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Brooke Hart found murdered....
Brooke Hart found murdered....
Item # 576142
November 10, 1933
ALBANY EVENING NEWS, New York, November 10, 1933
* Brooke Hart kidnapping (1st report)
* Famous San Jose, California lynching close
This 28 page newspaper has one column headlines on page 2: "YOUTH TAKEN BY KIDNAPERS" and "Brooke Hart, 22, Son of California Merchant, Held for $40,000" which tells of the initial kidnapping Brooke Hart. This event got more national attention when the body was found, and of course the lynchings. Many newspapers did not report the initial kidnapping.
Other news of the day including period advertising. Light browning with some spine wear, but otherwise in good condition.
wikipedia notes: On the afternoon of Thursday, November 9, 1933, the twenty-two year old Hart was kidnapped while retrieving his Studebaker roadster from a downtown San Jose garage. He was driven in the car by his captors to what is now Milpitas. There they abandoned the Studebaker for another car, drove to the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, where Hart was hit over the head with a concrete block and dumped into San Francisco Bay. At the time, the tide was out and there was only a few feet of water at the base of the bridge, so Thurmond and Holmes shot Hart, killing him. A few hours later, the Hart family was telephoned by Thurmond and Holmes, who demanded $40,000 for Hart's return, with further instructions to follow.
Brooke Hart had been kidnapped at the exit of the parking lot behind the family department store. A half hour later, a mother and daughter on a farm immediately south of Milpitas, California, about seven miles east of San Jose watched as a Studebaker President Convertible Roadster with two men in it stopped near their barn. Their description of the man driving, slender with light colored hair, matched the description of Brooke Hart, as did the Studebaker as his car. Moments later, a long-hooded dark sedan with four men in it skidded to a stop, and Brooke Hart was placed in the larger car with the four men and driven off. A fifth man followed in the Studebaker. Later that night, a man living in Milpitas reported that his wife had seen an abandoned convertible left with its lights on outside their home. The car was Brooke Hart's.
At 9:30 the same night, Miriam Hart, Hart's youngest sister, answered the telephone and was informed by a "soft-spoken man" that Hart had been kidnapped and that instructions for his return would be provided later. At 10:30, what sounded like the same man called and informed Miriam that her brother would be returned upon payment of $40,000. Delivery instructions would be provided the next day. However, the family was not contacted again until the following Monday, when a card, postmarked in Sacramento, arrived in the mail at the family department store. It instructed Hart's father, Alex Hart, to have a radio installed in the Studebaker (which already had a radio), because the ransom instructions would be broadcast over NBC radio station KPO. The kidnapper also instructed Alex Hart to be ready to drive the Studebaker to deliver the ransom. Alex Hart had never learned to drive.
Category: The 20th Century
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