The Kidnapping of George Weyerhaeuser

George Weyerhaeuser was a nine-year-old boy from one of America's most prominent timber families who was kidnapped on May 24, 1935, while walking home from school in Tacoma, Washington. His abductors — William Mahan and Harmon Waley, along with Waley's wife Margaret — demanded a $200,000 ransom. George's father, Phillip Weyerhaeuser, negotiated the ransom down to $50,000 and paid it. George was released unharmed after eight days of captivity, during which he had been kept in a makeshift dugout in the Idaho wilderness.

The kidnapping occurred less than three years after the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and at a time when kidnapping for ransom was a persistent national concern. The FBI, empowered by the newly strengthened federal kidnapping statute, launched an intensive investigation. The kidnappers were traced through the ransom money — bills whose serial numbers had been recorded — within weeks. All three were arrested, and Margaret Waley cooperated extensively with prosecutors.

William Mahan and Harmon Waley were each sentenced to 60 years in federal prison. Margaret Waley received a 20-year sentence for her cooperation. George Weyerhaeuser was physically unharmed and went on to a normal life and career in the family timber business, eventually serving as president of the Weyerhaeuser Company. He rarely spoke publicly about the kidnapping.

The case demonstrated the effectiveness of the federal kidnapping law and the FBI's growing capacity to investigate such crimes through financial forensics — specifically the tracking of marked ransom bills. It occurred in the same era as several other high-profile ransom kidnappings and reinforced the federal government's determination to treat kidnapping as a matter of national law enforcement priority.