HE STOLE BABY FROM
ITS MOTHER'S ARMS.
FATHER ESCAPED, ALTHOUGH
PURSUSED BY A MOB.
Mysterious Case, in Which the Prin-
cipals, After Causing a Grand
Furor, All Dropped
Out of Sight.
To kidnap a baby from the arms of its mother on a public street at high noon, run several blocks pursued by 250 people and the frantic mother and to finally make good his escape through a basement on West Fifth street, was the record made by a father yesterday.
A woman was walking on Sixth street near Central at noon yesterday, carrying her baby. As she neared the corner a man appeared, grabbed the child from its mother's arms and ran north on Central street -- the baby under his coat. At Fifth street he turned west as far as the Coca-Cola Bottling Company, 302 West Fifth street. In the door he darted, slamming it after him. The kidnaping caused great excitement and the man with the baby was pursued by a mob which jammed about the door.
The woman from whom the baby had been snatched was a blonde, tall and wore a brown cloak and a small hat with a white veil. As she ran she cried to the pursuers, "Stop him! He's my husband and has got my child and will kill it. I know he sill. Stop him!"
An elderly woman dressed in black appeared on the scene, from where no one seemed to know, and overtook the fleeing mother. Several times she tried to detain her, but when frantic efforts failed, the woman in black grabbed a small hand satchel from the other woman and gave up the chase.
Charles E. McVey, desk sergeant at police headquarters, was passing and saw the crowd. The woman in brown appealed to him to get her baby which was being stolen, saying again that it would be killed. McVey ran into the bottling works and took a freight elevator to the top floor, having been told that the man with the baby had gone that way. When he descended, however, he was informed that the man had left by the basement door in the rear.
J. B. Jewell, manager of the bottling works, said: "The man who went through here with the baby in his arms was Loren Gaulter, who formerly worked here. The woman who pursued him was his wife. They have been married about two years and the baby is probably 6 months old. They last lived in Independence, Mo., but I never knew of their having had any family troubles."
Until five days ago, Gaulter was employed in the mail department at the Union depot as a truck handler. At that time he quit suddenly and what became of him no one there knew.
The man with the baby ran through an open lot in the rear of the bottling works and made his way to Fourth and Broadway, where, witnesses said, he was met by another woman The two were later seen to board a Leavenworth car, it was said. McVey had trouble in dispersing the crowd, and when quiet was restored all the principals in the affair had disappeared.
The distracted mother made her way around the block and through the alley by which the man and baby had escaped. To a man loading a car in the rear of the Richards & Conover Hardware Company's store she appealed to help her. That man, who said he knew the woman, gave the name of Young. He said she was Mrs. Gaulter, but he did not know where she lived. Harry Williams, a negro porter in a barber shop at 316 West Fifth street, saw the man with the baby under his coat leave the bottling works by the rear basement door. When he called out, "That man's stolen that baby," he said the man ran faster than ever.
Jewel said that after all the excitement was over a young woman, known to him as Gaulter's sister, called on him. She asked where "the folks" had gone, Jewel said, and intimated, that she would have gone with them. The wife was heard to remark that if her husband got out of town, she new he would take the baby to Iowa.
The kidnaping was not reported to the police or to the Humane Society, consequently neither worked on the case.
Mrs. Belle Slaughter, who formerly lived at 1639 Washington street, is the mother of Mrs. Gaulter. Until two days ago the Gaulter's lived at 612 East Ninth street, and appeared to be happy, neighbors say, until Mrs. Slaughter appeared. It is thought that Mrs. Slaughter is the woman who appeared and took Mrs. Gaulter's handbag during the chase after the husband and child.
