As with all elements of society, the criminal element has its fads, its trends, its innovators and its copycats. In the early 2000s, home invasion robberies were all the rage. Today, internet identity theft is trending with hi-tech hoodlums. For low-class, low-tech ne’er-do-wells lacking imagination, the good ol’ smash-and-grab came back in style with a vengeance during the Covid-19 pandemic. They’ve all got their styles, their specialties, their routines.
Nearly a century ago, the 1930s saw the birth of a dramatic new crime wave which, while not lasting long, had long-lasting impact and was, in its day, traumatic, problematic, widespread and highly newsworthy: the classic kidnap-for-ransom.
It was likely inspired by the notorious Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping in 1932, an event one writer called “the biggest story since The Resurrection.” Afterwards, the biggest names in American malefaction got in on the act: celebrity felons like Machine Gun Kelly, Baby-Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Ma Barker gang.
The perp in “Young Skeegie, Old Sparky & J. Edgar” (Case #4 in the Murder, Mischief & Mayhem podcast series) wasn’t some big-time bad guy. In 1938, he was just a good-ol’ boy Florida Cracker in a remote town on the edge of The Everglades, and a wanna-be hood wanting a quick payday. If his anti-social idols like Floyd, Ma and Baby-Face could do it, why not him? And no need for gun play…just sneak into the home of local merchants Bailey and Vera Cash on a Saturday night, ‘jack’ their sleeping 5-year-old son Skeegie from his crib, leave a ransom note demanding $10,000, collect the payout, and return the boy safe and sound. What could go wrong?
Well…everything!!!
Not only did the bunglesome burglar fail to foresee the many tragic missteps that would befall his illicit efforts at every turn; he couldn’t know that the kidnapping of Skeegie Cash would be the only time in FBI history that Director J. Edgar Hoover himself (to score political points and save The Bureau from bureaucrats) got out from his D.C. desk and flew to Florida to take charge of the case…and nearly bungled it!
By Justin Vyor
