The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-08
BANKRRSLOSTBOY CAME HOME
HIS KIDNAPPERS LEFT DOOR
OPEN AND HE WALKED OUT.
Two Arrests FollOw-StOry Of Masks, Axe
and Pistol which Hal q Number OF
Queer Features-Run Started on Boz-
GUMS Bank as His Son ReappeaFs.

Antonio Bozzufl, the fourteen-year-old
hoy who disappeared on Sunday last from
his home at Siyty-third street and First
avenue. came home yesterday forenoon
Just after the case had been made public
in tho morning newspapers. He brought
back a story of abduction and confinement
in a room in East Fifty-ninth street, to-
gether with threats Of violence, masks
and other accompaniments. The search
Of the quarters mentioned In his state
ment resulted in a partial confirmation
Of his story. Yet the whole case has that
popularity, that possibility Of collision
from the inside, which ~characterizes many
of these Italian kidnapping cases. Two
Italians were arrested yesterday on sus-
picion, and one of them has been identified
as the man who hired the rooms in which
the boy says he was confined. John Boz
cuff, the boys father, didn't give up a
cent to get him.
John Bozzufi is a Sicilian himself and does
q small business as a banker among his
oountrymen. He has had some troubles,
more or less obscure, with his fellow Sicil-
fans and they came to a head early In
the year in the establishment Of a rival
bank" in his radius Of custom. This
bank did not cut into his business much,
Then last month there developed two or
three small runs at Bozzuff's bank. Most
of the depositors came back after q day
or two.
After the police italian squad had looked
into the boys disappearance they ven-
tured the opinion hat the boy would come
home pretty soon. This was published
..l H. HaT, Al aoroa hApoA oh1ttf q OtolAnl
A. NJ. yesterday. AS had happened In
the other two we'll known Italian kid
~nappings of the past two years, he was
found by a relative. At a little after 0
o'clock his uncle, Eugenio Merlini, ap-
peared in East Sixty-third street leading
him by the hand. A crowd a block long
fell in behind him as he turned into the
stairway of the Bozzufl fiat.
1t was at about that time that the bank
opened for business. The report that
the father had paid the ransom and had
used all the money In the bank to do it,
few through the Italian quarter. When the
hour came for opening there was a line of
waiting depositors. The clerks were pay
ing off when news came that the boy had got
home. That sent some of the depositors
away satisfied. Others argued rat this
proved the payment Of a ransom, and pressed
forward all the more eagerly. The run sub
sided after the Italians had taken out about
$1,000. Most of this was ~redeposited in
the course of the afternoon.
Meantime, the boy was upstairs telling
his story to Inspector Mclaughlin, who had
been called in by the Italian detectives.
This is the tale in brief:
"On Sunday afternoon my father sent
me TO the branch post office to buy IS worth
of five cen stamps. A little way down the
street, two men, both Italians, met me and
told me that my father wanted ne to do
some interpreting for a contractor. l fol-
lowed them. They took me first 10 a house
in Sixtieth street. One Of them staid with
me while the other went inside. He came
out after a while and said that the man
was not there. So we went on to a house
in East Fifty-ninth street. There we
went up one iii ght and into a room. A
ehort, thickset Italian was sitting at a table.
We had a little talk about translating,
when the man who they said was the con-
tractor jumped on me, threw me on the floor
and showed a piece of cloth into my mouth.
He carried me TO an inner room and pointed
a pistol at me. Another of tho men said:
AFT you yell, I'll kill you and throw you
In the river
After that they kept me a prisoner in
the room. There were six different men
in the gang and four of them were on guard
most of the time. l didn't see the faces
Of some OF them, because they wore masks.
Now and then they threatened me with a
revolver and an axe. Late Sunday evening
they told me to write a letter to my father
from their dictation. They weren't salts
fed with the first copy, so they tore it up
and made me write another.
Monday afternoon some one knocked
at the door, and they threw me into the.
inner room, where one OF them guarded
me. ! heard a man talking at the door,
but / do not know what he was saying. l
slept on a mattress in the corner. The
only things they gave me to eat were bread
and oranges.
This "wednesday morning, the guard
went away, leaving the door ajar. There
was no one in sight, so | ran out, opened the
front door and walked toward, home. A
block away from home, Uncle Eugene
found me.
The Inspector, with five detectives Of the
Italian bureau, took the boy in hand and
he led them straight to 31s East Fifty-ninth
street. There they went up a fight to a
rear apartment of three rooms. The door
was unlocked. Inside there was only a
chair, a mattress and set of springs on the
floor, an empty whiskey bottle and a little
rubbish. On the floor were crusts Of bread
and orange skins, but no remains of any
other food. There was also a small axe
with a helve made Of a broom handle. In
the cupboard we're two pieces Of white
cheese cloth with eyeholes and strings to
go around the head. A slightly suspicious
circumstance was found when the detectives
slipped these masks on to see if they would
work. The eyeholes were so far apart
that no man of ordinary build in head
could see through them at all. Either the
wearers had eyes very far apart or these
we're -~Droperty" masks. |
Samuel Hickman, the landlord of the
tenement, said that three Italians hired
the apartment on the first Of the month, |
paying Sl2 for il, He never saw them
about until Sunday, when they appeared
in the hallway with two or three other
Italians. On Monday he went up with a
receipt for rent and knocked at the door.
One of the men who had rented, the place
answered. The landlord as he handed
over the receipt noticed that there was no
furniture about the place, He tried to
push through and investigate, but the
Italian prevented him, showed him out
and locked the door. The next day one of
the Italians who, had been about the place
bought some bread and buns at a bakery
two or three doors downthe street. >
All this Hartman told to the detectives
standing just inside the front window of
the saloon on the ground foor and looking
nnt nj, Tho otraat Ha into rrtptnI hia por