BABY KIDNAPPED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 252, 5 August 1937, Page 5

BABY KIDNAPPED

STRANGE CASE IN CHICAGO. DISPUTE AS TO PARENTAGE. STORY OF RANSOM CIRCULATED. (United Press Association—Copyright.) NEW YORK, August 3. In broad daylight, a gang at Chicago kidnapped Donald Horst, aged 2§ years, the son of a wealthy song publisher and hotel owner. A man, accompanied by a woman, entered the yard of the Horst home, where Donald was playing a few feet from his mother. They snatched up the child and ran toward a car- in which a confederate was waiting. Mrs Horst screamed and sprang at the kidnapper. Hie and the woman beat her to the ground. A negro maid then ran up, but was also beaten down. Mrs Horst staggered to her feet, only to be knocked down again, and the car drove off. The kidnappers later telephoned a demand for 5000 dollars. Hie owner of the kidnappers-' car was traced. He said he lent the car to Fred Ewert, who was the chauffeur of Dr. John Rose, the physician who attended Mrs Horst at the time of Donald’s birth. Ewert and his wife are missing from their home. Detectives are confronted by somo puzzling features in the case. Mrs Horst said that the woman kidnapper screamed out as the car drove off “This is my baby, not yours!” While the police were at the Horst’s home the telephone rang and a man’s voice said: “The right father and mother have got the baby now.” STATEMENT BY ALLEGED PARENTS. t . SEARCHED FOR TWO YEARS. (Received This Day, 10.55 ami.) NEW YORK, August 4. After a night’s investigation, the police claimed that the kidnapped baby was not that of Mrs Horst. The woman’s sister confirms the police view, and the hospital where the baby was allegedly born have no records of Horst. Mrs Horst is held in “technical custody,” although she is permitted to return home, which is guarded by the police. A couple, John and Lydia Regan, who surrendered the Horst baby to the police, said the baby was born to Mrs Regan out of wedlock, and a doctor gave him to Horst without her consent. They searched two years for him, and soized the baby when Mrs Horst refused to give it up. HORSTS ADMIT NON-PATERNITY. (Received This Day, 1 p.m.) NEW YOitK, August 4. The Horsts and) the Regans met dramatically in the State Attorney’s office at Chicago. They saul they bore no malice. The Horsts admitted that Donald was not their child. The authorities have decided not to prosecute the Regans and have announced that a Court would decide the custody of Donald, who in the meantime is in an orphanage.