The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-05
NO CLUE TO KIDNAPPED BOY.
s 8 1000 DEMANDED FOR RELEASE
or WILLIE LABARBERA.
Detectives Learn That Father or Missing
italian Four-Year-Old Has Received
Three Black Hand" Letters and
Burned Them Child Seen with CaptOr.

Willie Labarbera, the four-year-old son
Of Frank Labarbera Of s1 Second avenue,
who it is alleged was kidnapped two weeks
z to-day, is still missing, and Detective
Sergeant Petrosino and his men, who were
called into the case yesterday, have found
no clue to the ~kidnappers.
L~abarbera, the father, is well to do and
keeps a fruit and grocery store, manufac-
turing macaroni for the Italian colony in the
n~eighborhood as a side line. Since the day
OF the boys disappearance nothing has been
heard from him.
1t il known, however, hat on the evening
that the boy was missed the father received
a letter written in Italian with skull and
crossbones and the other marks Of the
amateur blackmailer OF the sO-called Black
Hand. The letter demanded S. 900 as the
price OF the boys safe return. One Of its
peculiarities was that il named no place
at which the money was to be paid over.
1t il believed hat other letters demanding
money under pain OF various injuries to
the child have been received by Labarbera,
but he refuses to admit that he has got any
letters whatever bearing on the little fellows
disappearance.
The last seen of the boy was about II
O'Clock on Friday morning a fortnight ago.
Mrs. Hendrickson, wife of a barkeeper
living next door to the Labarberas, saw
the boy az he was playing in the street
approached by an Italian with a mustaChe
and goatee and wearing good clot hes.
The man gave the boy candy and after a
while took him by the hand and they went
off together. At 3 in the afternoon her
usban who was out Of work, said he
met the child at Third avenu and Eigh-
teenth street with a man answering the
description his wife gave and talked with
him. The man said in response to his
questions that he was the boys uncle.
Since then nothing has been heard from
the child.
bet ective Sergeant Pet rosino said yester-
day that beyond the fact, which he had
learned that LabsTbera had received three
black hand letters, in all there were no
new developments in the case. LabDrbera
had become so frightened at receiving
the first one the night the boy disappeared
that he promptly burned II up without
showing It to the police.
The other two were received during the
last week, and likewise threaten injury
to the boy unless the 5000 is paid mmedi-
ately, without, however, naming the place
Of payment. These letters were both
stamped with the mark of the sub-station
in East Fifty-eighth street. from which
| deliveries are made for the neighborhOOd.
They bore no other post Office stamp. The
rumor OF the letter received by the family
yesterday enclosing a lock of the little
| fellows blond hair was pronounced by the
police to be untrue.
An odd development in connection with
the case is the receipt On September p,
a few days after the first newspaper account
Of the kidnapping appeared. Of a Black
Hand letter by Salvatore Labarbera, a
poor Italian laborer Of 2O3 Eldridge street.
This threatened to blow up the house un-
less Labarbera put $500 under a designated
rock 100 yardf from the New York end
of High Bridge the next night. l~abarbera
had saved up enough money to take him
over to Italy for a visit.
The letter FASTENED his plans and last
Saturday he took ship with his twelve-year-
old son, leaving word that his wife and his
daughter, who is \ years old, should follow
him as soon az possible. They will do so
as soon as the girl, WHO'S undergoing treat
ment at the Orthopedic Institute for spinal
trouble, can travel. Detective Landers Of
the Eldridge street station house. who was
detailed to the case, says that the letter
was written by a boy IA a joke and was
probably suggested by the accounts Of the
Iabarbera kidnapping uptown. The boy
has not been arrested. although Landers
says he knows who he is.