THE CITY ADVISERS PLANNED TO FOOL THE KIDNAPPERS WITH marked bills. Christian did not like the idea. “I felt that it was a fearful risk, involving the life of the child,” he later said. When they read that the kidnappers wanted Christian to keep the money on his person, the police assigned an officer to protect him around the clock.
Christian was also frustrated because communication with the kidnappers was slowing down. In the first days after Charley’s disappearance, the kidnappers had responded to newspaper messages within twenty-four hours. Between the fourth and fifth ransom letters, however, four days had passed. Christian faulted the advisers twice for this: for one, they were intentionally stalling for time as they figured out how to negotiate under false pretenses. He was also insecure with their insistence on communicating through the Ledger instead of the Herald or Star as the kidnappers had asked. Increasingly obsessed with the kidnappers’ threats to take Charley’s life, he didn’t sleep, and he rarely ate.
Meanwhile, Police Chief Jones was angry with reporters. He had of course reached out to the community for help. After authorizing public citizens to form search parties, he had also called upon clergy to release approved information—on July 12, pastors read police statements that described the kidnappers, the wagon, and the horse. But by now, the Rosses’ Germantown neighbors had repeated numerous versions of the kidnapping story and the eyewitness accounts. These stories, along with the increasing presence of the “LOST” flyers, attracted the interest of reporters from the city’s numerous dailies—some of whom began paying special attention to the Public Ledger. Without knowing about the ransom letters, close readers had noticed odd statements in the classifieds: “Ros we be redy to negociate”; “Ros wil com to terms to the extent of his ability”; “Ros is willing. Have not got it; am doing my best to raise it.” This third message alerted the press and the public to the possibility that the kidnappers wanted money, and it assured them that the kidnappers read the Ledger. After contacting sources within the police department, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that authorities were constantly watching the Ledger building.
Realizing the media was informing the kidnappers of police surveillance, Jones wrote to the city’s weekly and daily papers, asking each to withhold any information pertaining to the Ross case. The Inquirer ignored his request and ran a story about the police chief’s letter on Monday, July 13. The city was outraged. Handbills all over the city had been asking them to help find Charley, and in their minds, they were as much a part of the investigation as their incompetent police force.
And this frustrated the kidnappers. Their continued request for Christian to communicate through a newspaper other than the Ledger revealed their nerves. Various dailies had given them a sense of police procedure by reviewing things like the frequency of Christian’s visits to headquarters and which mailboxes the police monitored; however, the press had also informed them about the magnitude of the investigation and angry public opinion. Any plans they may have had to keep Charley a short while or to repeat their crime in Philadelphia were frustrated. And on July 14, they learned of a greater problem. That day, the Inquirer ran an article that reviewed Christian’s business and personal financial losses following the Panic of 1873. The kidnappers must have realized Christian Ross did not have the $20,000 that the Ledger ad had promised them. They had kidnapped a child from a wrong family.