Transcript of The Kidnapping of J. Paul Getty III

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Hey, weirdos. Right now I'm recording because Mikey won't let me watch Weisons, and I'm Ash. I'm Elaina. Are we going to use that? Yeah. All right. This is Morbid.

This is more good.

Here's the thing. I'm super excited to record and tell you a story, but I also am apparently very late to the game, but I I want to see weapons.

I also want to see it.

Oh, you're late to the game, too.

I'm late as well. But you know what? I do have a very interesting story for you today. Do you? And we'll get into it in a minute. It's spooky season, and we usually, we say this all the time, we usually do spooky stuff. We do hauntings, we do all that stuff. We wanted to make sure we give you some true crime as well. True crime. Because it's important. It's part of our shtick. It's part of our lore. In this, this actually. This actually... This story is... It's true crime, very much. But it is fascinating. I watched a movie. I don't know how to describe it.

I need to look up the movie because I saw this. I want to say I saw this on Christmas Day.

Yeah, because I'm going to be talking about the kidnapping of J. Paul Getty III. J. Paul. Jean Paul Getty. It is wild. It's like it's just a wild story. When you halfway through it, you're like, really? Like, this is how it goes? It's crazy.

It is a crazy story. I saw all the money in the world.

Yeah, because that's basically like his grandfather is like the richest man in the world. Yeah.

It was a really good movie. I wonder. I didn't really know a lot about the actual case before watching the movie. So I do wonder how much of it is pretty true.

It's probably mostly true because the story itself sounds fake.

I remember it was a really good movie, but I was also I was like, damn, this is really sad.

Did this happen? It's real sad. Did I see it on Christmas?

What the fuck? I might have. I used to love me and my friend, me and one of my old friends, used to love going to the movies on Christmas night.

Oh, yeah. That is always going to find.

After we celebrated. It was right around Christmas. It was December eighth.

Oh, look at that. Didn't we see the purge on Christmas?

No, we saw the purge on my birthday.

It was on your birthday. Okay. I didn't know if it was my birthday. That was awesome. Yeah, that was great.

I think we saw the original purge, too. We did. Yeah. I remember we both had a lot of anxiety in the theater. Yes. Because we were like, what if they purge the theater? What if the purge happens while we're here?

No, I loved the original purge. That's like an underrated banger. It actually is. I don't know how underrated it is, but I feel like now it is.

No, I agree with you. We should cover that.

We haven't covered that on screen.

No. The purge is a little too real for me these days. Yeah, I feel like they were a bit too purge. I think we're only like, we could, we could do. No, we could totally do. It'll give me so much Yeah, I mean, it's supposed to. But it's a great movie. I want that thing where he presses the button and the thing comes down over his house. Yeah, that's pretty sick. Who do you call for that?

You call Ethan Hawk.

Does anybody have his number?

Joe Hill does. Okay.

We're a few degrees away. Joe. Joe?

Steven. Joe, you're obviously listening.

Joe Steve.

I really want to see. I know we're just doing our banter first.

No, people, I have to tell you, people have been loving the banter.

Oh, good. I'm glad you You guys are loving it because I have an initial reaction. It's always like, I'm sorry, I'm getting to it. Don't flog me.

No. I've seen so many. I know it's not for everybody, but also it's what we originated with.

It's our roots. It's in our DNA.

Banter is our roots.

Yeah. So what were you going to say? I want to see... So the black phone.

I want to see that so badly.

Yeah. I want to see... I haven't seen the original one. And the only reason I haven't seen the original one, because I really like Joe Hill. He's Stephen King's son, and in his own right. He's a really great writer, in my opinion.

Oh, did he write The Black Phone? Yeah.

Oh, I didn't realize that. That's his original work. Oh, shit. I think he's so good at what he does. And he came up with this really the grabber, Ethan Hawk. Yeah. Scary fucking dude and really scary concept and really cool character.

In the costume.

I really wanted to see it. I just heard. I knew it involved her and kids, obviously, because it's like a kidnapper her. And then there's one scene in the first movie that I've been warned about several times with child abuse. So I just stayed away from it just because I was like, I know I won't be able to sit through that. But now I'm like, maybe I can find the minute mark and just skip that part. Because the Blackphone 2 looks really fucking cool. It all looks good. And I think they're all older in it. It's high school at that point. So it's a little easier to just go along with. And I think I'm going to try I just got to find the minute mark for that one child abuse scene, but I'm hoping I can get through it.

Yeah, I think we can. I think I can't watch that either. I think we should do a movie night and watch that. We should just watch a whole bunch of scary movies all at the same time. We should. Because I want to watch both of those. Then I really want to watch weapons.

Mikey said we can't. I'm just kidding.

Mikey said we have to record first before we watch weapons. Then we have a meeting after that. I can't watch weapons today.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

God damn it. I forgot we have a meeting today. Here's the thing. I love my job, so I'm not going to complain about it at all.

Can't complain about that. But yeah, I do want to see this movie, so I think I'm going to try because I've just heard really great things. Let's do it, girl. Yeah. Let's go, girls.

Also, we're going to a haunted house tomorrow.

Oh, that's tomorrow night. Yeah, girl.

Yay. I'm so excited. I can't wait. Our first haunted house of the season. It's so late. Hell, yeah. So late. We've been so busy with so many awesome things.

October is just long.

Oh, my God. It's been crazy.

I saw somebody say that it's really shitty that 2025 has been 45 years long, but October has been 17 minutes.

Yeah, it really... It's been 12 minutes.

That's not right. I know. It's just not right.

Maybe the last couple of weeks will really drone on in a good way, though.

I hope so.

I'd like to get through- I need that. One thing and then I'll be happy. Yeah.

Then you can just...

And then I'll be happy.

I mean, there's lots of things to be happy about. Laguna Beach is filming a reunion right now. Oh, my God. And really, that's all need.

That is going to heal so much of me.

That's going to heal so many people. Yeah. Do you understand the amount of elder millennials that are just waiting on this right now? Oh, my God. To bring us back to that time.

The younger millennials who watched it with their elder millennial siblings. It transcends.

I watched that. I was their age while it was happening. I remember it being this real crazy experience to watch.

Like kismet thing.

Yeah. Me and Deb, Deb were talking about it because we used to be obsessed with that show. It was just such a It's a regular time when you could be just team Kristenristen or team LC.

I know.

That's where I want us all to be. Wouldn't that be so beautiful? I want that to be the biggest debate of our time. It's not. I would really love for it to be back to that.

Team Kristen, for the record.

Let's go back, back to the beginning. I've been watching old episodes of that because since the reunion has been announced, I can't think of the word. It was announced I wanted to go back into the beginning. So good. And I started to watch the third season because I was like, I really didn't give this one a chance.

The third season is so underrated.

It's pretty underrated, but I'm like, it's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah. It's a strange choices, I would say.

I feel like they went younger with the third season, and that didn't really make a lot of sense.

I think they went back to following juniors, essentially.

Yeah, I think following seniors was the way to go. Senior year is so rich.

It's hard to capture Lightning in a bottle like they did with the original Laguna Beach cast. Those two classes, the juniors and seniors. I think you just weren't going to get that again. It really was just lightning in a bottle. So I don't think anybody was really going to kill it. But it really does. When you watch it, it does hold its own. It's pretty good. I think it was underrated a little bit. I think so.

I watched it once when I was super sick, and I was like, This is everything.

This is everything. Yeah, I highly recommend doing that, though. Go back and watch Laguna Beach. Rocky was such a sweetheart.

She was.

And everybody was in the third season. She's an underrated badass. A hero. She's a literal hero.

She's a hero.

That random 16-year-old on the going to be season three.

She's just so sweet.

And the mean girls were so mean to her. Oh, they were so jealous. Oh, they were so jealous. Kendra, so mean. Kendra and Cami. I'm calling you out. I'm sure you're lovely adults now. We all get over that shit. But you guys are so mean to Rocky.

Actually, I think Kendra and Cami have a podcast. Do they? I'm almost sure. Cami was on Was Cami the one who... She was on Super Sweet 16? I think she was.

I didn't even know that. Because, again, they were 16.

I watched that show and I am so fucking... I think my lucky stars that a camera crew wasn't following my house around.

I was not on reality television at 16. That's the thing. It's like, I would really... That must suck.

Oh, no. It was... Also, is her name Kendra or Kendra?

It's Kendra. Kendra? Like, Kendra. They called her.

Kendra. Not, not Kendra? It's spelled with a Y. They called her Kendra. Kendra. It was her and Taylor that had the podcast together.

Oh, okay. Taylor who?

Hold on. Who is Taylor? Now I don't remember who Taylor is.

Is it Taylor from the second season? It also must suck, like I'm thinking of Kendra right now and probably Cami too, to have to answer for your 16-year-old self as an adult. Absolutely. You know what I mean? I joke. I'd be like, You were so mean to Rocky. You were. But to have to answer for your 16-year-old self when you're an adult, because I'm sure they have to answer for it all the time. All the time. And it's like, that must suck. So hopefully, they're killing it and being nice people.

Is this Taylor? No, it's Cami. I'm so fucking confused right now. I don't know what Taylor is doing now. I don't know. Cami, fucking not Cami. Cami was on My Super 6 Sweet Teen. Hello? On My Super Sweet 6 Teen.

My Super 6 Sweet Teen. What did I just say? And you stopped her with Sweet Teen.

She was on that show.

I didn't know that, actually.

Yeah, I did. That's why I I know. I just said. We're nearing the end of the week, okay? But they have a podcast together. No, no. God damn it. I don't know. We have to move on. Stop spreading your voice. I'm tired of rumors. I'm tired of rumors, a ton of rumors. There's so many rumors right now. There's a podcast with people who are on Laguna Beach.

There's several.

A few of them, in fact. No, Oh, tell me about John Paul Getty. You need a Nespresso? You know what? Can we just pause? Can we just pause? I think I need a coffee.

All right, I'm back and I have caffeine in my hand, so I'll stop talking to you about podcasts that I don't know exist.

And teen sweet 16 shows.

Teen sweet 16, you know? Nespresso. Nespresso.

I just wanted to say.

Thank you. She's like, It might not get better, but I'll stop talking about podcast. I might just now say Nespresso.

You're just holding yours like, you're like, are you okay? Do you want a cheers? Cheers. Nespresso. You're so stupid. You were just holding it like so uncomfortable.

I was trying to take a sip, but I didn't want to make a gross sound, so It's like, all right, it's time for us to talk about the actual story. This is the kidnapping of J. Paul Getty III. And this begins a couple of generations back from the actual kidnapping victim himself. Okay. Because you need to see where this whole indifference towards your child or grandchild being kidnapped comes from.

I would love to try to understand that if at all possible.

You need to at least see where it all begins, I guess.

Indifference to your child. Imagine just being indifferent to your grandchild's kidnapping.

And there is a straight- Oh, I know. Indifference. I remember.

I remember that Christmas season.

Yeah, this is wild. So let's talk about Jean Paul Getty. The first. The first. He was born December 15th, 1892 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is not a Capricorn. Close. So just pointing that out. He is not a Capricorn.

Even a little bit worse, though.

He's a Sagittarius.

Sagittarius can be especially... I love you guys, but Sagittarius men are fucking intense. Oh, boy. That's how fiery ass energy. Damn. I need to know his other placements, of course. We can't just judge based on one placement. No.

And he was born to George and Sarah Getty. He ended up, obviously, he ended up being pretty famous for his fortune and the tabloid journalist that obsessed over and hounded his family. But he was actually a second generation millionaire because George Getty was an attorney for the insurance industry when his son was born. But when his investments in the Oklahoma oil industry started paying off during the oil boom of 1903, George shifted his attention from law to oil, obviously. He was like, oil.

Oil. We got a tycoon in the making.

A tycoon. Within a few years, he'd purchased stakes in several more oil wells across Oklahoma. So he was like, I can see where the money is. Now, despite their enormous wealth, the Getty's had always been very religious and very strict as a family and very frugal because of their religion. George and Sarah had been raised Methodist, and George's early success in law than in the oil industry, only strengthened their beliefs because it made them more devout. Basically, he saw his success in wealth as proof of God's favor.

They probably just had strong Jupiter placements.

Yeah, there you go. I don't know what that means. That makes you lucky and rich. I don't know what that means. In return, he pledged that he would continue to work hard and avoid the sinful and immoral ways that many other wealthy people tended to fall into. He was like, I'm going to do this right. All right. Now, the Getty's religious convictions would probably have been strong no matter what, but more than the wealth and success, it was definitely the death of their young daughter, Gertrude, from typhoid in 1890 that drove them to become even more connected to their faith.

I mean, that makes sense.

I totally get it because it's like, I'm sure you have to grasp on to anything. Some comfort. Yeah. And especially after they became Christian scientists around the turn of the century. You're really going for it. In their newly adopted faith, the Getty's viewed the birth of their son, who arrived when Sarah was 40 years old, as yet another sign of God's favor and treated him as the heir and future leader of the industry that he would become. Now, since he was looked at by the fam as the second coming, basically. You would assume that Paul, the son, as he'd become known, would have been lavished with attention, get a lot of excess. He would be spoiled.

But not in this family.

Yeah. The Getty's religion forbade this. I mean, they had restricted themselves as well. They were very frugal. They did not believe in excess for themselves, and they also didn't believe it for their kid. He was also generally discouraged from playing with other children because they were worried about him contracting illnesses. Oh, that's sad.

Gertrude had died of typhoids. That's the thing you can understand. At the same time, that becomes a detriment.

Yeah. So he spent a lot of his time alone. In fact, instead of causing them to become stifling and overly attentive, Sarah and George's fears of losing their second child had led them to actually become more emotionally distant because they wanted to avoid potentially reliving the trauma they experienced. Oh, man. So they didn't connect with him.

It's like, even if you don't connect, it's going to be a huge bummer if another child of yours dies, guys.

It is better to have loved and lost. Yeah. Like, there is nothing to gain from not connecting from your child. There's just nothing to gain from that. The isolation.

It's a very different time, though. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. It's in the 1800s. The isolation and loneliness, or early 1900s, but the isolation and loneliness that Paul felt in his early life would definitely have a big influence on him until the day he died. How could it not? Yeah, it very much instilled in him a really strong sense of self-reliance and what was described as a near pathological independence. He did not want connection.

I mean, he didn't learn how to connect. He didn't. Human connection is a learned skill.

In a huge developmental thing. It's a need. That needs to be shown.

Yeah.

According to author John Pearson, later in his life, Getty would tell his wife that, quote, As a child, he was never cuddled, nor did he have a birthday party or a Christmas tree. Oh, that breaks my heart. His one great interest was his postage stamp collection, and his closest friend was a mongrel dog called Jip. Oh. Yeah. Like, sad. Like, that's a sad childhood. That's awful. So, yeah, that's really sad. But to have no cuddles.

Yeah. No cuddles.

And just to know that as an adult, too, to be able to be like, I was never cuddled. Yeah. Like, that void is so tangible when you're older. Yeah.

My mom used to say, Don't hang on me. Oh, my God. I'm like, Yeah, I get it.

I cannot imagine. All I want is my kids to cuddle.

My mom was not a hugger. Oh, my God. Not a snugly butt.

And it's like, you don't need to be a hugger of other people. I'm I'm not generally a hugger. I'm not a touchy person at all.

But you're so smooshy with your kids.

I don't like to be touched.

Me and Elaina hug twice a year.

Literally. I'm not a toucher. I'm not a hugger. When my kids are in the room, I'm like, Come here. I just want to smush them all the time. They're probably like, get away from me.

I mean, I got it from other sources. Like, Mom is the most cuddly butt ever. She's a cancer.

My mom is a cuddle butt.

But for him to have nobody in his life. Nothing.

No birthday parties, no Christmas tree. That's horrible. Just no childhood things. It's really sad. It is. And then no friends.

And no celebrations. Not even nobody cuddling him directly or celebrating him, but no celebration of anything else.

Yeah, that's the thing. Just It's not a thing to be happy about, really.

Except his postage collection. Yeah. That's sweet.

I love that. I know. Now, when the oil wells began paying off in Oklahoma, George Getty, now officially a millionaire, moved the family to Los Angeles, where Paul was enrolled in the prestigious Harvard Military Academy in 1906. Now, the school had a sterling reputation for academics and producing very academically strong young men like that, clearly.

Probably at a cost.

But George didn't intend for this to be preparation for anything. He was trying to punish his son here. By the time he had reached his teens, Paul had become defiant and willful because- I mean, makes sense.

Childhood.

He was explicitly defying his father whenever George tried to impose any will on him.

Well, maybe you should have hugged him.

But no matter what it was intended to be, Paul met the challenge head-on and proved himself to be very smart and a very excellent student, especially in literature and languages. He was very proficient in that. Whether at home or at school, he could be found with his face in a book. Like, he was a book guy. He was Rory Gilmore, essentially. I love that. And by the time he finished high In high school, he had become fluent in French, German, and Italian. That's insane. And he was conversational in several other languages.

Which is a whole different ball game.

Oh, yeah. His proficiency with languages, in addition to his strong grades, gained him admittance to the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. And then he did a short stint at the University of California, Berkeley, where he briefly studied law. Wow. Now, after just one year at two different universities, it became pretty apparent that no matter how smart he was, he just wasn't interested in pursuing a degree. He got in. He didn't really want to do anything. Instead, he returned home to his parents house, where his mother somehow succeeded in convincing George, his dad, to allow their son to have a private entrance to his quarters, equipped with a lock.

That's cool.

This was a compromise on Sarah's part, because honestly, she would rather give him privacy and independence instead of seeing him move out on his own. So she was like, We got to get in this.

At least he's near us.

Yeah, at least we can try to see what's happening. If it was intended to make him want to be more responsible, it very much backfired. Within a few months, he was throwing parties regularly, returning home in the middle of the night with several girls, regularly, quote unquote, borrowing his father's car without asking. To his very deeply religious parents, his behavior wasn't just irritating or disrespectful. It was downright sinful.

Oh, no, he's a sinner.

He's not good. Now, despite the tensions between them, Paul did agree to accompany his parents to Europe in 1910, which like, wow, how good of you.

I mean, yeah, of course he did.

And eventually, he did enroll at Oxford University, and he graduated with a degree in economics in 1913. Damn, that's impressive. After graduating, he spent several months traveling around Europe and then came home in 1914, where he was given $10,000 by his father to invest in the family's oil holdings in Oklahoma. Oh, all right. The next year, the investment paid off, and at just 23 years old, J. Paul Getty was a millionaire. Damn. Just from that investment.

Investing is crazy.

It goes crazy.

Investing doesn't make any sense to me, but it works out, man.

I guess it works out. Now, if the world ever knew anything about J. Paul Getty, It was that he had a knack for making money, and he held on to that wealth tighter than any man alive. But just behind that very obvious fact, Getty was also widely known to be a womanizer. He ended up marrying five times. Damn. And He carried on to extramarital affairs with countless women.

That feels like it was rooted in a loveless childhood.

He doesn't connect anyone. Yeah.

It seems like he maybe is trying to, but doesn't quite get how to.

I don't even think he's trying to. I think he has no interest in it. Yeah, that's what it is. I think he was taught to have no interest in it. In 1923, when he was 31 years old, he married 17-year-old Jeanette Dumont. That's no good. In a secret ceremony in Mexico. I said, I wonder why it was secret.

I bet it was secret. I It was secret in Mexico. Yeah.

The next year, she gave birth to a child, George. But less than two years later, the marriage fell apart and they divorced in 1926. Two years later, Paul married again, this time to a German woman named Adolfine Helmley. That's a pretty name. In another secret ceremony.

Was she also a minor?

I don't know how old she was. The next year, she gave birth to a child, Jean. Unfortunately, like the first marriage after the birth of their child, Paul's interest in his wife and family wained very quickly. And by 1932, they divorced and Adolfine returned to Germany, taking Jean with her. I mean, it feels like it was an inevitable result of his isolated upbringing, like we were talking about. But his relationships with his first two wives Definitely became a pattern throughout his life. By all accounts, he had an interest in younger women. And whether they were wives or girlfriends, he pretty much lost interest in them after a couple of years at most.

Because they got older.

Even more, unfortunately, though, he lost interest in his kids very quickly. That's fucked up. John Peterson wrote, we cited him in our show notes there. He said, Far from approaching parenthood with joy, Paul bucked away, and like the spoiled only child he was, made angry efforts to escape. More than anything else, he valued his freedom, and to him, wives and children complicated that freedom, which I have such a good solution for that. Don't get married and procreate.

Don't get married and procreate.

It's perfect. There There you go. But when he did inevitably lose interest in his wives and children, he also made no efforts to hide those feelings. According to those who knew him intimately, he was often physically and verbally abusive to the women in his life. In the courtroom, during one of his divorce proceedings from his first wife, Janette. He screamed at her, I'm sick and tired of you and sick and tired of being married, yelled at her across the court.

There's a reason you set the alarm. A reason you're out here before the world wakes. It's because you know every run builds towards something bigger. And now, when you run the Irish Life Dublin Marathon, you'll get up to €50 back with an Irish Life Health benefit plan. Just one more reason to keep running. Because every run counts. A better life with Irish Life. Available on benefit plans, cashback depends on level of cover. Terms and conditions apply. Irish Life Health Jack is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

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If there's a single incident in the family life of Jay Paul Getty that showed his attitude towards this family, especially how indifferent he is to them. It's found in his final marriage. In 1939, he married Louise Teddy Lynch, the woman that he would actually stay married to for nearly 20 years. Wow.

I wonder what was different there.

She's the final wife. In 1946, she gave birth to Getty's fifth child, Timothy, and Timothy suffered from multiple illnesses almost since birth. In his diaries, Paul referred to the boy as, poor, poor Timmy and sad little Timmy. Yet he was completely incapable of forming a bond with him. Yeah. And he didn't even spend any quality time with him. When he was six years old, Timothy developed a brain tumor and it blinded him soon after and required immediate treatment. Paul arranged for treatment with the best specialists in New York and covered the cost to fly the mother and son across the country. Which he should have. He did not go with them. He promised to come visit. He never did. His six-year-old son is getting brain surgery. He's not there. Worse were the letters he sent to her during this time, chastising her for the money she was spending on their son's medical care. What? He literally wrote in one, I'm glad that you realize the expenses are enormous. You should always, if there is time, and there was in this case, have an agreement in advance. Some doctors like to charge a rich person 20 times more than their regular fee.

It's like, Yeah, he has a brain tumor, so I don't think she's got time to send you a fucking letter for clearance for ever treatment.

And you're a multimillionaire.

Yeah, this is nothing to you.

I would spend anything to take it to like, if my child needed medical treatment, why are you questioning it?

That's absurd and disgusting.

What's even worse, Timothy died in 1958 at age 12. While Paul was in Europe. He sent his condolences but did not attend his child's funeral.

I'm sorry, you said he sent his condolences?

Yeah, sorry to hear about it.

Sorry to hear about the death of my child.

Shouldn't shock you that Teddy, his wife, divorced him a short time after. I would think so. Yeah. Like, completely indifferent.

Sent his condolences is crazy.

Now, although the example of Timothy's tragic death is the most obvious example of Getty's cruelty and abuse, even to those closest to him, it's far from the only one. In fact, his life is full of examples of shockingly selfish behavior, violent relationships, indifference to the pain of others. He was just not a nice person.

Sounds like he has a personality disorder.

Each marriage ended badly and was always immediately followed by a new wife, usually the one he had been seeing before the previous marriage ended. Of course. He would typically agree to pay child support, but he only did so begrudgingly, and he had to have a court order. He wouldn't do it unless there was that. Now, if Getty had affinity for any of his children, it might have been for John Jr, the first of two children born to his fourth wife, Anne Roark.

That's random that it took him that many kids to find one he liked.

Paul and Anne's relationship lasted just four years, and she would go on to remarry and move with her children to San Francisco. And despite the distance and not having seen either of the children in more than a decade, Paul invited John to Italy in the late 1950s, where he offered his son a job as the President of the Italian subsidiary of Getty Oil.

I wonder what he did. I don't want to say earned his love.

I think so John was married to his wife, Gail. Okay. And they had four children. And so to All. They were successful. They seemed like a pretty idyllic family. They seemed like they had it together, and he seemed like, okay, this is one I can trust to do this. But that opinion definitely changed in 1964 when John and Gail divorced. Within two years, had remarried, this time to a Dutch actress, Talitha Pole. She was a socialite and a notorious party girl. Oh, no. John just left his children with their mother in Italy. Like father, like son. Exactly. And John and Talitha embraced the her culture lifestyle and traveled the world together. During this period, they also developed a fondness for drugs and drug culture that very much spiraled out of control and resulted in a very intense heroin addiction. Oh, that's sad. Now, Paul Getty had his own excesses and didn't judge his son for leaving one woman for another, of course. I mean, how could he? He had done the same thing at least four or five other times. What he did object to was the drug use and the hippie lifestyle. Although he may not have participated a lot in his own parents' religious practices, he maintained their rigid ideals and abstinence when it came to things like drugs.

I mean, they were instilled in him from a very young age.

He would not stand by according to him, and let his son Sully the family name, with public exploits, essentially. In the late 1960s, at the height of John and Talitha's drug addiction, Paul gave his son an ultimatum. He said, Check into rehab and get sober or give up your position at Getty Oil. That's fair. Which is a pretty valid thing. John chose the latter. He gave up his position. Giving up his position. Wow. And Paul wasted no time removing him from the company and from his life completely.

Wow.

That's really sad. That's cut off, gone. In the years that followed this, John Getty's life, unfortunately, continued to spiral out of control. By 1971, he and Talitha had separated, largely in part because she wanted to get sober. Oh, that's good. And he desired to continue living the way he had been for years. Not great. In the summer of 1971, Talitha paid a visit to John in Rome, probably to just hash out the details of the divorce. And on the morning of July 11th, she was found dead in his apartment from an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates.

I not expecting that.

There were rumors she'd relapsed and began using heroin due to his influence. Oh. Because she was trying to get sober. That's really dark. After her death, John returned to England and slowly started getting sober and pulling his life back together. But his relationship with his father, Paul, and his children would remain completely irreparably damaged for the rest of his life. I mean, yeah. So from the outside, anyone looking at the Getty family would have been understandably pretty envious. It was like, despite several failed money. They had lots of money. Yeah, they had lots of money. Despite the several failed marriages and remarriages, they had that unimaginable amount of money.

People never pay attention to the little stuff. No. They're just like, They have money.

They must be so fucking happy. Well, they didn't know most of this enough. It was really due almost entirely to Paul's single-minded work ethic and notorious frugality. At the time, the art collection that would eventually serve as the foundation of the Getty Museum was one of the largest and most impressive collections in the world. But if anyone assumed that because of all this or despite all this, they were happy, stable, or a bonded family, they were very wrong. They were all the exact opposite. By the early 1970s, Paul had written off most of his family, either through divorce, estrangement. He was living a totally isolated life in his British manor house called Sutton Place. Also, he'd become very bitter and increasingly paranoid in his later years. And even he hired a private security team to protect him in his property. He was very paranoid. By then, he had completely written off his son, John, as what he referred to as a drug addict in a waste of time. And according to journalist Julie Miller, he, quote, had tenuous relationships with his other sons, rotating them in and out of his will at will.

It's very succession. Yeah.

As for his grandchildren, Paul had really little to say about them since he rarely interacted with them at all. But he still managed to form an opinion.

One thing about him, I feel like he's always going to have an opinion.

He's always going to have an opinion. According to John Pearson, Paul held a disapproving view of at least one of his grandsons, Paul III, because he'd, quote, heard enough about him to believe he was like his father, and he wanted nothing to do with either until they changed their ways. So the Paul III that we are speaking about is the one that gets kidnapped. Yes. He is the son of John. Okay. Just to keep that all together.

Which is like, yeah, of course he's struggling. His dad abandoned him and moved in Italy.

Exactly. In Italy. Yeah, like hello. So whether or not Paul III was like his father was debatable. But it was true that as he entered his midteens, he started getting in a lot of trouble a lot. In 1972, he was expelled from school after painting offensive graffiti in the school's hallway. It should happen. After that, he did seem to be headed in a direction a little similar to his father, spending a lot of his time doing drugs, parting at trendy Italian nightclubs every single night. Like so many of the Getty family, it seemed that Paul III was headed for not a great life. It's not like he was living off the millions right now. He was cut off a little bit. He was going to a life like a lot of them did, of misery and isolation. If his grandfather had anything to say about it, he was going to live a life of poverty as well. He was not going to let him have that money. Of course, if the elder Paul Getty's money was good for anything, it was controlling the family's image in the minds of the public. Despite all the turmoil and tabloide-esque antics that were happening in Italy, no one seemed to really notice care, and it really didn't negatively affect Getty oil or the development of the museum in Los Angeles.

Maybe it's for that reason that members of Indrangetta, a notorious Italian crime syndicate, identified the Getty family as pretty good targets for extortion. Because, again, they don't know the inner workings of this family. They see it from the outside. Everyone must have some cash. Right. No.

Maybe he cares about his grandson.

They all fucking hate each other. So no, they don't have that. The roots of Indrangetta Eta, can be traced loosely back to late 19th century, and I'll try to say this correctly, Calabria, a region of Southern Italy, where they were mostly like an informal association. It was like a small criminal circles. Like, they what the big crime syndicate they were then. They were committing petty crimes, like a little bit of a little tad of racketeering. Just a dash.

A dabble of racketeering.

But by the 1960s, they had formalized pretty considerably, and they expanded beyond the borders of Calabria and across the country and started frequently working with Sicilian syndicates on smuggling and arm stealing. Scary. Among other things. Like many of the other mid-century criminal organizations that were plaguing Italy in the mid 20th century. Indrangueta's activities range from small-time racketeering, just to dabble-do-ya, and drug smuggling to extortion and murder. So it got pretty intense. Very Sopranos. Yeah. During In the late 1960s, the syndicate successfully managed to make a lot of money by kidnapping wealthy foreigners off the streets of Italy and ransoming them back to their families for large sums of money. That's so fucked.

It's a real fucked. They're like, Yeah, let's just pluck a little tourist off the street.

Yeah, this was in the 1960s. Now, by the summer of 1973, Paul III had already been kicked out of boarding school and was living rent-free in a squat with several other artists. Though just a teenager at the time, he was like 16. Yeah. He'd already gained a certain amount of Fame. He was the grandson of the wealthiest man in the world, for one. Then he also gained a lot of Fame as a participant in Rome's artist and political community. So he was pretty active in that. Night after night, he could definitely be found wandering the street to and from bars and clubs where he was living in the squat. So when it came time for the members of in Drangetta to find a lucrative new target, their next victim was pretty easy to find. Yeah. He was always on the street.

He was just big hanging.

Yeah, big hanging. In the early morning hours of July 10th, 1973, 16-year-old Paul III was wandering home to the apartment. He was sharing the apartment with two other artists in the Trasdivier neighborhood It, I believe it is. And that's when an old white fiat pulled up beside him.

Riding in a Fiat. You really got to see it. There it is.

I had to. The driver called out, Excuse me, are you Paul Getty? No. Always saying No, I'm not the richest man in the world's grandson.

Paul looked over at the driver and said, Yeah, he's Paul Getty. He should have said, I'm just Ken.

I'm just Ken. At which point, two men jumped out of the back of the car, grabbed him, and forced him into the back seat, and sped away. Just right off the street. Plucked him right off the street. At the time of the kidnapping, Paul's mother, Gail, you remember Gail?

I do.

Was still holding the family together. Her second marriage had ended a few months earlier, but she maintained an amazing relationship with all of her children. And although he'd moved out, she still saw Paul almost daily, usually to bring him food or little sums of money. Her biggest problems were almost all financial. Her ex-husband, Paul Jr, was required to send child support on a monthly basis But since he was- Probably didn't. He was cut off by his own father, there was a little money to be had. He was not living that getty life. He was not living that getty life. Yeah, he was not living that getty life. He was not living that getty life. I hate to bother you. You do have a whole child.

Yeah, a few, actually.

Yeah, a few of them. Now, the next morning, Gail was starting to feel a a little anxious. Her son, Mark, and her daughter, Eileen, were both away on trips, and that left her alone at home with her daughter, Ariadna. She hadn't heard from Paul in nearly two days at this point, which was unusual. Gail called the apartment where he was staying, and his roommate said he hadn't returned home the night before. This definitely unsettled Gail because obviously, he was a teenager. Occasionally, he would act his age, 16. But Paul was pretty responsible when it came to keeping in touch with his mother. She was like, Yeah, he did a lot of shit, and he was genuinely irresponsible in every other aspect. But he always called me. He always called me. So the absence here was alarming, immediately. It wasn't until the next day, a full two days since he'd last been seen, that Gael received the first call from the people who abducted her son. The voice on the other end of the line was a man with a Southern Italian accent that she didn't recognize, and he asked politely if she was Signora Getty.

When she replied that she was, he continued in his polite tone, We have your son, Paul Getty. Oh, my God. So she paused for a moment and she corrected the man, telling him that Paul was there in Rome. And he said, No, Signora. And he said, He's with us. We are kidnappers and have him captive. He is safe, but we will require much money to release him. Oh, as a mom, can you imagine?

I can't imagine.

Poor Gail. Poor Gail through this entire thing.

Because that's the thing knowing that you need to, like knowing who you need to go to for the money.

Oh, yeah. And knowing that you might not be able to get it. Yeah. Like, there's a real chance.

You're estranged from your husband. That's your ex-husband. He's estranged from his father who has the large cash. There's so many layers to this that I would, I'd probably just fall to the fucking floor.

That's the thing. She tried to explain it to them. She said, I don't have any money. I don't have anything to give you. But there was no point in arguing because everyone knew who her father-in-law had been, and it was generally assumed that she would have access to to large sums of money. He said, Please prepare to ask for it from your father-in-law. He has all the money in the world. It was then that Gail understood this is not a prank, and she angrily demanded to know where Paul was and who had taken him. The kidnapper said, Very calmly, again, I tell you he is with us. He's in good health, and he'll stay that way as long as you do as you're told and arrange about the money. But don't go to the police. Just wait to hear from us. And then they disconnected. Oh, God. She just panicked. He hadn't given any information at all. He He didn't even said how much money they wanted. Yeah. Even if he had, it's not like she had any money to give, and she didn't think her ex-husband would have it either. She later said, I felt utterly alone, and I had to figure out what in God's name I should do.

She had no idea who to reach out to. So she called her parents in the United States. They tried to calm her down. They reassured her and they said, I know he said not to call the police, but you got to call the police. Yeah, of course you do. And then they said, And you need to contact your ex-husband. You got to contact Paul. Oh, God.

Can you imagine?

Right. So when Gail broke the news to him, he was as shocked and frightened as she had been when she first received the call, obviously. Paul Jr. Had just started to get his life back on track and their relationship had started to feel like before the drugs took over, like they were actually trying to start having a relationship. So he was like, holy shit. So he also was worried it was going to cause a relapse. Yeah. So after giving him what little information she had, Gail suggested he call his father to ask for the money. Yeah. But Paul's reaction was immediate and firm. He said, I can't. We never speak to one another.

That's not an appropriate reaction.

Now's the time to speak. Yeah.

Hey, dad, my fucking whole last child has been kidnapped by a crime syndicate.

Yeah.

Like, hello.

Italian crime syndicate.

Hey, dad, I'm sober now. I've been working on it.

We can talk about it later.

I can't. We don't talk.

Go fuck yourself. So Gail ends the call, and she was appearing to call her former father-in-law herself. Yeah. She was like, I'll fucking do it.

She said, Fine, I'll fucking do it.

When the Cara Benyara arrived. They are more than just local police officers, the Cara Benyara. They're called the Alma de Cara Benyara. That's really fun to say. They were an elite squad of law enforcement officers created to deal with the more notorious criminal organizations. During a period in Italy that is frequently referred to as the Years of lead, 1968 to 1988. The officers in this elite squad developed a reputation for cynicism and ruthlessness that occasionally led to their operating outside the law to solve criminal problems.

Yikes.

According to John Pearson, they were, quote, rarely over sympathetic to what they saw as rich, indulgent foreigners living in their midst. Okay. So this was not great for Gail. No. For hours, the detectives grilled Gail about the lives of her son, her husband, and her other children. They told her, We know your son's señora. He is probably with a girl or with his hippie friends. He will almost certainly turn up.

She's like, Yeah, one of the largest syndicates has called me and said that they have him. You got to listen.

Can we just listen to this? When she's insisting he didn't run away, and she quoted the man on the phone verbatim, and they just kept being skeptical of it. They were well aware, too. It's funny that they were not funny, but like, funny. That they were skeptical about this because this was a well-known thing that was happening right now that they were kidnapping for ransom, and especially the Indrangueta and other syndicates. They were known for this at the time.

What's their not to believe?

This was very much on brand for them. Now, it's unclear whether she was genuinely convinced or simply tired of arguing with them. But the next day, the press quote of Gail is saying, I think the phone call was some joke.

Well, that was probably her trying to convince herself. Yeah.

She definitely understood how the situation looked at the time, too. It's not as though her family was unknown to the police and the press. Not only had her ex-husband been sought for questioning after the overdose death of his estranged wife. I'm sure. But Paul himself had been arrested a few months earlier for participating in a political demonstration. So she She didn't know what to do. She later told a reporter, In any case, I'm waiting for more contacts that can clarify the situation. I'm alone. I don't know what to do. I can only hope that my son returns home. That's heartbreaking.

That poor woman.

The attempts to frame the kidnapping as a hoax or a runaway situation, kept the press happy for a few days, which I wonder if that's what she was doing, just trying to keep them away from her. But because of the family's name, investigators had no choice but to take the case seriously. The next day, officers fanned out across the city to look for Paul, even as they maintained their doubt that this was even real. When police combed the city looking for him, Paul was being held by the gang in the Italian country. After dragging him into the car, they chloroformed him until he lost consciousness. Jesus. And then when he woke up, he was chained at the ankle to the wall of an animal pen at a nondescript farmhouse that was completely unfamiliar to him.

Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare.

In the early days of his captivity, the kidnappers, he said, were pretty indifferent to him. They gave him a radio. They fed him tinned food, but otherwise, they just had little contact with him. They left him alone in the animal hut. They didn't hurt him or anything. According to John Pearson, at this stage, his captor seemed highly confident and were clearly counting on a speedy deal to make their fortune. They thought they would just chain this kid up and they'd get their money and off he'd go. Yeah. You would think. Yeah. Because they had no idea about the dysfunction and incredibly poor interpersonal dynamics of the Getty family, They just naturally assumed the family would be eager to get him back and would pay the sum to get him back. That confidence would start to wane in the weeks that followed, and as it did, so would their patience and their indifference.

That's not great.

Yeah, not great. Gail had tried to reach her father-in-law in London multiple times in the week that followed. Her father-in-law, the grandfather.

Yeah, with all the money.

He just wouldn't return her calls. That's nice. He knows, by the way. Yeah. Just not returning. I'm busy. Sorry. Can't get to you. During this time, she finally received a letter from the kidnappers. It was like a cut-out.

Oh, like straight-up.

And the note was simple and straightforward. They wanted $17 million. Oh, that's it. In 2025, that's $124 million. For Paul's safe return. God. A few days later, a second letter came to Gail's apartment, this time from Paul himself. The letter was short and just gave basic details about the situation. He'd been kidnapped, he didn't know who or where they were keeping him. He also restated did the kidnapper's previous warning about not going to the police. The note meant that at the very least, he was alive, so that was good. And the final line of the letter made it clear that things could change at any moment. He wrote, and I quote, Pay up, I beg you. Pay up as soon as possible if you wish me well. If you delay, it is very dangerous for me. I love you, Paul. This is a 16-year-old kid.

That must have just been... There's not even... There's 16-year-old. That's like an indescribable feeling, I'm sure.

No. That's something I could never die into the deep recesses of thinking of how that feels.

No, because every part of you as a parent, usually, wants to protect your child, and you have no idea where he even is, and you have no control over the situation whatsoever.

I'm just thinking about Gail, she every night has to put her head on the pillow.

Yeah, and also take care of three other children.

And be a mother to other children. And just live her life. I don't know how people do it.

And not kill this old man who won't give her the fucking money.

Exactly. Oh, my God. Now, the ransom demand in Paul's note that followed, put to rest the hoax idea. But it increased the seriousness of the situation, and they thought that was going to maybe get Paul Getty senior to give a shit.

He didn't even want to pay for treatments for his child's brain cancer.

So didn't do it. He refused still to speak with his daughter-in-law or his son. Just wouldn't talk to them.

What a piece of shit.

He did to a reporter, though, refusing to answer their calls. Nice. And he told the reporter he loved his grandson, but he would not be paying the ransom because, It only encourages kidnappers. And then he went on to justify it by saying, I have 14 grandchildren children. If I pay a penny of ransom, I'll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.

Oh my God. What rationale is that?

If you're looking purely on logic, it does make a certain amount of sense. He said, I will not be rewarding That's not bad behavior. As far as warding off further kidnapping attempts. But holy shit, does it show the ambivalence, selfishness, and complete indifference he has to anyone that he's supposed to care about. Yeah. Because it just doesn't matter. You wouldn't be thinking of that. You'd be like, I have one grandchild who is kidnapped currently. I need to save that child. It's actually fascinating, and not in a good way, but that somebody can care so So little. It's scary. That's really scary.

That's a wall I don't think I've ever seen in person.

No. He must have been a very scary and draining person to be around. I feel like being in his presence would suck the fucking life out of you because that's a dark fucking presence. I feel like coming out of there, you would feel like you just got got. Like a mentor. I'd be like, holy shit. Honestly, it would Drain you.

I can't believe he was like, Yeah, I got 14 total. So like, sorry.

I can't just- It's a lot of money. It's literally the idea of he's like, If I do it for one, I got to do it for all of it. That's crazy. Can't save one grandchild. I'll have to save them all.

It's like, What?

That's- That's- That. 17 million dollars is an astronomical amount of money.

But he was one of the richest men in the world.

It was literally nothing to him. It was nothing to him.

Have you ever seen those things where they convert it to Taylor Swift.

Getting a coffee, like you buying a car. Like an SUV.

Like an SUV for her is like a coffee for us.

Yeah. That's literally- His ransom was like a trip to the mall for us. He could have done this. He didn't have to prove a point. He didn't need to use it as a bargaining thing.

He also probably could have done it 14 times. Easily. And not really see much else.

Obviously, you don't want to. You don't want your grandkids getting kidnapped all over the place.

But it's like, come on, pay it once and then put some precautions into place going forward. What the fuck?

And like, further complicating matters with a sensational press reports coming from Italy and being reprinted in the American and British press. According to one theory put forth by the press, Paul, quote, may have concocted an abduction to solve personal financial problems, saying that his father had set this whole thing up.

I don't think he needs $17 million to settle his personal problems.

And given what he already thought of his son and his grandson, this rumor wouldn't have seemed It would have seemed pretty plausible to be grandfather. So he was probably like, I don't know what's going on here.

He said it's Paul Jr's fault. Yeah.

Meanwhile, he's just like, what the fuck?

I'm just laughing because this is insane. It's absurd.

Yeah. And it's like, you're thinking Paul Jr is working with a fucking Italian crime syndicate? I doubt it. I doubt it.

I doubt it.

That's not a dice roll I would have taken.

He's like, Those hippies.

Yeah, they're crazy.

Those hippies and syndicates out here. Like, crazy.

Now, back in Rome, Gail was frantic at this point, trying to figure out how to come up with any amount of money. A lawyer for the family said, The grandfather doesn't want to pay a penny, and she must depend only on her money and that of her ex-husband, which is limited. In the end, she managed to raise on her own $430,000, which she immediately offered the kidnappers on August second.

That's a lot of money. I wonder how she even did that.

I know, but it's unclear how they managed to get in touch with the kidnappers to do this. But the press reported that they were unimpressed with the office offer and called it poultry.

I mean, $430,000 is a lot of money. She did it by herself.

She's trying. I know. Now, years later, Gail would describe her interactions with the members of in Drangetta. And initially, she said they were polite and respectful, weirdly, referring to her as señora, never raising their voices to her. But then when she told them she couldn't raise the money for the ransom, their tone changed and it became explosive anger. The man shouted at Gail, who is this so-called grandfather? How can he leave his flesh and blood in the plight that your poor son is in?

She's like, Yeah, I also wonder. She's like, Bitch.

Señor. Let's sit down and talk about it.

Yeah, she's like, You want to get coffee?

And she tried to explain the situation, and she was like, I have virtually no relationship with Getty senior. She's like, he's a douchebag. But the gang accused her of lying and trying to get out of paying the ransom. Why would anybody do that? Why would anybody do that? I want my kid back. Now, weeks passed without word from the kidnappers, and in the meantime, the press started focusing their attention on the Getty family, and Gail, in particular. No matter where she went, she was hounded by journalists, taking photos, shouting questions at her. And Gail later said, they felt that someone must be blamed for what had happened. And since there was no one else around, they picked on me. Oh, that's awful. This poor, grieving mother, like, doesn't know where her son is. By early September, Getty was still refusing to pay their new ransom. But he did send his person a lawyer, Fletcher Chase.

That man had no choice. That man had no other choice in life but to become a lawyer.

If your name is Fletcher, you will literally have to become a lawyer. He had to defend his position and support the family in some way, I guess. That's what he was doing.

She was starting to look bad. Yeah.

He's like, I guess I have to look like I'm not a complete monster. But he was really more there to help negotiate with the kidnappers, and Chase would ultimately prolong the ordeal and complicate things a lot. Good. So Fletch wasn't even a good lawyer. Particularly after he advised Gail and other members of the family to end communication with the kidnappers.

That's a terrible idea. Like, what?

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Frustrated with the silence and that months had passed without any money offered, the members of Indrangueta decided they needed to take a new approach and convey to the Gethies that they were done playing games. In the countryside where Paul was being held, they started taking their anger out on him. They removed the radio that they gave him from his animals. This is really sad, too. Just trigger warning for animal something. They tightened his chains and then they killed a bird that he had been keeping as a pet. Yeah. Which really breaks my heart. It's horrible. He literally kept a bird in this animal stall that he's being held in as a pet and they killed it.

Oh, that makes my stomach It hurt.

On one particularly bad afternoon, they held a 0. 45 caliber revolver to his head and played Russian roulette. Oh, God. So the 16-year-old kid just sat there while they played Russian roulette with his head.

That is psychological abuse like none other.

During this period, several of the original kidnappers had actually sold their stakes in the ransom to other members of Indrangeta, further up the chain of command. What? Yeah.

That's what they can do. They sold off their stakes?

They just gave it to and to hire up people. They were like, Yeah, you guys deal with it. That's terrifying. These men were not only harder and more abusive than the previous captors, but they were also eager to end this stalemate and bring money in to invest in other activities. They were like, We don't play. We have other shit to do. One morning in mid-October, one of the new kidnappers came to Paul's stall and offered him a glass of brandy. Paul said it was too early to start drinking, and the man was like, You should drink. And he said, It would do you good. That's chilling. Yeah. Before leaving, the man told Paul his hair was too long and needed cutting.

Oh, this is literally making my stomach hurt.

I'm not kidding. And Paul was like, No, I like my hair this way. But a few minutes later, another man appeared and started cutting Paul's hair with blunt scissors. Once he finished, the man rubbed some alcohol behind Paul's ear, and then he said he felt the man grab his right ear hard. And a second later, he felt a searing pain on the side of his head as his ear wasiced cleanly off with a straight razor.

Oh my God. Oh my fucking God.

And then he just passed out from pain.

Oh my fucking God.

They sliced his right ear off- Now, stop saying that to me. Cleanly with a straight razor. Stop saying that.

I hate it. I'm literally like, I'm holding my ears. Also, they gave him one fucking cup of brandy. I'm like, you should have given that poor kid a bottle.

Oh my And then he just passed out from the pain.

Oh, I'm actually a little bit nauseated.

Yeah, that's honestly nauseating. A few days later.

This is a child, everybody.

This is a 16-year-old kid. So a few days later, Gail's at home in Rome, and that was not meant to rhyme, but it did. And she received a call, and it was one of the kidnappers. And this was a man she'd come to know at this point named Cinquenta. He told her what had happened. Told her about the ear.

He said, oh, we were giving him a haircut and then accidentally Did he cut his ear off?

No, he said, We intentionally cut his ear off because we want you to know we're not fucking around. Oh my God. Yeah. And she was like, Fuck you. No, I don't believe you. And then he was like, I'll send you photos. And she was like, Wow. And she said, Whether she believed it or not, I don't know if she was trying to front with him, but she said she couldn't get the idea, obviously, out of her head of him being literally butchered, her child. Obviously. As promised, Polaroids of Paul were discovered in a particular trash can in Rome after Cinquenta directed investigators to their location. So they were like, Here you go. In them, Paul could be seen standing outside a cave in a nondescript location. He was filthy. He was emaciated, and on the right side of his head, there was a terrible open wound where his ear had once been. The kidnappers also sent Paul's ear via the mail.

I was wondering if they were going to.

But apparently there was a postal strike in Rome at the time, so mail wasn't being delivered. So the package sat on a shelf undiscovered for weeks. Oh, no. Yeah, that must have smelled great. Yeah. In the package, when it was discovered, it was addressed to a newspaper. There was his hair. They'd cut his hair and put in there. A demand for the money and his ear. And the letter said, This is Paul's first ear. Not his first ear? Yeah. If within 10 days the family still believes that this is a joke mounted by him, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits.

Oh, that. No.

They He wrote, In other words, he will arrive in little bits.

Until you fucking pay us.

Like, that is fucking chilling. Yeah. We're just going to send little pieces of your child back to you until you send.

I can't even talk. Holy shit.

I can't even. My brain exploded.

And also, this is his first ear.

This is his first ear.

Expect the second if you don't pay us. How do you wrap your brain around that as his family?

I literally don't know.

How do you not just fucking pay them?

You have the money. That's what's killing me. It's not like this is a family who's sitting there being like, We don't have this money. We don't know how to get it. There is a man that is part of this family that has all the money in the world.

Like, literally. And it's also like, how do you just not empathize with your grandson?

Thinking of this child, a 16-year-old, getting his ear sliced off.

And it's like you obviously- And that doesn't move you. Well, that's the thing. You were moved by your own sadness. Like you told one of your wives nobody cuddled you. This 16-year-old is getting his fucking ear chopped off.

You don't want to change the direction of his life a little bit? Maybe. God damn.

That is ice cold.

Yeah. By the middle of November, things had fallen apart completely. Paul had been in captivity nearly four months at this point, and his health, if not his life, were in danger at this point. They'd been plying him with brandy to numb the pain. And some people actually believe this is partially what led to his alcoholism later in life. I'm sure. They also gave him a ton of penicillin to try to keep the infection from killing him because he would be useless to them if he died.

That's the thing. I was wondering what they were doing to keep that wound clean.

They didn't. They just applied him with penicillin to try to keep... They were basically just trying to keep him alive, not really comfortable. And it led to an allergy to the drug later. Because he had so much of it. Wow. Yeah. He couldn't take it later. The Cara Benyara, that Elite Squad had proven completely useless in tracking down the kidnappers. Like, great job. Yeah, thanks a lot. And Paul senior continued to refuse the ransom. This man. Continued.

I don't know if there's...

Hello?

Yeah.

Hello is right.

I feel like you're capable of murder at that point.

At the same time, the members of in Drangetta had grown tired of the whole thing, and they were aware they might end up losing their investment at this point. So they reduced the ransom to 2. 3 million. Which is crazy. 17. And they said that's their final offer.

That's a crazy reduction. Yeah.

And out of options and completely on her own, Gail was just like, We'll pay it. I'll figure it out. Just hold him. Please don't kill him. I will figure it out. Don't cut off another part of his body. I will get this to you. In the end, Paul senior finally agreed not to pay the ransom, to loan half the money.

Not even all of it.

To his son. Not even all of it at 4% interest.

What a motherfucker. What a motherfucker is right.

What a motherfucker. Somebody should have kicked this dude in the fucking face. He's a piece of absolute dirt.

This man is a lone shark.

He's a dirt bag. A bag of dirt. That's what this man is.

No, that's a bag of motherfucking dirt. That is just not. I don't understand being that way.

Loan half. Now, to be clear, 2. 3 3 million. He's loaning them- Richest man in the world. Barely over a million dollars, which to anyone else is an inconceivable amount of money. Of course. To this man, that is literally change he would pull out of his butt hole. That is literally- That's butt hole change.

You all know about butt hole change? You all got butt hole change? Only this is just out here, two and fives.

This man absolutely has some butt hole change. I don't care what's going on here.

I've heard of like, oh, no. I've heard of like, couch changes. That's what I think I heard of a butt hole change.

But it sounded more intense to say butt hole.

To say he shits out millions. He does. He probably wipes his butt with millions. He does shit out millions.

No, he really does. This man is shitting out millions of dollars. Oh, my God. He could pull this out of his butt hole at any time. And he just wouldn't.

Maybe that's why he's so up tight. There's so much money up his butt. What's up your butt? Millions. You got a hair across your ass? No, that's a five hundo.

That's a five hundo. I'm crying. That's a couple of Benny Franks.

It truly is. And that's what I'm saying.

17 million dollars to him was fucking nothing. Well, then it got reduced to two. One million dollars? Not even two. He only gave one.

Well, no, but it got reduced to two. He could have given two.

And he would only give one, and he didn't give it. He loaned it at 4 % interest. And then he told his son and his daughter In-law about their own grandchild, Figure out the other million and change yourself. That's not a little amount of money to figure out. God damn.

Also, wait, we haven't even said this yet, and that's actually insane that I haven't thought this. I thought it. I just haven't said it in a second. I'm Paul III is sitting there in that, being transported to all these different places and getting his ears chopped off and getting a maid, being starved, getting his bird killed. It's four fucking months of this, and he's probably sitting there like, Hey, does anyone give a fucking rat's ass about me?

Because you know those people are sitting there being like, Yeah, no one's paying us. No one gives a shit about you.

It's crazy when even the cartel feels bad.

They're probably sitting there being like, This sucks, Dude. Yeah. We would like our money, but also like rough break with your family. They don't give a shit, except your mom. That's so sad. And his dad was trying at that point. He at least was like not hard enough, clearly. No, not But Gail was the real hero here. She was trying everything she fucking could.

Yeah, that's a mama.

Along with the money that the grandfather loaned at 4% interest, Paul Jr. Was able to pull together with Gail and figure out how to get the rest of the money. I don't know how. They had 2. 2 million, and they wanted 2. 3. They were able to get 2. 2. Okay.

Yeah.

The Fletcher Chase lawyer guy told reporters, The amount is the maximum the father is able to raise for the return of the boy. No. His lawyer is literally like, sorry.

I'm also like, motherfucker, your salary could probably pay some of this.

The owner of Getty Oil can only give you this much. That's the maximum amount that he's able to raise. That's the other thing. He didn't raise that money. Again, I tell you, he pulled it out of his ass.

The other thing is, it's like when you're that rich, that money is just sitting there making more money.

Just sitting there.

Like sitting in investment accounts making more money.

And he and he wants 4 % interest for half of that.

We talked about it in the Patty Hearst case. Obviously, it's not easy to take that money out right away because it's tied up in investments and that thing. But when you are one of the richest men in the world, it was a bummer in the Patty Hearst thing because it was like they wanted it so quickly.

They wanted an immense amount of money that he couldn't to just pull out of somewhere. This is nothing.

It was like a timed demand. This whole thing, they waited around four months for this shit. Four months? Which they're terrible people. Absolutely.

But they've had all the time in the world to do it.

This is absolutely bonkers. It's wild. My coffee is hitting and I am upset.

On December 12, 1973, Fletcher Chase collected the 2. 2 million into three duffle bags and drove 250 miles to the location.

That's literally grandpa's birthday.

Oh, my God.

That's John Paul senior's birthday.

That's crazy. I didn't even think of that.

He said, HPD.

Here's your gift. Here you go.

Wow.

That's wild, isn't it? He had instructions to a meeting point in the middle of nowhere. When he reached the destination, he was met by a man wearing a Balaclava and holding a pistol. That's fucking terrifying. Which just scared the shit out of me.

I'd poop my pants.

He handed those bags over. I'd poop out millions. I'd poop out millions. And he returned to Rome, where he was told to wait for word. Three days later, Gail received a call from Cinquenta, the guy that she had talked to a lot, who provided her with directions to a gas station in the town of Lauria, where they were to pick up their son, and then he hung up. As promised, local police found Paul at that gas station. At what?

In what fucking state?

He had developed a severe infection from the wound on his head. He was very malnourished, but they said he was not... He didn't seem like he was beaten in any way. He was malnourished, and he had the wound on the ear.

He wasn't beaten. He was just missing a fucking ear.

But weirdly, he wasn't like- I love that they were cool that they didn't really slap him around.

They just cut his ear off.

I think they were more like, this is weird. It's weird that that was the first time they physically hurt him. No, it is weird. Was to cut his ear off and then just not feed him. It's very strange behavior. So there was that. At first, the local police were reluctant, apparently, to release the boy.

What were they going to do with him?

I don't know. They were just going to hold him. But Gail was literally was like, go fuck yourself.

Hold him for what? Continuously hold him captive?

She and Chase had to drag him out to their car, away from the police. What the fuck? Yeah. She recalled Paul and I were both like zombies and so tense with emotion that we could barely speak to one another. The following afternoon, Gail instructed her son to call his grandfather and thank him for loaning his parents the money to secure his release.

Here's the thing. I wouldn't be doing that. I'd be like, Hey, Grimpa, you're a piece of ancient dog shit.

Oh, don't worry. Because when he rang, set in place, the British man- He didn't answer. A woman answered the phone and she said, It's your grandson, Paul. Do you wish to speak to him? He heard her say that and then heard Paul senior say he had no desire to come to the phone. He said, No.

That man is rank. He is rank ass.

The literal next day after he was brought home from being- Sans one ear. Held captive for four months and having his ear chopped off, he calls him to, by no who knows why, to say thank you for letting me sit there for four months to get my ear chopped off. Thanks for giving my parents a loan. Thanks for giving my parents a loan for half the money at 4 % interest. You fucking The bag piece of shit. He's saying, and he says, No, I don't want to get on the phone. I mean, I hate the phone. This is next level. Our family- That's next level. That's next level.

Honestly, next time our family says that you don't answer the phone, call upon this. I'm reading this. I'm reading this.

I'm going to call upon this. I'm going to Well, at least I'm not this guy.

Call upon it, girl.

If you want to thank me for giving you a 4% interest loan on your ransom money, I'll answer the phone.

Maybe not. But not- Maybe Ash will answer the phone and ask me if I want to talk to you, and I'll say, No.

I'm not as bad as this guy.

That's crazy.

What the fuck? And Paul III is just sitting there on the phone, excuse me, on his left ear because he doesn't have a right ear, remember. And he's just hearing his grandfather be like, No, I'm good.

I'm not one to armchair diagnose, but this man is a sociopath.

That's sociopathic behavior. At the very least.

I'm happy to sit here and tell you this man is a fucking sociopath.

At the very least, that looks to me like sociopathic behavior. This man is deranged. Damn. Now, while Paul recovered at his mother's apartment in Rome, the Carabinari began hunting down the members of Indrangeta who were responsible for the kidnapping. In mid-January, they made the first- I like that they just started doing that. Yeah, They were like, We should do that. They made the first four of what would eventually be nine arrests, and all four were charged with kidnapping, criminal association, and having caused serious personal injury. By the end of the month, the others had been apprehended and charged with the same crimes. But ultimately, only two members of Indrangueta, Giuseppe Lamana and Antonio Mancuso, would be convicted of the kidnapping and sentenced to 16 years in prison. That's it? The others were acquitted for lack of evidence.

Lack of evidence? Just bring fucking Paul in.

Less than a year later, Paul III met and soon married Gisela Schmidt, who was five months pregnant by the time they got married. A few months later, in 1975, she gave birth to their son, Baltasar.

Iconic name.

Great name. The couple remained married until 1993 when they divorced. Paul had plastic surgery to repair the right side of his head, but he was badly scarred for the rest of his life.

Of course, emotionally and physically.

I was just going to say, but he had physical scars But those emotional ones, he did his best. But how do you recover? He struggled with drugs and alcohol. Of course he did. Throughout the rest of the 1970s, Paul struggled with serious drug addiction, especially after he returned to the United States and started associating with New York's party culture, like Studio 54, all that stuff. His substance abuse issues finally came to a head in 1981, when after drinking a mixture of Valium, methadone, and alcohol, he had a massive stroke and liver failure. He survived. Wow. But the stroke left him as a quadriplegic, and he had a lifetime of associated health problems with it. For decades after, Gail cared for her son with help from his wife. But on February fifth, 2011, J. Paul Getty III, the third, died after a long illness.

That's so sad.

That's a tragic story. It is. And after the kidnapping, the relationship between the members of the Getty family just continued to deteriorate. I'm sure it did. How do you get past that?

How do you not beat your grandpa's ass at that point? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Leave it in. I'm sorry. How do you not beat your grandpa's ass? Ghost, I'm serious. I'd be so fucking pissed at Papa. I would never beat Papa's ass unless my ear got cut off and I spent four months in prison.

That goes absolutely Absolutely crazy. I'm sorry.

But, come on.

How do you not beat your grandpa's ass?

I would be livid.

The sentiment is something I think a lot of people can agree with.

I think so, too.

You're going to beat your grandpa's change first.

Honestly, though, come on. At least you'll get some fucking bubble changes out of the ordeal. You don't even have to do it. You should hire someone, but you can't because you're paying off a 4% interest loan. So you go there and you beat your grandpa's ass. That's ass beating behavior, what his grandpa did.

Obviously, that's a joke.

It's a joke. Don't.

You shut up, okay? We're not promoting violence.

No, don't beat your grandpa's ass.

We're eight years into this.

You've never experienced this.

Don't beat your grandpa's ass. Don't beat your grandpa's ass. But that guy sucks. That guy sucks. He does. So hard. He does. Obviously, his family was like, That you suck. It was very hard. In 1976, John Paul Getty senior died at the age of 83. Womp, Womp.

Let's play the world's smallest violin.

In his will, Getty left his son, John, $500.

I thought you... Honestly, I genuinely thought you were going to say five.

He left his grandson, Paul, nothing.

Yeah, I'm sure. He left his grandson, Paul, nothing.

Because in his mind- After letting him get his ear chopped off. Let me Let me tell you. He left his son $500.

Yeah. Let me tell you, in his mind, he paid. He already paid his grandson for his whole life.

That was him recouping his loan. Yeah, exactly. That's what that was. He was like, I'm not giving you anything. I gave you a loan.

He's a terrible man.

He's a terrible man. That's terrible.

He's a terrible no good man.

I mean, Getty. Getty behavior is bad behavior. It is. I just feel terrible for Paul III.

I do, too.

Like, that is wild.

It's so it's genuinely a heartbreaking what he went through.

And a kid didn't have a chance.

And how could it not be? I mean, that that trauma.

Yeah. How do you get through that?

90 % of us in the world will not know that trauma.

No, it's awful. Isn't that story just?

It is. It really is.

Your jaw is on the ground the whole time. I was literally like, what? I've known of this, but I did not know the detail.

The movie is genuinely such a good movie. It's called All the Money in the World, and it's so good. After you listen to this, if you want to dive even a little deeper and get a dramatic effect, watch the movie. It's so good.

But as you see, they really don't have to dramatize much.

No, I don't think they really did.

The reality of the situation is absurd enough. Yeah. And Gail forever. Gail. Gail forever. Truly. Like, Gail really... That lady is a good mom. She was a good wife. She's a good person. Yeah.

And then to continue carrying. I mean, obviously, you're a mom. Yeah, she took care of him. Once a mom, always a mom.

Well, and Gail. Like, I really... Like, Gail, Gail didn't have to go through that. She shouldn't have had to go through that.

I'm not even that big of a hugger, but I would give that lady a hug, and I would want to give that That's on a hug, too.

Yeah, because it's like, he was getting into trouble and shit and doing bad stuff. He's 16. I was getting into so much trouble at 16. He was super young and he wasn't having any guidance by his father. His dad left him. You know what I mean? He was abandoned. So it's like, you know?

You're going to do some reckless shit when you get abandoned.

He had plenty of time to turn it around. Yeah, that's the thing. He was only 16 years old. There was plenty of time to turn that ship around.

Andy obviously was like, he was getting into trouble and stuff, but he was obviously involved in like politics and that thing in the art. So he's not Like, if he had been led.

A lost cause by any means. No, if he had been led in that direction, I think he could have actually succeeded and had a much better life than his family members did. Yeah. And not gone down this like generational trauma nose dive. It It's like we were just saying in the beginning of the episode, how we were saying how, like Kendra and Cami on Laguna Beach Season 3, we were like, damn, that would suck to have to apologize for your 16 year old self.

That's actually really weird that we started. It is weird. I didn't even I'm not going to do that.

It's like a 16-year-old you is like a literal different human being. I was a goblin. It's connected to you in no way, shape, or form. It's like watching an old movie of somebody else. Honestly, it's the same thing here. He was 16. That could have been a very different person.

You change so much throughout your life. People will say things that I said earlier in this podcast when I was like, 22. I'm like, oh, God, don't tell me that. Yeah.

You're like, what?

You change so much throughout your life. Absolutely. And especially from 16 to, however old.

It's like, damn. It's crazy.

That's a story.

That is a story.

Go touch grass, everyone. If you have a good grandpa, go hug him. And don't beat your grandpa. Don't beat his ass. I got to call my grandpa and explain that. She's going to be like, did you say you'd beat my ass on a national podcast? Did you say that? I was like, no, Papa. No, Papa. Oh, man. I actually do have to call him, so we should go. Yeah, we should. All right. Well, we hope you keep listening.

We hope you. Keep it weird.

Don't keep it so weird that you beat your granddad's ass.

Don't do that.

Keep it so weird, you find blood hole change.

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