Late in the afternoon, they spied Charley and Walter Ross, ages 4 and 5, playing near what appeared to be a fine mansion on Washington Lane. The house belonged to the boys' father, Christian Ross, owner of a dry goods shop that, unknown to Mosher and Douglas, was failing.
Ross' wife, Sarah, was vacationing in Atlantic City and Christian was due home momentarily when, at around 5 p.m., Mosher enticed the two boys to come with him by offering them candy. Walter was later released in Kensington.
We Is Got Him, Carrie Hagen's relentlessly suspenseful account of the crime, takes its title from the mangled prose of Mosher's ransom note, demanding a $20,000 ransom at a time when the yearly salary of the president of the United States was $25,000.
Hagen tells us at the start of her book that Charley's fate remains unknown. She also tells us how Mosher and Douglas met their end: They were fatally shot in the botched burglary of a summer home on Long Island. Before he died, Douglas confessed to the kidnapping, but did not reveal where Charley was, or even if he was alive.
The kidnappers were a sleazy pair.
Mosher was a middle-aged New York river pirate, thief, burglar, boat builder, carpenter, and itinerant peddler of Bibles, phony insect repellents, and stolen goods. He had a deformed nose and a crushed finger whose end had withered to a bony point. Douglas, his 28-year-old accomplice, was a sometime Manhattan street car operator.
