Word: ransoming
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...raise their birds with loving attention, bet heavily on the pigeons' speed and natural navigation skills, bridle at the very thought of selling their pets for food. Last month, when a rash crook kidnaped half a dozen prizewinners and sent one of his own homers with a ransom note, the whole valley rose in wrath. Pigeon partisans tagged the go-between pigeon with streamers, trailed it by plane back to its loft, and turned the rustler over to the courts...
...sleeping off his midday bottle when his mother stepped into the house for a fresh diaper one afternoon last week. Fifteen minutes later, Beatrice Weinberger walked outside and found that 32-day-old Peter had been kidnaped. On the ground was a neatly written note demanding $2,000 ransom, to be placed near a neighbor's garage. Wrote the kidnaper: "I'm scared stiff. Do not notify the police until noon tomorrow or I'll be forced to kill the baby...
Manhattan's other major morning papers, the Herald, Tribune and Hearst's Daily Mirror, picked up the story. As clamoring rewrite men and reporters called Nassau County headquarters to check their tips, they were, asked by police to hold up the story until after the ransom deadline next day, in hope the kidnaper would collect the ransom and return the baby...
Next day the Long Island countryside swarmed with reporters, photographers and TV cameramen. Newsmen interviewed the Weinbergers' neighbors and the neighbors' children, besieged the parents with calls. At 10 a.m., when Weinberger placed the ransom at the nearby spot specified in the note, three newsmen were allowed to watch from a car. To no one's surprise, the kidnaper did not keep his date...
...Detective Pinnell, whose clumsy handling of the Woodward killing (TIME, Nov. 14, 1955) had earned him little respect among newsmen, could have averted any possible misunderstanding if he had briefed the press and pledged it to secrecy immediately after the crime. Later he jeopardized further attempts to pay the ransom; he blabbed to reporters that the packages left by Weinberger contained little real money. When the kidnaper upped the ransom from $2,000 to $5,000, Pinnell's cops asked most papers and wire services not to print the information, but apparently neglected to call the Times...