The Underworld Abduction of Norma Hoyt

Mrs. Emily W. Hoyt has returned from Vancouver, B.C., with her 16-year-old daughter, Norma, who, it is alleged, was enticed away from her home by Horace Gates and Gertie Johnson, two well-known characters in the Tacoma underworld. Mrs. Hoyt is very reticent in discussing the case, saying that the particulars of the unpleasant affair will all come out when the offenders are placed on trial. Just at present, Gates and his woman pal are awaiting trial before a Canadian magistrate on the charge of procuring, having been bound over at their preliminary hearing. Miss Hoyt was the principal witness against her abductors, and the young girl, whose eyes have been opened to the infamy into which she was led by her supposed friends, is particularly anxious to aid in making them pay the penalty. Mrs. Hoyt declares that her daughter was not taken to a house of ill-fame in Vancouver, as was stated in a local paper, but says that Gates and the Johnson woman were picked up by the Vancouver police upon their arrival there. As to the manner in which Gates succeeded in inducing the girl to leave with him, Mrs. Hoyt refuses to say other than that she believes the man had some peculiar influence over her daughter. Miss Hoyt is glad to have escaped from her impending ruin and now fully realizes her grave mistake in leaving her home to go with her dangerous chance acquaintance.