History: How the Seattle P-I played a pivotal role in the kidnapping case of George Weyerhaeuser

On May 24, 1935, George Weyerhaeuser — the young son of Washington lumber magnate J.P. Weyerhaeuser Jr. — was kidnapped in Tacoma while walking home from school.

In the nearly 90 years since, the abduction has become one of the most well-known cases in the annals of Pacific Northwest crime. The FBI has a page about the kidnapping on its website, and just this week, Seattle author Bryan Johnston released the first-ever full-length book, "Deep in the Woods," on the subject.

But what’s less known, perhaps, is how one local media outlet became entangled in the story.

In addition to covering the event from wall to wall, the P-I — which in 1935 was a physical daily newspaper known better by its full name, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer — became a part of the case: George’s parents purchased ads in the paper to communicate with the kidnappers.

They did so because they were instructed to in a ransom note mailed to the Weyerhaeuser residence. Why the kidnappers chose the P-I is unclear. At that time, the newspaper was embroiled in a fierce back-and-forth rivalry with the Seattle Times as the two outlets fought to be the preeminent paper covering the Seattle news market.

Nevertheless, the kidnappers chose the P-I, and now, 86 years later, we’re examining the kidnapping and the small but pivotal role the paper played in reuniting the missing boy with his parents.  

The abduction

George, who was 9 at the time, disappeared while walking the five blocks from Lowell Elementary School to the Annie Wright Seminary. He made the walk around noon every day after students were released for lunch. On a typical day, he would meet his older sister, Ann, at the seminary and the family chauffeur would drive them home to eat.

But on May 24, a Friday, the school released students for lunch earlier than usual. Rather than wait for his sister at the seminary, George decided to walk home. He took an overgrown path that bordered the Tacoma Lawn Tennis Club grounds and when he emerged onto Borough Road, he encountered two men sitting in a green 1927 Buick sedan.

A man exited the passenger side and approached him, asking for directions to Stadium Way. But it was a ruse. The man suddenly grabbed George and pulled him into the back seat of the car, which then sped away.

Soon after, George’s family became concerned and reported him missing to the Tacoma Police Department. That evening, a postal worker arrived at the family’s residence with a special delivery: A letter demanding a ransom of $200,000 in small, unmarked bills. To authenticate the demand, the kidnappers made George sign the back of the letter.  

The long, typewritten note gave the family five days to gather the money and directed them to place an advertisement in the Personals column of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Classified Want Ads when they had it. The ad was to read, “We are ready,” and they were to sign it “Percy Minnie.” The note said the family would be contacted with delivery instructions and was signed “Egoist.”  

The first batch of articles — the total number would eventually grow to dozens — appeared in the P-I the next day.

Media blitz begins, P-I gets involved

When viewed from a modern perspective, digitally archived editions of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer illustrate exhaustive yet sensationalist and sometimes bizarre coverage of the abduction.

Who George Weyerhaeuser was is what made the story so captivating. The great-grandson of Frederick Weyerhaeuser — who founded what is now one of the biggest timber companies in the world — George was born into immense wealth. The kidnappers began stalking the family after reading an obituary for J.P. Weyerhaeuser Sr., planning to abduct George and hold him for ransom.   

The P-I headline the day after the kidnapping read: “Young Weyerhaeuser boy vanishes: feared kidnaped.” Underneath is a lengthy article that outlines the circumstances of George’s disappearance and concludes he may have been kidnapped based on the arrival of a “special delivery motorcycle messenger” at the Weyerhaeuser residence.

In the days that followed, P-I journalists left no stone unturned.

They speculated. One article said it was possible that a bedsheet hung outside the Weyerhaeuser home — which was visible from the Puget Sound — was meant to be a signal to the kidnappers, who may have been observing the home from a boat. A similar theory was posited about an umbrella on the Weyerhaeuser’s front porch.

They anatomized the ransom note. “Disclosure that $200,000 ransom note was signed ‘Egoist’ gave rise to fears that kidnapper is intellectual eccentric, if not a madman,” one article said. Another obsessed over the misspelling of the word “agency.”

They shamelessly named several suspects. It seems as though anyone who looked suspicious in the days surrounding the kidnapping became the subject of an article. One of the strangest is about two “impatient” men who purchased a pair of boy’s coveralls. There was also speculation that East Coast mobsters could have been involved.

They wrote melodramatic stories about the emotional state of nearly everyone who knew George. “Shocked and grief-stricken at the mysterious disappearance of their son, both J Phillip Weyerhaeuser Jr and his wife were reported near collapse in their palatial home in Tacoma early this morning,” one article said. A caption underneath a photo of George’s cocker spaniel, Bobby, said the dog had been “disconsolate ever since his master disappeared.”

But to their credit, they doggedly reported every development in the case, including one that involved their own paper. The day after the kidnapping, May 25, two advertisements paid for by George’s family were published in the P-I.    

The first read: “Expect to be ready to come Monday. Answer. Percy Minnie.”  The second read: “Due to publicity beyond our control, please indicate another method of reaching you. Hurry, relieve anguished mother. Percy Minnie.”

Somehow, P-I reporters figured out the significance of the ads and wrote about them on the front page of the May 26 issue.

“The signature and text of both advertisements were believed to conform to the ransom note in which $200,000 was demanded,” one article said. “It was supposed that the advertisement meant that the family was ready to accept a proposal of the kidnappers that the family’s representatives meet the boy’s captors somewhere tomorrow.”

Having heard nothing after the first two ads published, George’s father placed a third ad in the May 28 edition of the P-I. It read: “We are ready. Percy Minnie.”

That ad also did not go unnoticed by P-I reporters. In the May 29 edition of the paper, one article said the ad was “an assurance that Mr. and Mrs. Weyerhaeuser are cooperating and should have removed all doubt in the abductors’ minds as to their good faith, at the same time removing any possible motive or desire to bring harm to the little fellow.”

The day after the ad ran, George’s father received a letter from the kidnappers.

George’s release  

The letter instructed George’s father to check in at 7 p.m. at the Ambassador Hotel in Seattle under the name James Paul Jones and await further instructions. George’s father complied, and later that night, a taxi driver delivered another letter to him at the hotel.  
 
The second letter instructed him to drive to a location in Rainier Valley with the money and look for a stake with a white cloth attached. Under the cloth, there was a note in a tin can with instructions to drive straight ahead to another white cloth and park. He did as instructed, but nothing happened. After waiting for three hours, he returned to Seattle with the money.

The next day he received an anonymous call at the hotel asking why he had failed to follow the instructions in the second note. He told the caller he had not found a second note. He was then told he would be contacted again with new instructions.

That evening, he received another call directing him to drive to the Halfway House on the Pacific Highway near Angle Lake, and then turn onto a specific side road. There he found a series of notes in tin cans, marked by white flags, which instructed him to park the car and place the bag with the ransom on the front seat. He was then supposed to leave the car with the engine running, the dome light on, and the driver’s side door open.

As George’s father walked down the sideroad toward the highway, he saw someone run from the underbrush. The person entered his car and drove away. George’s father walked back to the highway and caught a ride to Tacoma.

At roughly 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 1, the kidnappers released George on the Issaquah-Hobart Road approximately four miles south of Issaquah. He was eventually taken home via taxi.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer headline the next day read: “Manhunt on for kidnappers: Boy, home, tells his own story.”

The aftermath

With George at home safe, what would be called "the greatest manhunt in the history of the Northwest" began.

A week after George’s release, Harmon Metz Waley and his wife, Margaret, were arrested in Salt Lake City after spending some of the ransom money, which authorities verified using serial numbers.  

The pair confessed to the crime and identified ex-convict William Dainard as the “brains” behind the kidnapping. Dainard was arrested shortly after in San Francisco. More than $157,000 of the ransom money was eventually recovered, and all three kidnappers were tried and sentenced.

In 2016, George told KUOW his family didn't dwell on the kidnapping, though admitted it has become something of a tale of Northwest lore. It wasn't something they discussed, he said.

George, who grew up to run the company his great grandfather founded, even hired one of his kidnappers after he was released from prison. George told KUOW the man was young, in his 20s at the time, and didn't mean George any harm.

George retired in 1999 and now lives in Palm Springs. In 2001, He was inducted into the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame.

Unless otherwise cited, historical information was sourced from Seattle Post-Intelligencer archives and HistoryLink.org essays.