# List of kidnappings: 1900–1949

The following is a list of kidnappings in the first half of the 20th century, summarizing the events of each case, including instances of celebrity abductions, claimed hoaxes, suspected kidnappings, extradition abductions, and mass kidnappings.
| Date | Victim(s) | Abductor(s) | Location | Age of victim(s) | Outcome | Notes |
| 18 December 1900 | Edward Cudahy Jr. | Pat Crowe (accused) | Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. | 15 | Released | The son of a business magnate who was kidnapped and held for $25,000 ransom, with his abductor, Pat Crowe, releasing him after the ransom was paid. After being found not guilty at trial, he made a living as a lecturer and author. |
| 18 May 1904 | Ion Perdicaris | Bandits sent by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli | Tangier, Morocco | 64 | Released | Perdicaris and his stepson, Cromwell Varley, were kidnapped by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli in Tangier. US Secretary of State John Hay declared, "This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead." The two men were released alive upon payment of a ransom. |
| 18 May 1904 | Cromwell Varley | Bandits sent by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli | Tangier, Morocco | Unknown | Released | Perdicaris and his stepson, Cromwell Varley, were kidnapped by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli in Tangier. US Secretary of State John Hay declared, "This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead." The two men were released alive upon payment of a ransom. |
| 1908 | Edward Naylor-Leyland | Unknown | United Kingdom | 17 | Plot thwarted | A baronet and heir. Naylor-Leyland and his brother were the subjects of a kidnap plot discovered and thwarted in 1906 before it could be enacted. |
| 28 June 1910 | Bernardo Parra | Francisco Leona | Gádor, Almería, Spain | 7 | Murdered | Parra was abducted by local healer Francisco Leona at the request of Francisco "the Moor" Ortega. At the time, it was believed that drinking the blood of a child could cure tuberculosis, prompting Ortega to pay Leona 3000 reales to find him a child. Leona and another man abducted Parra and carried him away in a gunny sack, giving rise to the term El Sacamantecas, and murdered him. |
| 8 April 1911 | Elsie Paroubek | Unknown | Chicago, Illinois, US | 5 | Murdered | Paroubek was a Czech-American girl who disappeared while walking alone to her aunt's house nearby in Chicago. Her body was found a month later in a drainage ditch. Several people, including Paroubek's father and the police in charge of the investigation, suspected Roma (who had several camps in the area at the time) were involved. |
| 23 August 1912 | Bobby Dunbar | Unknown | St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, US | 4 | Unknown | Bobby Dunbar disappeared at age 4 near Swayze Lake. After an eight-month nationwide search, investigators found a child, claimed by Dunbar's parents as their son, in the household of William Cantwell Walters of Mississippi. He was convicted of kidnapping. Walters told the police the boy was given to him by his mother, and that his name was Charles Bruce Anderson, known as Bruce. The boy's mother, Julia Anderson, affirmed Walters' account. In 2004, further investigation by "Dunbar's" granddaughter led to conclusive DNA proof that the child in Walters' custody was not Dunbar's son. Walters had been wrongfully convicted for taking care of Charles Bruce Anderson. Dunbar was never found and his disappearance has never been conclusively solved. |
| 17 August 1915 | Leo Frank | Knights of Mary Phagan | Milledgeville State Penitentiary, Georgia, U.S. | 31 | Murdered | Jewish man wrongly convicted of raping and killing a 13 years old white girl named Mary Phagan. After Frank's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, a group of vigilantes calling themselves "The Knights of Mary Phagan" abducted him from prison and summarily hanged him. |
| 15 May 1916 | Jesse Washington | A lynch mob | Waco, Texas, U.S. | 17 | Murdered | Washington, an African-American farmhand, was accused of murdering a white woman named Lucy Fryer. After pleading guilty to the crime, he was dragged from the courthouse by a crowd of angry observers who paraded him across town in chains and beat and stabbed him before hanging him from a tree, cutting off his fingers, castrating him, and finally burning him alive over a period of two hours. |
| 1923 | Mei Zhanchun | Unknown | Hankou, China | 58–59 | Murdered | Zhanchun (born Father Pascal Angelicus Melotto) was a Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan Order. He was kidnapped for ransom in 1923 and murdered three months later. Zhanchun is one of the earliest Martyrs in China. |
| 21 May 1924 | Bobby Franks | Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb | Chicago, Illinois, US | 14 | Murdered | Franks was abducted and beaten to death by Leopold and Loeb, two wealthy students who wished to commit the perfect crime. The two killers were sentenced to life imprisonment after a sensational trial at which they were defended by Clarence Darrow. Loeb was killed in prison, but Leopold was released after serving 33 years. |
| 15 March 1925 | Madge Oberholtzer | D. C. Stephenson | Indianapolis, Indiana, US | 29 | Released, but died from assault-related injuries | White woman who was abducted and forcefully raped by a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, which later led to her dying from injuries received during the assault. The case led to a steep decline in KKK memberships in the state of Indiana. |
| 1927 | Lea Niako | Unknown | Portugal | 19 | Escaped | German dancer and actress who was abducted by a stalker while filming the film Fátima Milagrosa (1928). She was taken to the Boca do Inferno chasm in Cascais, but escaped upon arrival. |
| 15 December 1927 | Marion Parker | William Hickman | Los Angeles, California, US | 12 | Murdered | Parker, the daughter of a Los Angeles banker, was kidnapped and killed by William Hickman. A few days after receiving a small ransom, Hickman was arrested and tried. He was convicted and sentenced to death. On 19 October 1928, he was executed for his crime. |
| February - 16 May 1928 | Wineville Chicken Coop murders | Gordon Stewart Northcott | Los Angeles, California, US | | Murdered | At least three children – Lewis and Nelson Winslow and an unnamed Mexican boy (possibly Alvin Gothea) – were abducted by Gordon Northcott and accomplices, who sexually abused and killed them on Northcott's chicken farm in Wineville. One of Northcott's accomplices also claimed responsibility for the abduction and murder of Walter Collins, a 9-year-old boy who disappeared in 1928, and Northcott confessed to five more murders, but none of these claims were proved. |
| 28 May 1928 | Grace Budd | Albert Fish | New York City, U.S. | 10 | Murdered | Fish, a sadomasochistic serial killer and pedophile, tricked the Budd family into allowing him to take their 10-year-old daughter Grace to a party that evening. He then drove her to his rented cottage in the Irvington neighbourhood, where he strangled her and dismembered and ate her body. |
| 26 January 1930 | Alexander Kutepov | Joint State Political Directorate agents | Paris, France | 47 | Died during apprehension | Russian anti-communist and leader of the Russian All-Military Union during the Russian Civil War, who suffered from a heart attack when he was abducted by OGPU agents, dying on the spot. |
| 28 February 1930 | Isabella Jones | Ku Klux Klan | New Toronto, Canada | | Released | Isabella Jones was a white woman engaged to Ira Johnson, a half-Cherokee man wrongly believed to be black by the local community. When Jones and Johnson tried to pick up a marriage licence, the ceremony was interrupted by members of the Ku Klux Klan, who prevented the marriage by taking Jones captive and keeping her prisoner at a nearby Salvation Army location. Jones was released after agreeing not to go through with the marriage; she and Johnson were married anyway the following month, and one of their attackers was successfully prosecuted. |
| 15 May 1930 | Mary Agnes Moroney | Unknown | Chicago, Illinois, US | 2 | Raised by a person with an unknown connection to the abductor | Moroney was taken from her home by a woman who identified herself as "Julia Otis" and claimed to have been sent by a social worker. In 2023, it was determined through DNA testing that Jeanette Burchard, who died in 2003, was Moroney. Her kidnapping was the oldest unsolved case of this nature in the files of the Chicago Missing Persons Bureau. |
| 4 June 1930 | Asser Salo | Anti-communist Lapua Movement activists | Vaasa, Finland | 28 | Released | Asser Salo, a Finnish lawyer and politician, was kidnapped in Vaasa by activists of the anti-communist Lapua Movement on 4 June 1930. Salo was forced under threat for his life to make a public promise to never again engage in communist activities on the territory of Vaasa Province. Soon thereafter, Salo went into exile, first to Sweden, then to the Soviet Union. |
| July 1930 | Väinö Hakkila | Lapua Movement members | Finland | 48 | Released | Finnish SDP politician and speaker for Parliament who was kidnapped and beaten by Lapua Movement members. He survived the assault, and later resumed his career. |
| 5 July 1930 | Eino Pekkala | Lapua Movement members | Ostrobothnia, Finland | 43 | Released | Finnish socialist politician who, together with Jalmari Rötkö, was kidnapped by fascist Lapua Movement members while they were attending the Constitutional Law Committee. Both were handed over to authorities the next day, and Pekkala was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment for treason. |
| 3 September 1930 | Samuel Irby | Huey Long (alleged) | Shreveport, Louisiana | 40 | Released | Former Louisiana State Department official who, together with James Terrell, disappeared from his hotel room. Irby brought to Grand Isle, Louisiana just before an important election, then forced on a radio broadcast to deny having been abducted. Later in 1932 published Kidnapped By The Kingfish about the incident. Died in 1933. |
| 14 October 1930 | K. J. Ståhlberg and Ester Ståhlberg | Lapua Movement members | Helsinki, Finland | 65 / 60 | Released | Former President of Finland and his wife who were abducted near their home and taken to Joensuu, from where another group was supposed to take them to the Soviet Union. Because the second group never showed up they were released. |
| 14 December 1931 | Vera Page | Unknown | Kensington, London, UK | 10 | Murdered | Page was abducted, raped and strangled by an unidentified man in December 1931. The only suspect, Percy Rush, was never charged due to lack of evidence, and the case remains unsolved. |
| 8 January 1932 | Joseph Kahahawai | Grace Fortescue, Thomas Massie, Albert Jones, Edward Lord | Honolulu | 22 | Murdered | Kahahawai, a Native Hawaiian prizefighter, was accused of raping a white woman named Thalia Massie. After his trial ended in a hung jury, Thalia Massie's mother, Grace Fortescue, her husband, Thomas Massie, and two family friends abducted Kahahawai and brought him to the Fortescue family home, where they tried to force a confession out of him before shooting him through the heart. The four abductors were convicted of manslaughter, but their sentence was commuted to one hour in custody by Governor Lawrence M. Judd. Kahahawai was posthumously cleared of the rape charge in 2006. |
| 1 March 1932 | Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. | Richard Hauptmann | East Amwell Township, New Jersey, US | 1 | Murdered | Charles was the son of American aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. On 1 March, the 20-month-old child was taken from his crib at home in what was called "the crime of the century". Ransom negotiations were unsuccessful, and his remains were found on 12 May. Hauptmann was found and arrested in September 1934, and was convicted of the crime on 13 February 1935, sentenced to death, and electrocuted on 3 April 1936. Congress passed the "Lindbergh Law", formally known as "The Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932", on 13 June 1932. The law made kidnapping a federal crime if the victim was taken across state lines, enabling investigation and other actions by federal law enforcement. |
| 3 July 1932 | Unidentified 4-year-old girl | Robert David Bennett | Carlton North, Melbourne | 4 | Released | Bennett, a convicted child molester, enticed a young girl into an empty house he was renovating under the pretext of giving her sweets before raping her. He allowed her to leave through the back door after a group of adults came looking for her in the hope of concealing his crime, but was found out and executed, making him the last person to hang in Australia for a crime other than murder. |
| 27 May 1933 | Mary McElroy | George McGee, Walter McGee, Clarence Click, and Clarence Stevens | Kansas City, Missouri, US | 25 | Released | McElroy, the daughter of City Manager Henry F. McElroy of Kansas City, was kidnapped and held for ransom. She was released unharmed after the ransom was paid. The four kidnappers were later apprehended, convicted at trial, and given life sentences. |
| 22 July 1933 | Charles F. Urschel | Machine Gun Kelly | Oklahoma City, U.S. | 34 | Released | Urschel, an oil tycoon, was carjacked at gunpoint by gangsters led by George "Machine Gun" Kelly, who drove him to a farmhouse in Paradise, Texas and held him prisoner for a week before releasing him after being paid a $200, 000 ransom. Urschel memorized details about his location and deliberately left forensic evidence at the farmhouse, which enabled the FBI to track down and arrest the kidnappers relatively quickly. |
| 9 November 1933 | Brooke Hart | Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M. Holmes | San Jose, California, US | 22 | Murdered | Hart, the son of a San Jose, California businessman, was kidnapped. His body was later found. His two alleged kidnappers were arrested and, before trial, lynched by a mob. |
| 25 April 1934 | June Robles | Unknown | Tucson, Arizona, US | 6 | Released | Robles was abducted and held for ransom. After negotiations between her parents and her captors, she was found unharmed on a highway after nineteen days in captivity. Only one arrest was made in connection with her abduction. |
| 19 September 1934 | Dorothy Ann Distelhurst | Unknown | East Nashville, Tennessee, US | 5 | Murdered | Distelhurst disappeared while walking home from school. After media coverage, her parents received multiple ransom notes, but the police were unable to determine their veracity. The child's remains were found on 13 November 1934, buried under a flower bed at the corner of the Davidson County Tuberculosis Hospital. Her killer is unknown. |
| 26 October 1934 | Claude Neal | A lynch mob | Brewton, Alabama, U.S. | 23 | Murdered | Neal, an African-American farmhand, was accused of raping and killing a white woman named Lola Cannady in Jackson County, Florida. The authorities attempted to protect him from lynching by having him covertly transferred to the local jail in Brewton, Alabama, but Jackson County locals found out where he was, removed him from the jail and took him back to Florida, where a group of six men tortured and castrated him before hanging him to death. His body was then driven to the home of Lola Cannady's father to be disfigured further. |
| 26 November 1934 | R.N. Baker, H.R. Marks | Arthur Gooch, Ambrose Nix | Paris, Texas, U.S. | | Released | Police officers Baker and Marks were kidnapped by Gooch and Nix, a pair of criminals who they had tried to apprehend. In the course of the kidnapping Baker was shoved into a glass cabinet by Nix and deeply wounded. The two officers were released by their captors the following day after being driven up to Pushmataha County, Oklahoma. They then notified local law enforcement, who shot and killed Nix and arrested Gooch. |
| 26 December 1935 | Tito Minniti | Ethiopians | Degehabur, Somali Region, Ethiopia | 25–26 | Murdered | Italian pilot Tito Minniti was captured, killed, and allegedly tortured by Ethiopians during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War on 26 December 1935. What happened to Minniti after he was captured varies depending on the source; in one version, Minniti was forced to surrender after running out of ammunition, after which he was tortured, mutilated, and killed by Ethiopian forces. In another version, Minniti was killed by Ethiopian civilians angered by the bombing of their villages. |
| 1936 | Lost children of Francoism | Nationalist troops | Spain | Various | Various | Unknown number of children abducted from Republican parents, who were either in jail or had been assassinated by Nationalist troops during the Spanish Civil War. Several children were also victims of child trafficking and forced adoption. Their ultimate fates varied. |
| 12 December 1936 | Chiang Kai-shek | Zhang Xueliang | Xi'an, China | 49 | Released | Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China, was kidnapped by a warlord in an affair known as the Xi'an Incident. He was released. |
| 27 December 1936 | Charles Mattson | Unknown | Tacoma, Washington, US | 10 | Murdered | Mattson was abducted from his home and held for $28,000. He was found dead in January 1937. |
| 27 December 1936 | Lojze Bratuž | Italian fascists | Gorizia, Italy | 35 | Murdered | Slovene choirmaster and composer who was kidnapped by Italian Fascists and forced to drink a fatal mixture of castor oil, gasoline and motor oil. He was unable to recover, and died in a hospital half a month later. |
| 5 January 1937 | Mona Tinsley | Frederick Nodder | Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, U.K. | 10 | Murdered | Mona Tinsley was lured by her parents' former lodger, Frederick Nodder, while leaving her school. Nodder then took her up to his home in Hayton where he strangled her to death, possibly after molesting her. Nodder was convicted of kidnapping Mona, then tried again, convicted for her murder and sentenced to death after her body was found eight miles from his house. |
| 22 September 1937 | Yevgeny Miller | Nikolai Skoblin and NKVD officers | Paris, France | 69 | Murdered | Miller, an anti-bolshevik Russian general, was kidnapped by NKVD agents. The NKVD successfully smuggled him back to Moscow, Russia. He was tortured during interrogation and executed by gunshot nineteen months later, in 1939. |
| 25 September 1937 | Charles Ross | John Henry Seadlund, James Atwood Gray | Franklin Park, Illinois, U.S. | 72 | Murdered | Ross, a wealthy greeting card executive, was held for ransom by criminals John Seadlund and James Gray, who managed to negotiate a ransom payment of $50, 000. Two days after receiving the ransom, Seadlund fought with Gray over the money and ended up shooting both Gray and Ross and throwing them into a pit. |
| 14 September 1942 | Helen Lynch | Edward Haight | Bedford Village, New York, U.S. | 8 | Murdered | Two sisters abducted and murdered by 16-year-old Edward Haight. Both were murdered and discarded in separate locations near Bedford Village, with the older sister also being raped prior to her murder. Haight was executed for the sisters' murder at Sing Sing Prison on 8 July 1943. He was the youngest person to be executed via the electric chair in New York history. |
| 14 September 1942 | Margaret Lynch | Edward Haight | Bedford Village, New York, U.S. | 7 | Murdered | Two sisters abducted and murdered by 16-year-old Edward Haight. Both were murdered and discarded in separate locations near Bedford Village, with the older sister also being raped prior to her murder. Haight was executed for the sisters' murder at Sing Sing Prison on 8 July 1943. He was the youngest person to be executed via the electric chair in New York history. |
| 27 September 1943 | Norma Cossetto | Yugoslav communists | Vižinada, Croatia | 23 | Murdered | Istrian Italian student and alleged Fascist sympathizer who was detained by Yugoslav communists after allegedly refusing to join the resistance. Over the next few days, while the German forces were invading the area, Cossetto was repeatedly raped and tortured by her captors, before they finally threw her and two other women in a foiba on 4 to 5 October. |
| 3 January 1944 | Pappy Boyington | Imperial Japanese Navy | Pacific Ocean | 31 | Released | Boyington, an American combat pilot, was shot down into the Pacific Ocean in January 1944 while serving as a United States Marine Corps fighter ace during World War II. He was captured by the crew of Japanese submarine I-181 and held as a prisoner of war until August 29, 1945, shortly after the surrender of Japan. Boyington returned to the U.S. at Naval Air Station Alameda on September 12, 1945. |
| 29 April 1944 | Lena Baker | Ernest Knight | Cuthbert, Georgia, U.S. | 43 | Escaped (later judicially executed) | Baker, a black woman, was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Knight, her white employer, who regularly held her captive overnight. Baker was repeatedly threatened by townsfolk to end the "relationship", but on 29 April Knight forcibly took her up to his mill, where he beat and raped her. Baker managed to escape and shot Knight dead; she was later executed for murdering Knight, but the verdict was overturned posthumously in 2005. |
| 9 June 1944 | Helmut Kämpfe | Georges Guingouin Brigade | Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, France | 34 | Murdered | Waffen SS Sturmbannführer who was taken prisoner by a Maquis unit under the command of Georges Guingouin while heading anti-resistance activities in southern France. The day after his abduction, Kämpfe was burned alive under Guingouin's orders. SS troops carried out the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre in retaliation. |
| 3 September 1944 | Recy Taylor | Herbert Lovett and others | Abbeville, Alabama, U.S. | 25 | Released | Taylor, a black woman, was kidnapped at gunpoint by seven white men led by Herbert Lovett who drove her out into the woods and raped her at knifepoint. The attackers were identified, but due to the racism of the time none of them were prosecuted. |
| 11 September 1944 | Richard P. Keirn | Nazi Party | Leipzig, Germany | 20 | Released | A fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. Keirn was taken prisoner in September 1944 after his aircraft was shot down during World War II. He was later repatriated to the United States. |
| c. 30 September 1944 | Ștefan Foriș | PCR paramilitary forces | Romania | 52 | Released | A Hungarian and Romanian communist journalist who served as general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) between December 1940 and April 1944. He was kidnapped by PCR paramilitary forces in September 1944, but released from captivity in January 1945. |
| 2 November 1945 | Thora Chamberlain | Thomas McMonigle | Campbell, California, U.S. | 14 | Murdered | Thora Chamberlain was last seen getting into a car with a man wearing US Navy uniform and medals after accepting an offer to babysit for him. The man was later identified as Thomas McMonigle, who had stolen the uniform and medals in order to better attract women, who initially admitted to abducting Chamberlain and then killing her after trying to rape her; however, he told several different stories about what happened, and recanted all his confessions before his execution in 1948. Chamberlain's body was never found. |
| 19 December 1945 | Oto Iskandar di Nata | "The Black Troop" | Tangerang, Indonesia | 48 | Murdered | Indonesian politician who was supposedly killed on a beach by a group identifying themselves as 'The Black Troop'. As his body was then dumped into the sea, it was never located. |
| 7 January 1946 | Suzanne Degnan | William Heirens | Edgewater, Chicago, U.S. | 6 | Murdered | Suzanne Degnan was taken from her home by a teenage kleptomaniac household intruder who initially insisted he had been unaware a child was in the room he intended to burglarize. Her extensively dismembered remains were found in storm drains around the neighborhood. William Heirens later pled guilty to her murder and to two previous murders of adult women, although his actual guilt has been questioned. |
| 5 July 1946 | Doreen Marshall | Neville Heath | Norfolk, England | 21 | Murdered | Doreen Marshall was abducted from her hotel and made to walk to a place where she was murdered. Her body was found two days later. |
| 29 December 1946 | Paddy Brett, Terence Gillam, two others | Irgun | Mandatory Palestine | | Released | In retaliation for the judicial flogging of an Irgun member, Irgun squads abducted four British soldiers in Netanya, Rishon LeZion and Tel Aviv and lashed them eighteen times each before letting them go. |
| 30 July 1947 | Sergeants Clifford Martin and Mervyn Paice | Irgun guerrillas | Mandatory Palestine | 19 (Martin) | Murdered | Martin and Paice were both British Army Intelligence Corps non-commissioned officers. Both were murdered by Irgun militants in reprisal for the execution of three of their members by the British Army. |
| 30 July 1947 | Sergeants Clifford Martin and Mervyn Paice | Irgun guerrillas | Mandatory Palestine | 20 (Paice) | Murdered | Martin and Paice were both British Army Intelligence Corps non-commissioned officers. Both were murdered by Irgun militants in reprisal for the execution of three of their members by the British Army. |
| 22 January 1948 | Alice Meza | Caryl Chessman | Greater Los Angeles Area, California | 17 | Released | Forced out of a car her boyfriend was driving when they stopped at a red light. The boyfriend drove off, before the kidnapper drove Alice to a secondary location and orally and anally raped her under the threat of killing her boyfriend. Despite reported beatings and torture in interrogation, Caryl Chessman was identified by the Ford Coupe at the scene and by Alice in a lineup. Chessman was executed under the statute of the Federal Kidnapping Act making kidnapping with bodily harm a capital crime. |
| 15 May 1948 | June Anne Devaney | Peter Griffiths | Blackburn, England | 3 | Murdered | Inpatient at Queen's Park Hospital who was abducted, raped and killed by a man who had been to the hospital. The case is considered a milestone in British forensics, being the first case to be solved by mass fingerprinting. |
| 15 June 1948 | Florence Sally Horner | Frank La Salle | Camden, New Jersey, U.S. | 11 | Rescued | 11-year-old Sally Horner was caught shoplifting by La Salle, a convicted child molester, who convinced her that he was an FBI agent and she had to come with him to avoid being arrested for the theft. La Salle held Horner captive for 21 months and sexually abused her until he was arrested by the FBI in 1950 after Horner managed to call her sister. The case is thought to have inspired Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita. |
| 20 July 1949 | Shirley Gretzinger | Ray Dempsey Gardner | Ogden, Utah, U.S. | 17 | Murdered | Gretzinger was the second victim of serial killer Ray Gardner, who picked her up under the guise of a babysitting job and drove her to a gulch outside the city limits before making sexual advances on her. When Gretzinger fought back, Gardner suffocated her by stuffing wadded paper down her throat and raped her body. |
| 5 August 1949 | Thelma Taylor | Morris Leland | Portland, Oregon, U.S. | 15 | Murdered | Thelma Taylor was accosted at a bus stop by Morris Leland, who forced her to come with him to a secluded area where he tried to rape her, but stopped when he realized she was a virgin. Leland kept Taylor captive overnight before killing her the following day when she tried to call out for help. Leland was sentenced to death for the murder. |