J. Paul Getty III, 54, Dies; Had Ear Cut Off by Captors
- 6 years ago
J. Paul Getty III, 54, Dies; Had Ear Cut Off by Captors
Don’t let me be killed.”
The eldest Mr. Getty refused to pay the kidnappers anything, declaring
that he had 14 grandchildren and “If I pay one penny now, I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” His son said he could not afford to pay.
[ALSO READ: New Trailer: ‘All the Money in the World,’ Now With Christopher Plummer]
“Get it from London,” she was reportedly told over the phone, a reference either to her former father-in-law,
J. Paul Getty, the billionaire founder of the Getty Oil Company, or her former husband, who lived in England.
At the time of his abduction, Mr. Getty was just 16
and living on his own in Rome, where his father, J. Paul Getty II, had, for a time, helped oversee the family’s Italian business interests.
According to the 1995 book “Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune
and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty,” by John Pearson, the eldest Mr. Getty paid $2.2 million, the maximum that his accountants said would be tax-deductible.
Three months after the abduction, the kidnappers, who turned out to be Calabrian bandits with a possible connection to organized crime, cut off Mr. Getty’s ear
and mailed it, along with a lock of his hair, to a Roman newspaper.
J. Paul Getty III, who was a grandson of the oil baron once believed to be the richest man in the world
and who achieved tragic notoriety in 1973 when he was kidnapped by Italian gangsters, died Saturday at his home near London.
Don’t let me be killed.”
The eldest Mr. Getty refused to pay the kidnappers anything, declaring
that he had 14 grandchildren and “If I pay one penny now, I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” His son said he could not afford to pay.
[ALSO READ: New Trailer: ‘All the Money in the World,’ Now With Christopher Plummer]
“Get it from London,” she was reportedly told over the phone, a reference either to her former father-in-law,
J. Paul Getty, the billionaire founder of the Getty Oil Company, or her former husband, who lived in England.
At the time of his abduction, Mr. Getty was just 16
and living on his own in Rome, where his father, J. Paul Getty II, had, for a time, helped oversee the family’s Italian business interests.
According to the 1995 book “Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune
and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty,” by John Pearson, the eldest Mr. Getty paid $2.2 million, the maximum that his accountants said would be tax-deductible.
Three months after the abduction, the kidnappers, who turned out to be Calabrian bandits with a possible connection to organized crime, cut off Mr. Getty’s ear
and mailed it, along with a lock of his hair, to a Roman newspaper.
J. Paul Getty III, who was a grandson of the oil baron once believed to be the richest man in the world
and who achieved tragic notoriety in 1973 when he was kidnapped by Italian gangsters, died Saturday at his home near London.