#PrescottAZHistory: 1920: Million-Heir Boy Kidnapped Near Drake

A group of three detectives parked their automobile about a mile and a half away from the Puntenney lime mine near Cedar Glade (present day Drake) and began to walk toward the office. It seemed a long way to trudge, but they wanted their story to be believable.

“Our car broke down,” one of them told the office manager. “What kind of mine do you have here? May we look around while we wait for help?” The three began to fein interest in the operations as they set about to look for their real objective—an 11 year-old boy named Willie.

One of the detectives peered into a building and spied the youngster. The three men left, but that would hardly be the end of it. They were plotting to steal William Hurd Barrett for the third time in less than a year.

Dr. Frederick James Barrett and his wife Marian, both wealthy, were having marriage difficulties and William had become a “football” in the dispute. Dr. Barrett sought divorce from his wife due to “misconduct with Frank H Barrett (unrelated,) a cotton broker of Augusta, Georgia, while the husband was in the medical corps of the [US] Army,” the paper related. The suit was dropped, but Mrs. Barrett went back to Frank H., bringing her son with her.

“The youngster passed from the custody of his father March 27, [1920,] and then dropped out of sight until Sunday, November 28, when he left the Hollywood Hotel, where he and his mother had been for about three weeks,” the paper reported. “He was picked up by a husky stranger, [chloroformed,] thrown into an automobile, and vanished in the traffic.”

Previously, the mother had taken the boy from a military school in Massachusetts to her home in Los Angeles. The father, using the same detectives the mother employed, recaptured the boy and sent him to where he thought he would not be found: the Puntenney lime mine.

He was mistaken. Although the doctor won full custody of the boy in court, the mother would not be dissuaded. The detective agency, now employed for the third consecutive time for the same purpose, got a tip as to Willie's whereabouts. Soon they were on their way, with Mrs. Barrett in tow, to Arizona to investigate further and case the joint.

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After the three detectives used the excuse of their car breaking down to investigate the lime works, a fourth detective was sent in. “I am a quarryman. I am looking for a job. I understand there is a chance to become a foreman,” he said. The stranger was curiously well-dressed, and told there was no work available at present, but “the law of the land did not prevent him from ‘sticking around,’” the paper pointed-out. Two other detectives also arrived at the area to watch and assist.

“With all the setting of a movie drama, the latest ‘kidnapping’ of ‘Wee Willie’ Barrett…was affected…with the aid of detectives, waiting automobiles, and intrigue.” This morning William was mounted onto a black pony and began riding about, allowing the tallest of the three men to approach him. “Kid, your mammy wants to see you,” he told him. The boy went with the stranger to his waiting mother who placed him into a car that immediately started speeding toward Ash Fork. They then went on to Seligman and boarded a train heading west. However, instead of traveling back to Los Angeles, the pair changed trains and headed to San Francisco “where it is believed a securer hiding place [could] be found,” the paper supposed.

This time the father used the court to successfully get his boy back, but when the two were vacationing in Asheville, NC a few months later, the mother decided to strike again and William was stolen a fourth time. However, on this occasion, criminal kidnapping charges were pressed against Mrs. Barrett and the detectives involved.

She fought extradition to North Carolina arguing that criminal charges were being employed in what was really a civil matter. The entire episode came to a screeching halt, however, with the sudden death of the boy’s father.

For better or worse, William would never be stolen away again. Yet a century ago, it was the talk of the town.

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