Around 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, Gordon Morrow thought his bulldog, Nick, was acting mighty strange. The beast was running from door to door, barking all the while, as if eager to get out of the house and explore—what? But Nick was not the only dog who seemed excited. Other canines belonging to the farm families in the vicinity were also baying.
Sorry, Nick, it’s no night to be outdoors, Gordon thought. The nineteen-year-old thought he might go rabbit hunting the next day near his home in Snohomish County, several miles from Seattle. But for now, indoors was the place to be.
The next morning, snow covered the fields and woods near the Morrow house, but Gordon was still in the mood for hunting rabbits. Near a side road about a half mile west of the Pacific Highway, he saw a naked, doll-like form in the snow. Coming closer, Gordon saw that the form was the body of a young boy—the Mattson boy, he thought at once. He ran home to tell his father, Charles Morrow, then ran a half mile to a gas station to phone the Snohomish County sheriff’s office.
A family friend and a relative identified the body as that of Charles. The boy had been treated cruelly, as evidenced by bruises and marks on his wrists indicating he had been tightly bound. He had been killed by blows to the head, possibly with a metal pipe. Grease marks, abrasions, and dirt on the skin indicated that his body had been in the trunk of a car.
Subfreezing temperatures made it impossible to determine a time of death. The boy could have been killed shortly after he was taken but probably no later than four days before the body was discovered, coroners concluded.
President Roosevelt issued a statement on January 12 declaring that the slaying “has shocked the nation” and was “renewed evidence of the need of sustained effort in dealing with the criminal menace.”178
Hoover sent a large floral arrangement to the funeral service, held on Thursday, January 14. He pledged that his agency would use “all the resources at our command to apprehend and bring to justice the kidnapper and slayer of the Mattson boy.”179
In a gesture of truly amazing grace, Dr. Mattson thanked members of the news media for finally heeding his pleas and leaving him alone while there was still hope for his son. But the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce was unforgiving, issuing a statement condemning newsmen for their behavior in taking advantage of the tragedy.
Investigators were optimistic at first. Whoever left the body in the field had left footprints, and his car had left tire marks in the snow. But those clues led to nothing.
Then, hope. On Friday, July 8, 1938, a man named Lester Mead was arrested on a farm near Ritzville, in southeast Washington State, after saying that he had killed someone. Since Mead, who was thirty-two, resembled the description of the Mattson kidnapper, he was taken to Tacoma for questioning. After three days of interrogation, he said he had kidnapped and killed Charles Mattson.
But it was soon revealed that Mead had escaped from a mental hospital after the kidnapping of Charles Mattson. “He is entirely harmless, but is given to fantastic theories that he is a big-time criminal,” the hospital director told the Seattle Times.180
And that may have been the last time the Mattson kidnapping was big news—or news at all. The years went by, and various crackpots “confessed” to the crime, only to be proven innocent. The merciless, half-witted kidnapper—“Don’t you kids try to start anything, because I have a bullet-proof vest on”—was never caught. No doubt he passed from the scene long ago. One can only hope he finally found himself in front of the highest court of all, an otherworldly tribunal from which there was no appeal.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
AMBUSHED ON THE ROAD
Chicago
Saturday, September 25, 1937
“The car behind has been following us for some time and displaying unusually bright lights,” Charles Ross commented to his former secretary and longtime friend, Florence Freihage. “I don’t like the looks of this. I’ll cut over to the side and let him pass.”181
Ross’s suspicions were correct. As he pulled his car over to the side of the road, his secretary recalled later, the car that had been following veered sharply in front of him, blocking any forward progress. And here came two men from that car, one with a revolver in hand.
The gunman yanked on the driver’s side door, which was locked. Then he tapped on the door window with his revolver and told Ross to get out. Ross complied and was quickly searched and stuffed into the car of the kidnappers—for there seemed to be no doubt that the two ambushers were just that.
Freihage implored them not to hurt him, telling the kidnappers that Ross had a weak heart and high blood pressure. Ross was also seventy-two years old, and Freihage, who was forty-four, was afraid the sudden shock of events swirling beyond his control could do him great harm.
One of the abductors asked about her relationship with Ross.
When Freihage explained, the man seemed interested. “Oh, his secretary,” he said. “Can he stand a touch for a quarter million?”182
“I don’t…I don’t think so.” In a futile goodwill gesture, she offered the man her purse. He took $85 from it and told her to stay quiet in the car if she didn’t want to be killed or want her ex-boss and friend to be killed.
Quickly, Freihage took inventory of the man: curly hair, pointy nose, sharp features in general.
“Don’t call the police after we have gone, or we’ll kill him,” one of the kidnappers said.183 And off they went with their new prisoner, Charles Sherman Ross, retired president of the George S. Carrington Company, printers of valentines and other greeting cards.
There was no doubt about it: Ross had a head for business. He was a former druggist who became an investor in real
