A ransom of $18 million (AED 66 million) was asked in what would prove to be one of the most high-profile kidnapping cases in history. But Italian police were sceptical. Getty had spoken to friends about faking an abduction to extract money from his prodigiously tight grandfather – a man who famously insisted guests use a payphone he'd installed in his Surrey mansion. “If I pay one penny now,” the eldest John Paul said, “I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.”
The oil baron was as miserly with his money as he was with his love. His son, also known as Big Paul, was, in turn, an absent and neglectful father. A heroin addict, living in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, he had greater affection for his collection of rare books than his teenage boy.
“Do you realise that if I have to pay the ransom,” Big Paul said to his mistress, “I’d have to sell my entire library for that useless son?”
Getty's mother, Gail Harris, no longer married or rich, took things more seriously. She received the original letter of ransom, handwritten by her son. But it was not until three months after his kidnapping, once his ear and a lock of his hair was mailed, along with a reduced ransom of $3 million, that the rest of his family followed suit.
As written in John Pearson's 1995 book Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty, John Paul Getty paid $2.2 million – the maximum his accountants said would be tax-deductible. The teenager's dad came up with the rest, money he borrowed from his father – at four per cent interest.
The negotiations
This came only after a succession of ludicrous inter-family negotiations – in which, among other things, the custody of children was used as a bargaining tool – and a letter was written to then US president Richard Nixon.
The beat-up boy, malnourished and missing an ear, was found half-dead in the driving rain at a petrol station on December 15, 1973. Of the nine men arrested for his kidnapping, only two were eventually convicted. The others, including a man believed to be the head of the Calabrian Mafia –the Ndrangheta – the brains behind the abduction, were acquitted due to lack of evidence. Just $85,000 of the $2.8 million ransom was recovered.
A ransom of $18 million (AED 66 million) was asked in what would prove to be one of the most high-profile kidnapping cases in history. But Italian police were sceptical. Getty had spoken to friends about faking an abduction to extract money from his prodigiously tight grandfather – a man who famously insisted guests use a payphone he'd installed in his Surrey mansion. “If I pay one penny now,” the eldest John Paul said, “I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.”
The oil baron was as miserly with his money as he was with his love. His son, also known as Big Paul, was, in turn, an absent and neglectful father. A heroin addict, living in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, he had greater affection for his collection of rare books than his teenage boy.
Two minds
“Do you realise that if I have to pay the ransom,” Big Paul said to his mistress, “I’d have to sell my entire library for that useless son?”
Getty's mother, Gail Harris, no longer married or rich, took things more seriously. She received the original letter of ransom, handwritten by her son. But it was not until three months after his kidnapping, once his ear and a lock of his hair was mailed, along with a reduced ransom of $3 million, that the rest of his family followed suit.
As written in John Pearson's 1995 book Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty, John Paul Getty paid $2.2 million – the maximum his accountants said would be tax-deductible. The teenager's dad came up with the rest, money he borrowed from his father – at four per cent interest.
This came only after a succession of ludicrous inter-family negotiations – in which, among other things, the custody of children was used as a bargaining tool – and a letter was written to then US president Richard Nixon.
The beat-up boy, malnourished and missing an ear, was found half-dead in the driving rain at a petrol station on December 15, 1973. Of the nine men arrested for his kidnapping, only two were eventually convicted. The others, including a man believed to be the head of the Calabrian Mafia –the Ndrangheta – the brains behind the abduction, were acquitted due to lack of evidence. Just $85,000 of the $2.8 million ransom was recovered.