The kidnapping of Charles Brewster "Charley" Ross

On July 1st 1874 Charles Brewster Ross nicknamed Charley or occasionally little William Penn (due to his serious manner) and his brother Walter Ross aged 5 or 8 (one place says 5 another says 8) were playing in the front yard of their family home in Germantown, Pennsylvania when a horse-drawn carriage pulled up and two men approached them offering candy for a ride they boys agreed and the men rode to a store where Walter was given money and told to go inside and bug some candy for himself and Charles but when Walter came out he found that the carriage had gone without him and Charles was never seen again.

 In 1874 there were little to no abductions or if so they went unacknowledged, kidnapping was so rare that it wasn't even a criminal offence in Pennsylvania at the time of Charles disappearance. The boys father Christian Ross reported to police that his son had disappeared and at first they were unconcerned saying that the men where probably drunk taken Charles for a laugh and would return him when they'd sobered up and to just go home and wait to see what would happen. (which looking at it now in this day and age would never happen can you imagine your child going missing and being told not to worry someones taken them as a bit of fun and that ultimately he'll turn up eventually, we'd tell them their insane and to find our child.)

I've found two different accounts of what happened next but both say that the father Christian started receiving ransom demands of $20,000 a enormous amount of money for the time. One says that the notes where written in an odd hand in coarse semi-literate style with many simple words misspelled and warned about involving the police threatening Charles' life if he didn't cooperate. In this account it also states that Christian Ross was thought to be wealthy but in reality he was heavily in dept and could not afford that kind of money so seeing no other choice he contacted the police. 
In another account it is said that although Christian wasn't so wealthy that he had that kind of money lying around he could get the money for the ransom but upon advice from the police and coinciding with his convictions he decided not to pay the ransom as he thought that once the abductors realised that they weren't getting any money they would return Charles. This was the first big ransom kidnapping and Christian thought that if he paid the ransom then other children would be disappearing here, there and everywhere as criminals would catch on to the idea of taking children for money. He also didn't believe that the abductors should be able to profit from their crime, so he didn't budge and neither did the abductors.

Walter Ross had given the description of the men to the police one of the men was very identifiable as he had what Walter described as a 'monkey nose'.
So again I found two accounts of what happened next one states that the police knew who they were looking for but got nowhere near them. It also says that Christian kept communicating with the kidnappers through newspaper ads and letters trying to string them along hoping that they would be caught before any harm came to Charles, pretty quickly though it became apparent that they would not return the boy without the ransom being paid. It says that Christian struggled with this and went back and forward with the idea of paying the ransom but although it was causing him agony he never backed down. The other account states that along with heavy media coverage some prominent Philadelphians enlisted the help of the famous Pinkerton detective agency who produced millions of flyer's and posters with Charles' likeness printed on them. This account states there were actually several attempts at paying the ransom but each time the abductors failed to appear and eventually all communication stopped.

Both accounts of what happened next are the same but one goes into a little bit more detail than the other. So five months after the kidnapping on the night of December 13th a house belonging to Judge Charles Van Brunt was burglarised and Van Brunt's brother Holmes who lived next door heard something so gathered members of his household, armed them with shotguns and went to stop the intruders in the act. As they entered the house they noticed some lanterns go out which resulted in a torrent of gun fire from Holmes and his men which brought down the intruders where they stood. The intruders were Bill Mosher and Joe Douglas career criminals who had recently been released from jail. Bill Mosher was instantly killed while Joe Douglas was fatally wounded but managed to survive for another two hours and was able to communicate with Holmes. Everyone was shaken up by the events so there is no clear consensus regarding exactly what Joe said but most agree that he said there was no point lying (as he knew he was fatally wounded and would die) and admitted that it was in fact himself and Bill Mosher who had abducted Charles Ross. Further conversations are more controversial he either stated that Charles was dead or that Bill knew where Charles was, possibly saying he could be returned soon. In any case no clues to Charles' location or any other details of the crime where provided and he died soon afterwards.

Walter Ross was taken to view the bodies of Bill Mosher and Joe Douglas to see if he could identify them as the men who were in the carriage, Walter did identify them as the men who took the boys from their house he especially recognise Bill Mosher as he had a distinctive nose malformation due to the cartilage being destroyed by syphilis which was the "monkey nose" he described to police.

The issue of the men in the carriage was settled beyond a doubt but this wasn't the end of the case, William Westervelt (who was said to be a former Philadelphia police) a known associate of Bill Mosher was arrested in connection with the case and tried in 1875 for kidnapping although there was little evidence to support the theory of him being a part of Charles' abduction. Walter Ross was adamant that William Westervelt was not one of the men in the carriage who took them for a ride. William was found not guilty of kidnapping but he was found guilty of a lesser conspiracy charge and served 6 years in prison. While in prison awaiting trial he told Christian Ross that at the time of Bill Mosher's death Charles was alive. William Westervelt maintained his innocence and swore he had no knowledge of Charles' whereabouts.

Two years after the kidnapping Christian Ross published a book entitled The father's story of Charley Ross, the kidnapped child, in order to raise money to continue searching for his son. By 1878 media attention began to fade so to regain interest Christian reprinted the book and begun lecturing.

Both Christian and his wife spent the rest of their lives searching for their son, they followed countless leads and interviewed over 570 boys, teenagers and eventually grown men who claimed to be Charles unfortunately all were proved to be imposter's. In all the Ross' spent approximately $60,000 trying to find their son until their deaths. (Christian died in 1897 and his wife in 1912)

In 1924 newspapers started running stories on the kidnapping to coincide with the 50th anniversary by this time Walter was an adult and in interviews he said that he and his sisters still receive letters from men claiming to be Charles.

In 1934 Gustave Blair a 69 year old carpenter in Phoenix, Arizona petitioned a court to recognise him as Charles Ross. Walter called him a crank and said "the idea that my brother is still alive is not only absurd, but the man's story seems unconvincing. We've long given up hope that Charles ever would be found alive". As Gustave's claim was uncontested the court ruled that he was Charles Ross in March 1939, despite this the family refused to acknowledge him as Charles and did not bequeath him any money or property from their parents estate. Gustave moved to Los Angeles briefly and attempted to sell 'his story' to a movie studio unsuccessfully before moving to Germantown with his wife before moving back to Phoenix. He died in December 1943 still claiming to be Charles Ross.

Bring back our darling is a popular song based on the crime written by Dexter Smith and W.H. Brockway. 
It's said that the case was the first kidnapping for ransom in US history to receive widespread attention from the media.
The common admonition "don't take candy from strangers" is thought to have come from Charles Ross' kidnapping. The Charley project a major missing persons database is named after Charles Ross. 

I came across this case while researching and it just grabbed my attention and I found it really interesting how they took both boys for a ride to the shop sent Walter into the shop to get candy and then took off with Charles. Like why did they decide to take Charles over Walter?  Why didn't they take both boys considering to start with they did take both boys? Did they plan on kidnapping a child to hold for ransom? Did they plan on ransoming Charles or was it a last minute thought? Was Charles alive at the time of Bill Moshers' death like William Westervelt claimed? If so what happened to him and how did William Westervelt have knowledge of that fact? Was William Westervelt really involved in Charles kidnapping somewhere further down the line? Obviously no one knows what Charles went through so many of these questions will never be answered, one thing I came across was if they were career criminals could they have sold Charles to someone in need of a young boy, maybe other criminals? This is quite a hard thought for me to think that this 4 year old boy lived out his life in a criminal network. Someone said well surely he'd remember being kidnapped and remember his family but if he was subjected to violence, abuse or torture at a young age then he might have locked those memories deep within himself or created different personalities/people to deal with those situations or maybe he was just young enough that with time he didn't remember his family or the kidnapping my earliest memory is from when I was about 6 I think. But like I said I don't like that theory it seems like a lot of effort for them and i don't think they would have been smart enough to come up with that kind of plan.

What about you guys think about this case?
Do you think William Westervelt was in on the crime?

If you guys have any other information about this case please let me know.
If any information in this post is incorrect then I apologise I researched it from various websites.

If you want me to do a post on a certain person or topic let me know in the comments and I'll try and do them.


Image from: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Charley_Ross.jpg/1200px-Charley_Ross.jpg