Free The Devil's Dozen by Katherine Ramsland Page A

the kidnapping. The Budds were able to say only that he might be the man. He was transported to Manhattan.
    Three days before Christmas, Pope went to trial, but his attorney had received a letter from Delia to the effect that she now believed he was not the kidnapper. In fact, three of the witnesses had decided he was not the man. Only his spiteful wife continued to stick to her story, but given their rough history, it was difficult to take her seriously. In fact, the locks of hair had come from their son. Pope was acquitted on December 24, while in February, Corthell was released as well.
    It would be more than three years before the case finally came to a horrifying resolution. In the meantime, the nation was transfixed by yet another kidnapping. On the evening of March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr., twenty months old, was taken from the second floor of the New Jersey home where his parents, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, resided. The nursemaid had discovered him missing from his bed. The Lindberghs, too, received dozens of communications, turning over bundles of money to an organization that supposedly held their child. But the baby’s body was discovered not far away in the woods, killed by an apparent blow to the head. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested two years later and held for trial. Even as this was going on, the Budd case was revived.

Finally, a Break
    By November 1934, only the persistent Detective King was still on it. He had traveled around the country following leads and was one of the few officers who still believed the case could be solved. He had even done various things to keep it alive. Among them was to plant false information in newspapers in the hope of disturbing the kidnapper so much he would react. The point was to keep the focus on him so the tension would never let up. In fact, each time King did this, the police received a number of leads, but none had yet been helpful. Still, King did not give up, even more than six years into the case. His preferred tool was a popular gossip column in the Daily Mirror that Walter Winchell wrote, called “On Broadway.” On November 2, King asked Winchell to write that the Bureau of Missing Persons had a new informant and expected to crack the case within the month. This time, the ruse apparently worked.
    On November 11, 1934, Delia Budd received a letter, sent from the Grand Central post office. She did not read, so Edward looked over the contents, which were so disgusting and terrifying he felt certain it was from the man who had taken Grace... and killed her in a gruesome manner. He took the missive straight to Detective King, who read it with a sinking sense of finality.
    “My dear Mrs. Budd,” the writer began. He went on to state that in 1894, a friend of his had shipped as a deckhand on the steamer Tacoma, going to Hong Kong. They got drunk and missed getting back on the boat, so they were stranded in a country suffering from famine.
    “So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak—chops—or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girls behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price.”
    So this man reportedly acquired a taste for human flesh, and when he finally returned to New York, he kidnapped two young boys. He bound and tortured them to make their “meat” more tender. Then he killed and ate them both.
    “At that time,” said the letter writer, “I was living at 409 E 100 St., near—right side. He told me so often how good Human flesh was I made up my mind to taste it. On Sunday June the 3—1928 I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese—strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my