a hole. He was chained up in this hole, and the men placed a board over it. They decided to remove the board and take him out of the hole after worrying police may find them.
Investigators later discovered the two men, along with a woman, placed George in the trunk of a Ford and drove through parts of Washington and Idaho. During one morning, he had been handcuffed to a tree where he was watched until nightfall. They then went to a house where he was placed in a closet with a mattress. On May 31, George would be told he was going home soon. After being released, he found his way to a farmhouse and announced who he was, and the family took him in, washed him, clothed him, and took him to Tacoma.
On June 2, 1935, the first of the money was tracked when a $20 railway ticket was bought from Huntington, Oregon, to Salt Lake City, Utah.
Harmon Metz Waley and William Dainard were both arrested. Waley, having been arrested on June 8th after his wife was found with a ransom note in her purse. His wife had no initial knowledge of the kidnapping, but helped negotiate the ransom. Waley turned on Dainard after he took an extra $5,000 from the ransom. Edward Fliss was also arrested in the scheme, after helping the pair exchange the ransom money.
Harmon Waley was sentenced to 45 years in prison, and his wife was sentenced to two concurrent twenty year sentences. Harmon spent time at Alcatraz for part of his sentence. Dainard was considered to be mentally unfit for a regular prison or penitentiary, so he was placed in a hospital after a guilty plea.
While in prison, Waley would write to George apologizing for his actions, and George eventually found work for Waley at one of his plants in Oregon. George eventually retired in 1999 and lives in Palm Springs. George told KUOW in 2016 that he didn’t believe the man meant him any harm, that he was in his 20s and made a mistake.
Photo: Twitter
