The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-11-08
KIDNAPPERS
TRAPPED BY
THE POLICE!
WOman's Confession Said
to Have Led 10 Clue Of
Organized Band.

NEW YORK, Nov. S.-Through the
In whose home at $50 East New York
avenue, Brooklyn, 5-year-old Vito Cal
liza was hidden for thirty-fve days. the
police today declared they had definite
clues to the whole band of kidnappers
who for a year or more have been ter
rorizing parents in Greater New York.
The authorities further say that they
had evidence that nearly all the young
children of well-to-do parents who had
been stolen within the last year were
concealed in Mrs. Momolita's home,
and they expect to round up the entire
BLACK Hand" band.
Already three men are under arrest,
and the police are on the trail of the
others.
The amazing story told by the
woman in her confession showed that
the kidnappers worked in collision
with another band or a branch in Cali
fornia. They carried on child-stealing
throughout the country.
From the revelations made by Mrs.
Momolita. the mystery surrounding the
kidnapping of little Vito Callia from his
home, II McDougal street, Brooklyn,
IN July % last, was completely cleared
up.
The boy was stolen while playing in
front of his home, and a few days later
his father received a letter embellished
with skulls and ~erossbones, demanding
81, 800 for the lads return. A fragment
from the boys blue and gray jacket
was inclosed. The letter set forth that
If the money was not placed in a spot
designated in a vacant lot in Jamaica
within a week the boy would be killed.
Callia kept the affair to himself for
two weeks, then told the police. That
the inquiries made frightened the kid
nappers vas evident when, the night of
August 26, a policeman found the miss
Ing boy sitting on the IL steps at
Sixty-seventh street and Third avenue,
Manhattan.
All the child could remember was
that three men had seized him and
taken him to "a lady's" house. They
kept him there a long time, he said,
and then, bundling him up in a blanket.
carried him to another house that
seemed far away. Some days later
they turned him INTO the street and
he made his way to the IL" steps.
The boy could furnish no description of
his abductors.
Lieutenant Vachris, in charge of the
Italian Detective Bureau of Brooklyn
headquarters, says the case would
probably have ended right there lad
the boys kidnappers not made the mis-
take of trying to abduct Mrs. Momolita.
On Monday morning the woman ran
in great terror to the street, crying
that three men had told her she must
flee with them to another city. They
flashed knives and pistols, and said
that If she was not ready to depart by
s o'clock That Afternoon they would kill
her. q
In the crowd that heard the woman
was Detective Sanford. At 4;30 O'Clock
Sanford. with four other detectives,
knocked at the door of Mrs. Momolita's
home. There was a scuffle OF feet in
side and the woman screamed. The de-
tectives broke into the room n found
three men trying to drag her to the fire
escape. After a desperate fight the de-
tectives took the men to police head
quarters.
The prisoners were francesca Fur
fora, francesca Richicho and Carmilo
Valardi. They were held in the Adams
Street Police Court as the abductors
of the boy.
Mrs. Momolita told the police that
Furfora was an old sweetheart of hers
in Italy.
IT knew Furfora in italy twenty
years ago." h said. Il left there two
years ago with my husband, who
works as a payer in the streets. A
year ago Furfora, Richicho and Val
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