Kidnapping KIDNAPPING(诱拐)is the most heartless crime of the 20th century. There is not the political passion behind most kidnapping; the motive is greed for money. The victims, provided their families are rich enough, are chosen at random. With today's publicity, and the constant exposure by the media of personal fame and fortune, more people are easily to be attacked than ever. The blackest kidnapping began on the evening of 1 March 1932, when someone placed a home-made ladder against the New Jersey home of Colonel Charles Lindbergh and stole his golden-haired, blue-eyed baby son. A ransom(赎金)note was left on the nursery window. Lindbergh, the first pilot to fly alone across the Atlantic, was the most popular man in America. When the boy was found a few miles away with his head crushed in, the nation was outraged(气愤). The kidnapper, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, was caught two-and-a-half years later, when he exchanged some of the ransom money. He was killed with electricity in 1936. Another case was in 1973. When the kidnappers cut off Getty's right ear and sent it to a newspaper, they forgot the postal strike which delayed this proof of his kidnap for a further three weeks. In the case of Muriel McKay, the kidnappers picked the wrong woman. The Hosein brothers had developed their plan when they saw Rupert Murdoch show in 1969 and heard him described as a millionaire, a word they found irresistible in relation to themselves. Yet, in tracing Murdoch's Rolls-Royce, they failed to realize that he had left for Australia with his wife and had loaned the car to Alick McKay, chairman of one of his enterprises. Attacking the wrong home, the Hoseins kidnapped Mrs McKay by mistake, but still demanded their million pounds. The consequence of kidnapping is never clean: Lindbergh never recovered, he became an isolationist in every sense, his popularity diminished. Young Paul Getty jokes: 'It was a high-priced ear!' But the cuts must be internal, too. The saddest comment came from Alick McKay after the trial of the Hoseins: 'They have got a life sentence. I, too, have a life sentence wondering just what has happened to my dear wife.'