This Is Your FBI: The Pay Off

This is your FBI. This is your FBI. The official broadcast from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tonight, the subject of our FBI file kidnapping. It's titled the payoff. Styles change in crime just as they do an automobile, so close.

Less than 20 years ago, it was estimated that there were 3,000 kidnappings a year, or more than eight every day. Today there are comparatively few. That happy situation has not come about because criminals became tired of collecting ransom.

It was the direct result of two things. The first was the federal kidnapping law passed by Congress in the early thirties, which gave your FBI jurisdiction over any kidnapping in which the victim was transported across a state line.

The second reason for the decrease in kidnappings is a man. His name is Jay Edgar Hoover. He is the one who realized that crime was being put on a business basis, and he determined to put law enforcement on that standard.

Tonight's case is an illustration of how your FBI moves into action on one of the rare occasions that a kidnapping does occur. Tonight's FBI file opens outside the entrance of a suburban roadhouse a few miles from a large Midwestern city. It is early evening as a well-dressed middle-aged couple leave the roadhouse and start walking through the parking lot

toward their car. Oh, Chloe, that was a wonderful evening. Yes, I enjoyed it myself. You know we ought to go out like this more often. That's what we always say, Grace. Tell her. Tell her. Who's that? I don't know. Are you Mr. Elmore? Yes.

Poen call for you. For me? Oh, maybe it's one of the children. The senate was You know who's calling? No, sir. Grace, you go to the car. I'll be right back. All right, dear. Sorry, I didn't find out who it was.