The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-11-17
SEVERE KIDNAPPING LAW TO BE USED
 AGAINST TWO MEN
California Plans Vigorous Prosecution of Hart
 Slayers

San Jose, Cal, Nov 17.-OP)- California's severe anti-kidnaping law, providing death or life inn prisonment without possibility of parole, will be invoked, prosecut- ing officials said to-day, against two jobless men who confessed Kidnapping and killing Brooke l.. Hart, 22, young business execu- tive.
 Harts body was sought in the muddy depths of lower San Fran cisco bay.
 District Attorney Fred L. Thom- as, Santa Clara county, said he would prosecute Thomas Harry Thurmond, 30, and J. M. (Jack) Holmes, 32, under new state law against kidnapers who use violence. The men were held in San Fran cisco prison because of strong To- cal feeling.
 t' Young Hart disappeared last Thursday night His parents were bonn barded with ransom demands, but the men confessed that they slugged and bound their victim and threw his body into the bay soon after the abduction.
 It was immediately recalled that their technique was siniilar to that used by kidnapers of Charles A, Lindbergh, Jr. The Lindbergh baby was murdered soon after he was stolen from his parents home at Hopewell, N. J., and the kidnap- CTS few weeks later collected $50.000 from the distraught father.
 Search for young, Hart's body continued through the night. Pow-' erful searchHghts illuminated the area of the bridge, from which, according to Thurmonds and Holmes purported confessions, they threw the still struggling" body of the victim.
 Police prepared to spread the hunt along the shores of the bay on the possibility that the weights attached to the body might have slipped off and permitted it to float.
 Only recovery of the body was needed to complete the denouement of Northern California's first major Kidnapping case. Sheriff William Emig. arrested Thurmond in the telephone booth of a garage here yesterday. The arrest came six days after young Hart had dis appeared while en route to the San Jose Country club to meet his father, Alex J. Hart, wealthy business man.
 Thurmond had just finished a call, demanding $40,00O ransom of the father. He was taken to the courthouse and questioned for many hours. Finally he broke down and implicated Holmes, po- lice said. The latter, married and father of two children, was found at a hotel here.
 Max Blum. local businessman, was delegated to tell the family the tragic news.
 According to Sheriff Emig, Thur mond and Holmes killed Brooke Hart because of fear of detec- tion."
 Holmes met young Hart at a parking lot on, November 9, and forced himself into Hart's machine by threatening him with what ap- pearcd to be a gun, the confess sion said. Thurmond followed the machine in another car. They met at an appointed place and Hart's roadster was abandoned.
 While Hart in the rear seat and Holmes driving, the three pro- ceeded in the second car to the San Mateo- Hayward bridge, 20 miles north. Midway across they stopped and Hart was ordered out of the car, the confession said.
 The stories of Thurmond and Holmes differed in the next detail, police said. The former claimed Holmes struck Hart with a brick, beating him on the head until he stopped yelling and dropped un- conscious. Holmes reportedly said Hart fell against bridge girder. The unconscious form was bound with baling wire, weighted with bricks, and dropped into the water.
 Hart insisted that the abductors furnish proof his son. was alive. His failure to keep an appointment led Thurmond to make the tele- phone call which brought the ar rests. The prisoners appeared in- different.
 "It made no difference to us that Hart was dead. We still thought we could collect the $40,- 900 Holmes reportedly said.