The Wanted Kidnaper Who Once Walked Our Streets
A Tacoma detective identifies a notorious kidnaper as a local con man who scammed city businessmen a year prior.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Through the excellent picture of Kidnaper James H. Boyle, printed in The Times Tuesday night, he was today identified by Detective D. O. Smith as a bogus check man who operated here a year ago, leaving no less than a dozen victims in his path. While here, the Whitla boy abductor went under his right name, James H. Boyle, and posed as a salesman for a well-known oil company. He frequented the Donnelly Hotel lobby and bar and became acquainted with scores of prominent Tacoma men, many of whom found themselves with a worthless check on their hands when Boyle suddenly disappeared. Detective Smith, who has been on the Tacoma police force for many years, was put on the case at the time. He stated today that he is positive the picture showed the same man who is wanted in Tacoma for passing bogus checks. Several well-known frequenters of the Donnelly Hotel lobby today identified the Times' picture of Boyle as the man who they knew as an oil salesman one year ago.
“The picture is really a remarkable one, and shows Boyle just as he looked when he was in this city.”
Long before the digital era of fraud alerts, communities relied on local news photos to unmask criminal visitors. This story illustrates the era's reliance on the hotel lobby as a civic 'hub'—a space that today has largely vanished or shifted into private, restricted environments.
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