Tacoma Snatch

Two nights after Christmas, the colored lights on three large fir trees on a sweeping lawn in the exclusive Point Defiance residential section of Tacoma, Wash., glowed festively through a steady drizzle. They threw a gay pattern on the white front of a fine gabled house. In the living room of the house, where another gaily lighted tree stood, 10-year-old Charles Mattson, his 16-year-old brother Billy, his 14-year-old sister Muriel and her schoolgirl chum from Seattle played and talked as they waited for Dr. & Mrs. William Wrhitlock Mattson to return from a wedding reception.

While the children were thus alone, there was a heavy knocking on the French doors that open on a terrace at the rear of the house. Brown-haired, brown-eyed young Charles went to investigate. Popping with excitement, he ran back into the living room to report that he had seen a masked man through the glass. "I'll get my air rifle,'" he cried, starting for the stairs. A crash of glass stopped him in his tracks, A moment later the masked man was in the room brandishing a revolver. Billy thought the man was crazy or drunk when he made exaggerated gestures with the revolver, shouted: "Don't you kids try anything, because I'm wearing a bullet-proof vest." As he muttered incoherently, the man stepped up to Billy, searched his pockets.

When he found nothing, he said: "I've put a lot of money into this house, and I want to get some of it back." Then he moved over to Charles, grabbed the frightened child under one arm, picked him up bodily. "This is better than money," he said as he backed from the room toward the French doors. When Billy and the two girls ran to the shattered doors, they saw the man fleeing across the soggy rear lawn and down the slope toward Commencement Bay, with Charles held tightly under his arm. In the litter of broken glass at their feet they picked up this crude pocket-worn note that appeared to have been printed on a child's toy printing set.

"The price is 28,000 10000 in fives and ios 18000 50 and zoos. Old bills please no new ones. Put ad in Seattle Times personal colum read Mable--What's your new address Tim Put this ad Times no other paper If no answer from you within week price goes up double and double that each week after. Don't fail and I won't. The boy is safe. Tim." Within 24 hours Federal Bureau of Investigation operatives converged on Tacoma to take up the hunt for "Tim." Dr.

Mattson, a surgeon and onetime footballer at the University of Washington, said to be comfortably off but not wealthy, was unable to explain what the kidnapper meant when he declared he had "put a lot of money into" the $50,000 Mattson home.

Recalling that three times during previous weeks medical kits belonging to Dr. Mattson had been stolen, police ventured the theory that these minor crimes were somehow connected with the kidnapping and perpetrated by someone, perhaps a former patient, bearing a grudge. Dr. Mattson was unable to think of anyone whom he had offended. With no clues at hand as to whether the kidnapper escaped by automobile or by boat across Commencement Bay, police and G-Men backed off the case for several days to allow Dr. Mattson to carry out Tim's instructions.

Though the Mattsons would not say so, they apparently got a quick answer to their advertisement in the Seattle Times. After it ran two days it was replaced by another that read: "Mabel--we are ready, everything in accordance with your desires.

Ann." But here the negotiations seemed to halt, for the advertisement was still running daily at last week's end when a third advertisement was inserted. It read: "Mable--We have received your communications. Police have not intercepted them. Channels are entirely clear. Your instructions will be followed. We are ready--Ann." With snow and subfreezing temperatures descending on the Northwest, police and G-Men, fearing for the safety of young Charles, who was lightly clothed and wearing bedroom slippers, reentered the case in earnest. From Washington Chief J. Edgar Hoover of the F. B. I. sent his chief assistant, Harold Nathan, to take charge.

Until last fortnight there had been no kidnapping for ransom in the U. S. since nine-year-old George Weyerhaeuser of the rich lumber family was snatched at Tacoma in May 1935 (TIME, June 3, 1935 et seq.). George Weyerhaeuser, whose captors were caught and given stiff sentences after obtaining $200,000 for his release, used to play with Charles Mattson when he went to Haddaway Hall, the former home of his grandfather, two blocks away from the Mattson home.

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