SARAH ROSS HAD STOPPED ASKING TO READ THE RANSOM NOTES, but after the arrival of each one, she asked if her little boy was okay. Christian always said yes.
Because the authorities had failed to draw any pertinent information from Christopher Wooster, Detective Joshua Taggart did not receive the Ross family’s $300 reward for information leading to Charley. Taggart, though, wasn’t hurting financially. For the past two years, he had been accepting “hush” money for protecting the identity of George Leslie, a thirty-four-year-old bank robber and jewel thief.
The New York Times and New York Herald chastened the police for releasing their one lead, but Wooster soon disappeared from the interests of all parties involved. Within two days of the mayor’s July 23 notice, the “one lead” that the police had in Wooster turned into hundreds of false ones. Unemployed workers, indigent street dwellers, tenement families, struggling laborers, police officers, and detectives sought the $20,000 reward by producing “a” Charley who fit the description they had read, heard, and talked about for the past three weeks. Street children of all ages adopted the name “Charley Ross.” Poor parents and fortune seekers told their own boys to dirty their hair and assume Charley’s identity; the adults then turned their own children in to the police.
Western Union extended a free wire to Christian Ross, and he communicated with police chiefs throughout the country to follow up on promising possibilities. Too often, officers acted on false instincts and took innocent parents into custody. One mother was stopped so often by Philadelphia police officers that Chief Jones gave her a letter stating her child was not Charley. In North Philadelphia, officers arrested a man and a woman because eyewitnesses placed them with Charley. They were quickly released. The child was their own—and a daughter. Authorities also mistakenly arrested a man from Richmond, Virginia, after witnesses insisted they saw him traveling with Charley Ross. The man said his accusers must have been referring to his recently deceased six-month-old infant son, not a four-year-old boy. To verify the story, the Richmond Police had the baby’s body disinterred.
A Philadelphia detective traveled to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to investigate a report filed by the Pennsylvania Detective Bureau, an organization that had offered a separate $2,500 reward for information leading to Charley. On the morning of Tuesday, July 7, a carriage carrying two men, a woman, and a little boy parked by a bank. One of the men and the woman escorted the boy into a nearby barbershop and asked the barber, “Fancy Bill,” to trim his curls. The child didn’t speak. He appeared to be in shock, and the barber heard the woman promise to buy the boy candy and ice cream when they left. The detective listened to the story, but once he learned that the barber shared it only after hearing about the reward, he dismissed the claim. The curious Allentown party then disappeared from the papers.
Neighbors in Germantown remembered two foreign couples who had searched the town for work in a rented buggy during the last week of June. Although wandering laborers passed through the town, rarely did they stay in one specific area without finding consistent work for consecutive days. The police visited area stables, checked rental records, and questioned stable keepers’ memories. They traced descriptions to a British foursome living in central Philadelphia and raided their house. The police didn’t discover Charley, but they did discover stolen silks and jewelry—evidence of why the group was interested in circling the same households.
Much of Philadelphia believed that Charley had never left the city’s boundaries. One letter to the editor suggested the police organize search parties in each ward and investigate “every Philadelphia property for the child.” An ex-detective echoed the idea, telling the police to set one day aside to search every house in the city. Editorials disagreed, arguing that eyewitness accounts identified the kidnappers’ buggy as an out-of-town rental and the boy was probably miles away. Benjamin Franklin, the Philadelphia superintendent of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, thought so too. He thought the captors had taken Charley to Canada, where they couldn’t be extradited for kidnapping.
Hopeful reports and disappointing results devastated Christian Ross, and his doctor confined him temporarily to his bed. The daily stories of false leads and con artists also disturbed the rest of an invalid woman in New York City. Her husband, a gentleman named Mr. Percell, decided to address his own personal to the kidnappers through the New York Herald. Without contacting Christian Ross or the Philadelphia police, Percell offered to pay the ransom and act as an agent for the protection of the kidnappers and the safe return of Charley. Percell said he didn’t want to “compromise a felony,” only to calm his sick wife’s worries over Charley Ross.
The kidnappers didn’t appreciate his offer.
PHILADA., July 28.— We se in the personals that Mr. Percll a millionaire of New York offers to pay the required amount to redeem yu child an ask no questions, but we have no confidence in him neither would we treat with him if he offered one milion in hand an no questions asked. in the transaction of this bisines we are determined to no no one but yu. if yu have not the mony to redeem him an ask for an extension of time we wil keep him for yu but under no other circum-stances we wil not. No matter how grate the reward is, it signifies nothin with us—they are goin to search every house in the city. we wil give you the satisfaction of knowin that he is within 100 miles of this city an yet we defy al the devels out of hell to find him. we teld yu to put the mony in a box, but we now tel yu to put the mony in a strong, white, leather valise, locked an double straped an be prepared to give it or take it wherever we direct yu. if yu are directed to cary it yuself yu may take al the friends yu pleas with yu—but dont let the cops know yu bisines. if you can have all things ready as we have directed yu by thursday the 30th insert the folowin in the ledger personal (John—it shall be as you desire on the 30th.) Ros you may fix any other date that is convenient for you.