Eddie Cudahy and Pat Crowe

'Nation's Leading Thrill'

Some Americans were scandalized at Cudahy Sr.’s decision to pay the ransom.

The San Francisco Examiner waggled its editorial finger, saying, “Mr. Cudahy had acted as a bad citizen because it will encourage others.”

The Omaha Bee noted that Cudahy spoke in a “nonchalant tone” about paying the $25,000, as though he “had just dropped a nickel down a cellar grating.”

Edward Cudahy did not wring his hands over the decision. Instead, he pressed a search for the kidnappers, vowing to spend whatever it might take to bring them to justice.

He posted a $25,000 reward and hired the famed Pinkerton Detective Agency, at a cost of $1,000 per week, to lead the manhunt, which the World-Herald called “the nation’s leading thrill.”

Omaha in those days was a wide-open town teeming with raw Irish, Italian and Slavic immigrants, rugged cowboys, dusty farmers, wealthy cattlemen and beefy meatpackers. The men met, drank, argued and fought in the city’s scores of saloons and brothels.

Cudahy hired the Pinkies because he did not believe Omaha police could solve the crime, whether due to corruption or incompetence. The agency proved worthy of his lack of confidence.

Police officers who investigated the scene of the ransom drop failed to turn up evidence. Yet a few days later two farm boys, Hans and Eggert Bock, poking about in the weeds there found the lantern that was used to mark the spot.

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1. Snatched in Omaha
2. Cudahy Money from Meat
3. The Ransom Note
4. Should He Pay?
5. Into the Dark Countryside
6. 'Nation's Leading Thrill'
7. Scribes Find Hideout
8. A Suspect Surfaces
9. Hunt for a 'Desperado'
10. Chief Pleas, Pols Act
11. 'Slipshod Hobo' Collared
12. Crowe Writes, Disappears
13. 'I'm Ready to Reform'
14. A 'Stunning' Trial
15. The Famous Summation
16. New Role: Crime Curiosity
17. Postscripts
18. Bibliography