The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1906-06-26
.MUTH BOY FOUND,
KIDNAPER ARRESTED
Child Taken Unframed From De.
serted House in Philadelphia
John J. KEAN HIS ABDUcToR
Had Robbed Employer and Said he
Would Have Repaid Him Out of
Ransom He Expected-Victim
Dragged to Keep Him Quiet.


Would Have Repaid Him Out OF
Ransom He Expected-Victim
Dragged to Keep Him Quiet.
Philadelphia.-Fr Freddie Muth, the
seven-year-old son of Charles Muth,
the jeweler of 1852 Columbia ave-
hue, who was kidnapped, was found
by the police after week OF unre-
hitting search in a vacant house at
425 North Sixty-second street. With
him, as his captor, was John Joseph
Kean, once a prosperous real estate
broker, who was arrested for the
kidnapping. He is forty-two years
old and has wife and three children
II was passing Mrs. Muth's jewelry
store one day and saw the boy sitting
in the window. l heard some one
say, Now don't you go away, Fred
die 1t occurred to me, How much
would they give to get the boy back
lf he did go away" Kean confessed.
He was at his wits end for money,
and took the chance.
He had committed enlightenment.
Unless he had money at once the
penitentiary stared him in the face.
In an instant the crime was con-
ceived in two days it was executed.
He faces a sentence Of life imprison-
ment.
His capture was effected in West
Philadelphia, on the roof of the
house, to which in his last desperate
extremity he had dragged the child,
and was just ready to cast him over
the caves and then kill himself with
a bottle of poison when he was taken.
dragged to the street, and to patrol
wagon, in which he was whirled to
detective headquarters in the City
Hall, with the boy at his side.
When the child was placed at a
telephone in the Office of Mayor
Weaver and told to talk to his
mother it seemed as il every man
here, including the Mayor, police off,
Gals and men accustomed to scenes
of heartbreaking interest, would new
err recover from the tense excitement
of the occasion. Tears ran down
their cheeks and not man said a
word.
The boy, with smudgy face and
showing the hardships which he had
undergone, scarcely realized his pu-
sition. He had been kept under sub
lection by means of drugs and liquor
and was not at all like bright boy
of seven years.
In little while the boy was ta-
ken TO his home, where Mrs. Muth
grasped him in one long, fond en-
brace, and then tainted from sheer
Joy. Only one or two close friends
were permitted in the house at that
moment, for Mrs. Muth had been
showing signs of complete collapse
under the strain to which she had
been subjected for seven days.
One hundred thousand Quaker
City mothers knew OF the capture
one hour after it was made, and the
great celebration of the birth of the
Republican party was dwarfed into
insignificance by the demonstration
that began at S p. m. and spread
throughout the city as rapidly as the
news was disseminated. One church
uptown threw open it's doors for a
special service of thanksgiving.
The recovery OF the boy and the
capture OF the man who stole him,
mark one of the most extraordinary
performances in detective work ever
recorded or ever conducted on such
lines.
OF TOUR days the ponce nave
been confident that Kean was the
abductor They had not been able to
learn his hiding places. however, de-
spite the fact that the entire police
force Of the city was working to that
end, and the police of all the large
Eastern cities had been instructed
to look out for him Chief of De-
tectives Donaghy let the impression
go out that the search had been
abandoned in this city and that the
abductor would be arrested in the
home of Mrs. Gustave Brandus of
440a St. Marks avenue. Brooklyn. a
sister of Freddfe's mother This
merely was ruse that threw Kean
off his guard and enabled the police
to find him.