Stole His Own Children

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 643, 20 April 1929, Page 18

Stole His Own Children

HN American millionaire, whose children were living with their mother in Paris, has carried out a dramatic coup to gain possession of them, and is now on his way back to America. Mr. O. Frank Woodward is a New York patent-food “king,” who recently started proceedings against his wife in a matrimonial court In the United States. In the meantime Ruth, aged 13, his daughter, and Frank, aged nine, his son, were pupils at an American private school in Paris near the Trocadero Gardens and a short distance from their mother’s house in the Passy quarter. They were in the habit of walking to the school every morning, about 9 o’clock, accompanied by their governess. About that hour one morniug a powerful limpusine stopped in front of the school. There were five men in it, and when, a few minutes later, the two children, with their governess, came in sight, all the men in the car got out, and the man who led the party went toward the children, saying: “Hallo, children, come and kiss ms Come for a drive with me.” The little boy jumped iuto his father’s arms, and was carried into the car. The girl hesitated, and at once said to her governess: “This is father; but we had better ask mother.” Before the governess had time to say a word, however, the child was seized by a man, who dragged her toward the car. The governess and the child be-

gan to shriek, and their cries attracted the attention of Mr. Emery Foster, the head of the school, who came up when the governess was trying to pull the girl away from the motorist, but little Ruth was pushed into the car. The headmaster jumped on to the footboard of the vehicle as it moved off. Though the headmaster managed to break the window with his fist, he was shaken off on to the pavement as the powerful car put on speed. When he was picked up it was found that an artery was cut, and he had to be removed to the American Hospital. It is alleged by Mr. Woodward’s lawyers that Mrs. Woodward has been living in Paris with the children for the past two years, and that it was as a result of her refusal to return home that her husband had started domestic court proceedings. He landed at Naples under an assumed name, and no one knew of his arrival in Europe. It is said that everything had been carefully arranged by private detectives for the carrying off of the children. Mr. Woodward, accompanied by his children and a “travelling companion,” specially hired in Paris to guard them, arrived in London by the afternoon boat train and went to the Carlton Hotel, and later to Paddington Station, and there boarded the boat train for the liner. lie do France. The party left Plymouth for 'New York by the liner lie de France. “It is purely a domestic affair,” said Mr. Woodward. “They are my own children, and I am not kidnapping them. I was determined that th<>should be brought up as Americans.”