Charley Ross - Aftermath

Aftermath

Two years after the kidnapping, Christian Ross published a book on the case, entitled The Father’s Story of Charley Ross, the Kidnapped Child. The Ross family continued to search for Charley for half a century or more, following leads and interviewing thousands of boys, teenagers, and eventually grown men who claimed to have been Charley. In 1939, a 69 year old carpenter named Gustave Blair who had legally changed his name to 'Charley Ross' became the last of the thousands of would-be 'Charley Rosses' to have his claims rejected by the Ross family. An estimate of the expenses incurred by the Rosses during the decades-long search amounts to more than three times what the original ransom would have been. The case, and in particular the fates of Mosher, Douglas, and Westervelt, served as a deterrent to other potential ransom kidnappers: it would be a quarter of a century before another high-profile ransom kidnapping case emerged with Edward Cudahy, Jr. in 1900. The fate of Charley Ross remains unknown. A major missing persons database is named after him. The common admonition "don't take candy from strangers" is said to have come from this affair.