November 9, 2023 • 42 mins
On July 1, 1874: 4-year old Charley Ross was abducted by two men and became the very first victim of kidnap for ransom in the United States. 65 years later, in 1939, a man named Gustave Blair came forward to claim that he was Charley Ross. Is it possible that Charley and Gustave are one in the same? If this story sounds familiar, it should, because I first brought you the case of Charley Ross in episode 3 of Dying to be Found The DASH. But keep listening, because today, Rod Miller, a direct decendent of Gustave Blair, will bring us even more facts to Charley’s story that just may get us a little closer to the truth.
Listen to the Dying to be Found: The DASH series every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts! Find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest @dying2bfound or visit our website at www.dyingtobefound.com. Find all our socials in one spot! https://linktr.ee/dying2bfound. Please leave a 5-star review, and consider buying us a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dyingtobefound.
Intro & Extro Music: Undersea World by Dragonov
REFERENCES:
Rod Miller's Website: Charley Ross - Gustave Blair - Nelson Miller
Pennsylvania’s Myths & Legends
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
On July 1st, 1874, four-year-old Charlie Ross was abducted by two men and became the very first
(00:07):
victim of kidnap for ransom in the United States. 65 years later, in 1939, a man named Gustav Blair
came forward to claim that he was Charlie Ross, the little boy who, by all accounts, was never
heard from again after he disappeared. Is it possible that Charlie and Gustav are one in the
(00:28):
same? If this story sounds familiar, it should, because I brought you the case of Charlie Ross
in episode three of Dying to be Found the Dash. But keep listening, because today we have a special
guest with even more facts about Charlie's story that just may get us a little closer to the truth.
(00:50):
Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found. Before we get started, I just wanted to say that
episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this
podcast. Listener discretion is strongly advised. Right after our Charlie Ross episode aired,
(01:33):
I received an email from Rod Miller, one of our listeners who has kindly agreed to talk with me
today about this case. Rod will give us a brief overview of Charlie Ross, plus firsthand knowledge
from his own findings about Charlie Ross, which will help us to connect the dots between what I
first responded in episode three of The Dash. Hi Rod, how are you? So glad that you are here today.
(01:57):
Thank you Deborah, I'm very happy to be here and thanks for inviting me.
Absolutely. Hey, I am so enthralled with the mystery and myths beyond what I learned when I
first looked into this case by myself and I really cannot wait to hear what you've learned from your
own research. And from my understanding, Rod, you put a ton of research into this. So I thought it
(02:19):
would be a great idea for you to walk us through your findings from the very beginning. Okay,
I'll try to do that. Can you give us a brief background on Charlie Ross? Sure. First ever,
you did a really nice job in your podcast summarizing the Charlie Ross kidnapping and
you were very accurate. The detail was really good. Thank you. So I'll give a brief summary
(02:39):
for your listeners that don't maybe didn't see that and would rather just start here. The
kidnapping of Charlie Ross happened in 1874 and it's known as the first kidnapping for ransom in
America. The story about it has been told many times in books and newspapers, magazines, scholarly,
historical crime journals, and now in podcasts like yours. There was extensive newspaper coverage,
(03:03):
both across the United States and abroad. Charlie Ross and his brother Walter were kidnapped on July
1st, 1874 by two men in front of the Ross home in Germantown. That's a Philadelphia neighborhood.
And it happened despite the warnings of their father, don't take candy from strangers. Now you
and I have heard that. We have. Because it's passed down from generation to generation. Do you think
(03:26):
that's where that really started from? Never know. But yes, another first, the kidnapping and that
saying, well, the kidnappers released Walter, but they kept Charlie after 23 ransom notes between
the kidnappers and Christian Ross and several attempts to retrieve the child. Unfortunately,
he was never returned to the family. The most legitimate lead in attempting to find Charlie's
(03:51):
kidnappers involved two burglars, William Mosier and Joseph Douglas. In 1875, just six months after
the kidnapping, while attempting to rob a home of a local judge in New York, both men were shot.
Mosier was killed instantly. And while dying, his partner Douglas confessed they had kidnapped
(04:11):
Charlie Ross. Both of them had been under suspicion in investigation for the kidnapping.
The brother-in-law of Mosier, his name was William Westervelt, was later convicted of
complicity in the kidnapping. The police pursued many, many leads and suspects over the years,
but Charlie was never found. Christian Ross spent the rest of his life looking for his son until he
(04:33):
died in 1897. After investigating hundreds of leads, by the time of his death in 1943,
Walter, his brother, said there had been over 5,000 claims to be his lost brother.
That always amazes me, Rod, when people come forward like that. What's the motive?
The motive for the kidnapping?
You said 5,000 people came forward to claim that they were Charlie Ross?
(04:58):
Right. And most of them seemed to be interested in what they thought was the Ross fortune. Christian
Ross was known to be a businessman and he owned a business and was thought to be very wealthy.
But there was a significant stock market crash in the early 1870s and Christian Ross lost a lot of
his money.
(05:18):
So how are you connected with Charlie Ross?
Well, it's an interesting story as well because on February 4th, 1939, Gustav Blair, an Arizona man
that was known as a gardener, a painter, a carpenter, kind of a handyman, legally asserted
in a court of law that he was Charlie Ross. He told a Maricopa County court he was hidden in Lee
(05:43):
County, Illinois by the Miller family who were complicit in the kidnapping. He said the Millers
raised him as their own son, Nelson Miller, but he later changed his name to Gustav Blair.
I am a descendant of the Miller family and the jury that heard this case and declared that he
was in fact Charlie Ross, they got it wrong. And we have since proven he is actually my great uncle,
(06:06):
Nelson Miller.
That is absolutely amazing. When you first contacted me, Rod, I just couldn't believe what
I was reading and the information that you gave me. And I just have no words with how much research
that you've done in this whole case. So how did you first become involved with investigating this
(06:26):
case?
Well, I was 26 years old and in graduate school when I visited my parents in Mason City,
Iowa. That was in 1977. I'm from a family of 10 boys and three girls. I'm the youngest of the 10
boys. My father took me into the basement of our home and took out a collection of documents from
a wet mill dude cardboard drum and said, this is the story of Charlie Ross. That's all he said.
(06:50):
How did that conversation get started? Were you in the kitchen having some tea? What was happening?
Yeah, well, yeah, I just was home visiting and he said, I want to take, I want to show you
something. And he took me down to the basement. There was never any discussion of Charlie Ross.
I didn't know him from a hot rock.
He'd never brought it up until that day.
Yeah, until that day.
(07:12):
Wow.
We've later have referred to this set of documents as the black satchel. And I regret my dad and I
never spoke about it again.
Really?
It was documents home and I laid out 234, mostly typewritten onion skin papers to dry. They were
(07:33):
water and mildew damaged. They smelled. And this group of documents, my father, when he gave them
to me, said they belonged to his father and said, this is Charlie Ross. So among the other documents
was a draft of a book that my grandfather was writing titled Hunting for the Lost Charlie Ross.
(07:54):
Also was my great grandfather's signed confession that he murdered one of the kidnappers.
There was a tim type photo of Charlie Ross and multiple affidavits that were testifying to the
detail of the kidnapping looked pretty legitimate.
Wow.
So after studying those documents and taking into consideration,
(08:14):
my grandfather had committed murder and confessed to it. And my family was involved in the
kidnapping of a child. I decided I would just keep them hidden. But as I aged, I decided I would pass
them on to my nephew, Larry Miller in 2005. Larry is the son of my oldest brother and resides now
(08:35):
in Grimes, Iowa. So he digitally scanned and preserved all of the documents. Together, we
decided we'd use modern technology, the internet, and eventually DNA to investigate the story. And
we took on the personas of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
Which one were you?
I'm Dr. Watson.
(08:55):
How are Charlie Ross, Gustav Blair, and Nelson Miller related?
That's a mouthful, all those three names, but you know, they're the same person for our discussion
here today. It's really complicated and convoluted, but I'll try to make it really simple as possible.
But it all begins with the man, Nelson Miller. Nelson Miller was born in Lee County in 1874,
(09:18):
the same year that Charlie Ross was kidnapped. He was the seventh of 11 boys born to Renear
and Ann Miller, my great-grandparents.
So Nelson Miller is your great-uncle?
He is.
Okay.
So his father was a beekeeper and a farmer, well-known in the area, respected man. So Nelson
married and had six children, but he abandoned them in 1908 and went on a crime spree across
(09:45):
the Midwest with a friend, another man, and was finally arrested in Fresno, California,
tried, convicted, and sentenced to Folsom Prison.
Wow.
He was paroled in 1915 to his brother, which is my grandfather, here in Minnesota. He then
took on the name of Gustav Blair. So now we move from Nelson Miller to Gustav Blair.
(10:09):
And Gustav Blair dominated the story that we're talking about in his pursuit of the name Charlie
Ross. So over time, Gustav Blair gave a lot of explanations for why he changed his name,
but we, as we'll talk a little bit later, we concluded that it was to conceal his criminal
past.
I see.
So as early as 1932, he began promoting his claim that he was in fact Charlie Ross. And
(10:35):
you might remember that right around that time was another famous kidnapping in America,
the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping.
Yes.
So there was a lot of publicity and talk about child abduction and kidnapping and ransom. So
that may have stimulated this contrived story. We're not really sure, but it all happened at
(10:56):
the same time. So Gustav Blair began promoting that he was Charlie Ross. And he told reporters
that he had 12 affidavits that he would use in a court of law to prove that he was Charlie Ross.
Those are the affidavits we found in the black satchel. So it all started coming together here.
Wow.
With his contention, he sued the Ross family to be recognized as their brother. And the Ross
(11:19):
family just simply ignored his suit, ignored him, and didn't attend the trial.
Gustav Blair's trial was heard before a jury on May 9th, 1939. And they declared that he was in
fact Charles Brewster Ross. It only took them eight minutes. And as I mentioned earlier,
after 15 years of research and a DNA study, we have proven he in fact is Nelson Miller.
(11:42):
He could not have been Charlie Ross.
Wow. Do you think if the Ross family showed up to the trial that the outcome may have been
different?
None of them showed up. They completely ignored him. Walter Ross said, we know of this man,
and he is a fraud. And none of them attended. So the trial went on uncontested.
(12:04):
I see. Well, can you walk us through how DNA is analyzed and how you used it in your research?
Sure. DNA, as you know, is the genetic code of a person's heredity, their physical development,
their characteristics. It's passed from generation to generation through a system of X and Y
chromosomes. So paternity studies using DNA can identify exactly who a person's parents are.
(12:29):
But genealogical DNA testing is used to identify a broader perspective of a person's
ancestral relationship. This first came up in 1999 when a scholar by the name of Tom Everly
did really extensive research into the kidnapping of Charlie Ross and particularly Gustav Blair's
claim. So we weren't the first. And we have since met and have become very close friends with Tom
(12:52):
Everly. But he asked the Ross family at that time to participate in the paternity type study with
the Miller family to determine if Gustav Blair or Nelson Miller was in fact Charlie Ross.
The family didn't even respond or answer his inquiry.
So in 2011, we decided instead of proving Gustav Blair was Charlie Ross, we would prove he was not
(13:15):
and why DNA testing would not require the Ross family to be involved or to participate.
The reason is a man's male ancestry can be traced using DNA on the Y chromosome.
Y chromosome passes down almost unchanged from father to son, the genetic code. A man's test
(13:36):
results are compared to another man's to determine if the two individuals share a common ancestor.
And if the test results are perfect or nearly perfect, they are in fact related. And that's
what we did. We identified an accredited DNA test laboratory and they did our study. And on March
22, 2011, they reported the kinship test results. And what we did was we identified descendants of
(14:02):
two children of Renear and Ann Miller, the family that supposedly hit Charlie Ross.
Wow.
And we found two descendants that were willing to participate in this study. We collected DNA
from a male descendant of each two suspected Miller brothers, Harrison Miller and Nelson Miller,
whom we know is also known as Gustav Blair. So DNA analysis determined that they had a 99.99903
(14:28):
percent probability of kinship, meaning they were in fact brothers.
Okay.
They share the almost exact paternal lineage with a perfect 3737 strand marker match.
Wow.
So as I said, Gustav Blair was a Miller, Nelson Miller, he could not have been Charlie Ross.
We proved.
That is phenomenal. I mean, science in itself, it's always a guessing game,
(14:53):
but look how far we've come with DNA. That is so amazing. And I can't believe you put so much
time into this. What was the timeline from the time that you sent the testing off to the firm
until you got the results?
It was probably six months. We used scientific procedures and chain of evidence because
(15:14):
depending on the result, we didn't want our test to be questioned, challenged or contaminated.
Mm-hmm. When we did the collection from the participants, the two men that we had traced
that had direct lineage, one was my older brother. So he has the exact same wide DNA as I do. So we
sent a forensic laboratory to each of the homes and they scientifically collected, recorded the
(15:39):
specimens. And then the chain of evidence, the specimens never left the hands of a
monitored DNA specialist. So that took a little more time and we got the samples sent to the lab
in text and it took them about three months and they reported the results.
I see. So very methodical. That is just simply amazing. So you had mentioned that Gustav seems
(16:03):
to have a checkered past. You had said that a couple of minutes ago and can you tell us more
about that?
Yeah, it's a sad kind of story and it's kind of not something I'm particularly proud of
because he is my great uncle. But as I mentioned, Gustav Blair began his life as Nelson Miller in
Dixon, rural Dixon, Illinois. And he married and had children. He abandoned them, as I mentioned,
(16:27):
and he left Illinois with another man and they allegedly committed crimes as they traveled for
two years through Colorado, Idaho and California, where it stopped, as I mentioned earlier.
In 1910, when Nelson was 36 years old, he was convicted in Fresno, California on two counts of
embezzlement and was sentenced to nine years at Folsom Prison. After serving five of those,
(16:51):
he was paroled, believe it or not, to his brother Harrison Miller, my grandfather, in Oetana,
Minnesota in 1915. Now Harrison was a convicted felon too. He had just been released from the
Iowa State Penitentiary, where he served for cheating by false pretenses. And nowadays that
would be some kind of swindle. So here we have two convicted convict brothers living together,
(17:14):
both on parole in Minnesota in 1915. So nine months after Nelson was released and put in the
supervision of his brother, he was arrested again in Blue Earth, Minnesota. And sadly, this time he
was charged with sodomy of a 15-year-old boy. Now we speculate a lot about this because he came after
(17:37):
five years out of a prison setting and there's a lot of discussion about sexual activity and behavior
in prison. So we could speculate about this, but the fact is he was arrested and was charged. He
was held in the county jail for 55 days pending trial on the charge. He was released when the grand
jury could not indict him on the charge. And when I spoke with the court historian in Blue Earth,
(18:02):
they said, it's not unusual for a victim in these kinds of cases, especially juveniles, to refuse to
testify. So Nelson was released from that situation. And then his son got into some difficulty and was
also incidentally in the same jail in Blue Earth, Minnesota on another charge from which his son was
(18:24):
convicted and went to prison in Minnesota for three years. So Nelson, out of Oahu, Tana, Minnesota,
petitioned the Minnesota parole board for the early release of his son and said, I have a farm
that I bought in South Dakota and I want to put my son there to manage that farm and he will be a
respected citizen. And Minnesota believed him and they released Ralph and Ralph and Gustav Blair,
(18:50):
Ralph now took on his name. And another Miller attempted to swindle farmers and landowners out
of about $60,000 in Aberdeen, South Dakota. And Gustav Blair was arrested at the Northwestern
train depot attempting to flee the city in October of 1920. He was convicted and sentenced for another
(19:12):
three years in the state prison in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So you can see a checkered pass is
turning kind of darker and blacker as we go. It surprises me too with how many people it just,
the effort it takes to have that criminal activity as opposed to just having an honest living. It
just baffles me. Yes, it was very contrived, planned and deliberate. It wasn't like he was
(19:36):
accidentally involved in someone else's crime. Seven years after he left prison in South Dakota,
Gustav Blair married a woman by the name of Cora Eversall and they had a license to marry in 1929.
And since there was no record that Nelson had divorced his wife and their family of six children,
it's likely this constituted bigamy as well. And based on the records and the research we did,
(20:03):
Nelson Miller, as Gustav Blair appears to have committed many other crimes in his pursuit of
the Charlie Ross name, including perjury in the court of law, subordination of perjury by bringing
a witness in to testify to lie. Unfortunately, Nelson Miller, Gustav Blair has an extremely
checkered and shameful criminal past. So Gustav went on to take the Ross family to court,
(20:27):
like you had mentioned, with that claim that he was Charlie Ross. And that's where this conversation
between you and I came in. What was his motive and why do you think that he was able to convince
people that he was Charlie? Well, we have search of that as well. And we believe the motive was
money, like most of his life was swindle and cheat and deception and forgery. Before his 1939 trial,
(20:51):
Gustav Blair made multiple statements that he had no interest in the Ross fortune. But immediately
after the trial, he began pursuing his rightful inheritance as Charlie Ross. The Ross family said
there is no fortune to be had. He didn't believe them. He tried to sell his story as a movie. And
then as a book, I even have a draft of a book that he had written by a ghostwriter and it's called
(21:16):
My Return from the Dead, the true story of Charles Brewster Ross. Very original. I have the original
manuscript and it is a very bad write. Anyway, so Gustav Blair, the new Charlie Ross hired a law firm
in Philadelphia to evaluate his legal standing with the Ross family and if he had any possibility
(21:37):
of an inheritance and he did not. So despite what he said, he went after the money but got nothing.
He traveled the country on a media blitz as well. So Sherlock Holmes and I spent 20 years trying to
determine how this happened, why, when and with whom it all came about. Within the Miller family,
kind of two theories have been discussed. And one is that Nelson Miller knew all along he was not
(22:02):
Charlie Ross, but he collaborated with his two brothers to contrive this story that he thought
he could convince a jury was true and it was all for money. The other theory is that Nelson's older
brother Lincoln manipulated him and convinced him that he was Charlie Ross. And he was a pawn of his
older brother's deception, again motivated for money. So we don't really think Gustav Blair
(22:28):
convinced the world he was Charlie Ross, but that's how history actually records. Wow. It was 65
years after the kidnapping and the Ross family, they had aged and they had tired and they had
accepted the fate of Charlie Ross. They just ignored him. So history in that Maricopa County
court room was met with a lot of skepticism, but was reported at the time to have solved the
(22:52):
disappearance of Charlie Ross. Right. So we have to remember that his claim went uncontested and the
jury only took eight minutes to declare he was Charlie Ross. Wow. So later in 1943, after
succumbing to pneumonia and eventually dying, evidently either fully convinced he was Charlie
Ross or being unable to admit that he deceived the world. He died and was buried in Arizona
(23:20):
under the tombstone, Charles B. Ross. Is that still on the headstone today? It still is. I
visited it. I have a photograph at the headstone pointing at it and saying, this is not Charlie
Ross. Then I put up another mock headstone, which was Nelson Miller. Oh wow. He had to uphold
(23:44):
whatever stories he told for a very long time. So that is simply fascinating. His death certificate
actually says Charles Brewster Ross. Do you have that? I do. Wow. Goodness. Well, speaking of which
then, you had told me recently that you received 65 pounds of documents, writings, photographs,
(24:05):
anything from the Gustav Blair, Ralph Blair, which was his son, correct? Right. Have you had an
opportunity to look more into the contents to discover more than what you already know? Well,
I have. And we've already established that Gustav Blair is really Nelson Miller and his son Ralph
took on his name. So Ralph Blair, there's no record that he legally changed his name, but when he
(24:28):
married, he married as Ralph Blair and had two daughters. And I'm in contact with the one surviving
daughter, her name is Twyla. She is my second cousin. Oh wow. Twyla inherited her father's
attempt to write his father's story. What he called was an autobiography of the real Charlie Ross.
So Twyla passed on all of those documents to me last fall. And I was hoping to find a smoking gun
(24:52):
that might shed some light on when, why, with whom, and how this saga all unfolded. Unfortunately,
I did not find a smoking gun after looking through the documents. I'm still looking through
hundreds of documents, letters, and photographs. And so far I found collaboration and supportive
evidence of our research. Ralph's daughter, Twyla said that she watched her father, he was obsessed
(25:18):
trying to write his story before he died. And I have between, I would say, one and 200 pages of
handwritten drafts of his effort. Wow. Handwritten. But based on our research, his effort was to write
a story, not an autobiography. It's full of fabrication and far from the truth. And at best,
(25:38):
we might call it an attempt at historical fiction. I see. You've had publications on what you found
from 15 years of research, which I saw from your website, Blair Society, Pennsylvania Myths and
Legends. Can you give us more insight on this? Sure. We were interested in getting our story out.
So we wrote up a scholarly document, a research document that we were going to attempt to publish
(26:04):
in a number of ways. What we were able to accomplish was we were able to edit the Wikipedia page on the
Charlie Ross kidnapping. And I'm not sure if you're aware of how Wikipedia as a volunteer,
online encyclopedia, a free encyclopedia, how that really is created and made. And there's a
series of editors and an entire, you would not believe, detailed process for which you have to
(26:28):
go through to submit an article. And we were not able to even begin to qualify in that process.
But I was able, in kind of a workaround, I was able to modify the Wikipedia page. It's one of
the primary sources of information that appears at the top of almost every Google search on Charlie
(26:48):
Ross. So I was able to squeeze in the truth, the summary of our research in that document and link
it to our webpage. I'd also been in contact with the Blair Society for Genealogical Research. And
this is the Blair family, historic family. And they were very interested in and published our
(27:09):
entire research report in full. They were very happy to make it clear that Gustav Blair was not
a Blair. And then I got, I was contacted by Kara Hughes and she's an author and she included our
research in the Charlie Ross chapter of her second book that she published last fall,
Myths and Mysteries of Pennsylvania. Another investigative reporter in New York, Amber Hunt,
(27:34):
hosts a podcast that's called Crimes of the Centuries. And she did an episode on Charlie
Ross like you did, and I made contact with her. And now she is writing a book with the same title
and she's going to cite our research in that book. You don't want to write your own book on this.
You've done enough research now. I did, you know, and I began to, I'm not a writer,
(27:58):
so I began to contact some writing schools and some resources and was essentially told by a
couple of sources that there just wasn't a market for another Charlie Ross book. After Carrie Hagin's
book came out, her book is called We Is Got Him. And it's the first line of the first ransom note
(28:20):
that the kidnappers wrote to the family. And they said, we is got him, your son, Charles Ross.
I legitimately tried to read that ransom note in my podcast and was very unsuccessful.
That's right. I remember how bad that English was. And anyway, so it was thought that with
(28:42):
Carrie Hagin's book, there just wasn't enough a market for another book on Charlie Ross. So we
went to the other routes that we could. We did another podcast on a site called Order of the
Jackalope. They did an episode on Charlie Ross, just like you did. That was a phenomenal episode.
Yeah. So this is working. It's one way to get our message out. So you might join a list of
(29:06):
responsible podcasters and historians to help us correct history. We created our website where you
make contact with us. And we were very lucky that we could secure the domain charlieross.com.
Yes. It's all one word, Charlie Ross. And it was available. So we snatched it up. And that's where
we were reporting our findings. I was shocked to see that was available. You too. I was. Well,
(29:32):
it seems that you disprove the myths behind Gustav Blair's claims to be Charlie Ross.
Do you think this case will ever be put on record as a reverse decision by the courts?
Well, you know, the result of the Arizona court ruling is reported in almost all modern accounts
of the Charlie Ross kidnapping. And of those 5,000 claims to be him, only one person took
(29:55):
that claim into a court of law. So true. And the impact of the ruling, though, did not change the
Ross family narrative of the kidnapping. And it didn't have any financial or social impact
on the surviving descendants. So in 2011, one of the descendants attended a book signing with
Kerry Hagan on her book in Philadelphia. I was in contact with Kerry. And unfortunately, our findings
(30:21):
were too late to meet the publication deadlines for We Has Got Him. So we didn't make that deadline.
But I collaborated quite a bit with her. And she followed up with the Ross descendant and asked him
at that time if he would participate in the DNA study and to put an end to all the speculation.
And like his grandfather, Walter Ross, he didn't even respond. So it's pretty clear that the Ross
(30:47):
family has moved on beyond this generation. Sure. There was a discussion in 1939 that the Arizona
court ruling was legally recognized only in the state of Arizona. Now there was some legal contest
to whether that was true. But since the new Charlie Ross never attempted to use that name in a legal
(31:09):
proceeding, it was never tested. So I doubt that the Ross family really has any interest in
reopening this sad story. And next year, 2024, will be 150 years after the kidnapping of Charlie Ross.
It doesn't seem that long ago. Where do you think Charlie Ross is today?
Well, you know, that's the question that we are still pursuing. He is still lost. And the man
(31:35):
buried under that headstone is Charles B. Ross is not Charlie Ross. So where is he? So I'm going to
talk very briefly without going into the research behind it, that there are three theories that I
think maybe your audience might be interested in because it leads you somewhere from this discussion.
The discussion of Gustav Blair and Nelson Miller is kind of dead end. We know that he's not Charlie
(31:59):
Ross. So where is he? We're hoping that through these kinds of discussion, one shred or piece of
evidence or information may come out that's never been reported. And we might be able to prove up
one of these theories. So the first one is that Charlie Ross was hidden in plain sight and died
(32:19):
during his captivity. So this is my best guess. And it also was advanced in Kerry Hagan's book.
So Charlie Ross was hidden in plain sight in the family of his kidnapper, Bill and Marsha Moser.
It is unlikely that Bill Moser personally hid and cared for a four-year-old child. He had to have
accomplice to do that for him. And I believe that was his wife, Martha. After the Mosers became
(32:44):
suspect in the kidnapping, the family moved frequently among tenement houses, always ahead
of the authorities. They were being tipped off by Martha's brother, who was supposedly working as an
informant with the police, but was secretly telling the Mosers about the investigation.
So the Mosers kept on the move. They were hard to trace. They didn't establish neighbor relationships.
(33:09):
So no one would notice if another child suddenly appeared in an already large family.
So true.
Charlie was four years old, and he had a genetic illness that required 24-7 care and supervision.
He was on medication for that sickness. And the Ross family made this known when answering one of
(33:29):
the ransom notes as a plea to release him. Now, the authorities watched all the pharmacies in the
area for anyone who requested that medication, but nobody did. Charlie could have died for lack
of treatment at or around the time that the ransom note stopped and before the kidnappers were killed
in December of 1874, six months after the kidnapping. The kidnappers could no longer
(33:53):
produce the child because Charlie had died and they stopped trying.
But they kept the facade long enough to try to get the money out of the family.
So when Joseph Douglas, Moser's accomplice, he said when he was dying that Moser was in charge
of keeping the child. So we believe it's likely that Martha did that for him. And she buried Charlie
(34:15):
as one of her own without notice or she secretly discarded the body as she had done earlier with
another Moser child. Now that's another story about the child found in the wall of the oyster
bar that they owned and operated. That's another whole story. So it's very possible that there was
a history that they could conceal a child. So that's the first theory that he died. He was hidden in
(34:39):
plain sight and that he died from the illness because he was not treated and he was secretly
buried or discarded by the Moser family. The second theory is that Charlie was killed by plan.
It's also possible that his death, we think, was planned from the beginning. That Martha or whoever
(35:00):
hid Charlie were instructed to kill Charlie if Moser was captured or killed. Yes. They would be
charged as accomplices and go to prison for the kidnapping themselves. This would have left Martha,
her children, as orphans. So no one paid attention when she buried a child without a funeral or a
(35:20):
pauper's grave out of the way and out of the attention of the media. She could have actually
killed Charlie and buried him as one of her own children again. But given the heightened media
coverage after Moser and Douglas were killed, it would be very unlikely or extremely difficult
for her or any other accomplice to bury a child publicly around that age. So we believe it's more
(35:45):
likely that they secretly disposed Charlie's body. Yeah. And you had mentioned too, it was hiding in
plain sight, easy enough to bring an extra child into the house. Well, how easy is it just to make
them disappear again? Maybe they were just visiting. Exactly. So lots of speculation on that,
I suppose. But you know, something else that you had said too, Moser, who died first in that shootout,
(36:10):
right? Yep. I wonder why he never disclosed Charlie's location to Douglas, who was his
accomplice. Yeah, that's a really good question. And my speculation about that is he didn't trust
him. The last person you want to trust is a crook. So he didn't want Joseph Douglas to turn on him
to snatch the child and go for the ransom himself. Oh, yes, that makes sense. And you mentioned
(36:36):
something Deborah, really, that I should have said right up the front, is that this is all
speculation. It's been investigated many times, and there is evidence and circumstances that
support these theories, but it's all speculation. So the last little theory that I'll end with is
the one that involved the Miller family. And that is, I think this is very unlikely, but it's also
(37:01):
possible that a sick Charlie Ross was in fact delivered to the Miller farm in Illinois,
where he was supposed to be hidden. But unlike Blair's testimony in court, Charlie did not
survive to be raised as Nelson Miller. Instead, he died from this same illness. Now, Nelson,
or Gustav Blair in his testimony said that the Miller patriarch had killed a man who was one of
(37:29):
the kidnappers when he came to take the child back for the ransom. That man's name was John Hawk.
And this is the confession of murder that I was talking about earlier. And so when they killed
John Hawk to prevent him from taking the child that they had grown attached to, they buried him
in the backyard of the farmstead. So I went to Lillugin Grove, Illinois, through maps and property
(37:57):
transfers and located the homestead of Vernier and Ann Miller, just outside of Dixon, Illinois.
And I began looking into hiring cadaver dogs and forensic burial technology to possibly locate the
body of a child or an adult male to either prove or disprove this story. Wow. I found the property,
(38:18):
the house and the trees had been torn down and the homestead evacuated into or excavated into farmland
just six months earlier, making any trace of remains undiscoverable. Oh, wow. What timing.
Yep. Just really bad timing. So Charlie Ross is still lost. And we keep looking, as I said,
(38:41):
to some shred of evidence that has yet to come forward or that hasn't been disclosed that might
tell us where we might find Charlie. We have done an extensive and are still in conversation
with some other investigators on what happened to the Mosier family from the date of their marriage
(39:02):
and when they began having children till the death and to Martha Mosier's remarriage. So we're
tracing and tracking whether there are some additional burial records of the Mosier family.
And we've found a few. We're still looking. And if anyone listening to this podcast thinks they have
any leads or information, we're hoping and they can reach out to charlieross.com and we'll talk
(39:27):
with them. Yeah, that is so fascinating. I really hope Rod that you find the answers you're looking
for because you have put so much time, you and Sherlock Holmes, but it has been such a pleasure
talking with you today about Charlie Ross and learning about your family history. Clearly,
Rod, you have put a lot of work into this and your research. Everybody just needs to go to
(39:51):
charlieross.com. So I personally want to thank you for being here today. And for our listeners,
you can visit charlieross.com to learn more about Rod's research efforts, where he provides an
in-depth look on much of what we talked about today. Be sure to check those out and let me know,
or Rod know what you think about this episode. You can DM me personally on Instagram to provide
(40:18):
feedback on this podcast, or certainly go to charlieross.com to send Rod a message about the
great work that he has done on his family history and getting one step closer to solving that
mystery of Charlie Ross. Rod, do you have anything more that you want to add? No, thank you. I just
want to thank you so much for being a part of our effort to get the truth out. And you never know
(40:43):
from one listener, we might find a lead and we might eventually find out what happened to Charlie
Ross. Yeah, I really do hope for you that you get those answers, but just keep doing what you're
doing. Thank you. Thanks everyone for listening and we will talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to
Dying to be Failed, True Crime Podcast and our Dash mini series. Every week, we'll bring you a
(41:07):
variety of true crime episodes, a little dash of hope plus special bonus episodes with some really
cool guests. Before we go, we'd love for you to share this podcast with your friends and give us
a five star review. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest at Dying to be
Found or visit our website at Dying to be Found.com spelled just like you see it in our logo. Better
(41:33):
yet, click on our Linktree account found in the show notes where you'll find all the information
in one place. Be sure to dash in every Wednesday for our mini episodes plus every Thursday when I
get together with some of my family members. Thanks again everyone and we'll talk to you soon.
On July 1st, 1874, four-year-old Charlie Ross was abducted by two men and became the very first
(00:07):
victim of kidnap for ransom in the United States. 65 years later, in 1939, a man named Gustav Blair
came forward to claim that he was Charlie Ross, the little boy who, by all accounts, was never
heard from again after he disappeared. Is it possible that Charlie and Gustav are one in the
(00:28):
same? If this story sounds familiar, it should, because I brought you the case of Charlie Ross
in episode three of Dying to be Found the Dash. But keep listening, because today we have a special
guest with even more facts about Charlie's story that just may get us a little closer to the truth.
(00:50):
Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found. Before we get started, I just wanted to say that
episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this
podcast. Listener discretion is strongly advised. Right after our Charlie Ross episode aired,
(01:33):
I received an email from Rod Miller, one of our listeners who has kindly agreed to talk with me
today about this case. Rod will give us a brief overview of Charlie Ross, plus firsthand knowledge
from his own findings about Charlie Ross, which will help us to connect the dots between what I
first responded in episode three of The Dash. Hi Rod, how are you? So glad that you are here today.
(01:57):
Thank you Deborah, I'm very happy to be here and thanks for inviting me.
Absolutely. Hey, I am so enthralled with the mystery and myths beyond what I learned when I
first looked into this case by myself and I really cannot wait to hear what you've learned from your
own research. And from my understanding, Rod, you put a ton of research into this. So I thought it
(02:19):
would be a great idea for you to walk us through your findings from the very beginning. Okay,
I'll try to do that. Can you give us a brief background on Charlie Ross? Sure. First ever,
you did a really nice job in your podcast summarizing the Charlie Ross kidnapping and
you were very accurate. The detail was really good. Thank you. So I'll give a brief summary
(02:39):
for your listeners that don't maybe didn't see that and would rather just start here. The
kidnapping of Charlie Ross happened in 1874 and it's known as the first kidnapping for ransom in
America. The story about it has been told many times in books and newspapers, magazines, scholarly,
historical crime journals, and now in podcasts like yours. There was extensive newspaper coverage,
(03:03):
both across the United States and abroad. Charlie Ross and his brother Walter were kidnapped on July
1st, 1874 by two men in front of the Ross home in Germantown. That's a Philadelphia neighborhood.
And it happened despite the warnings of their father, don't take candy from strangers. Now you
and I have heard that. We have. Because it's passed down from generation to generation. Do you think
(03:26):
that's where that really started from? Never know. But yes, another first, the kidnapping and that
saying, well, the kidnappers released Walter, but they kept Charlie after 23 ransom notes between
the kidnappers and Christian Ross and several attempts to retrieve the child. Unfortunately,
he was never returned to the family. The most legitimate lead in attempting to find Charlie's
(03:51):
kidnappers involved two burglars, William Mosier and Joseph Douglas. In 1875, just six months after
the kidnapping, while attempting to rob a home of a local judge in New York, both men were shot.
Mosier was killed instantly. And while dying, his partner Douglas confessed they had kidnapped
(04:11):
Charlie Ross. Both of them had been under suspicion in investigation for the kidnapping.
The brother-in-law of Mosier, his name was William Westervelt, was later convicted of
complicity in the kidnapping. The police pursued many, many leads and suspects over the years,
but Charlie was never found. Christian Ross spent the rest of his life looking for his son until he
(04:33):
died in 1897. After investigating hundreds of leads, by the time of his death in 1943,
Walter, his brother, said there had been over 5,000 claims to be his lost brother.
That always amazes me, Rod, when people come forward like that. What's the motive?
The motive for the kidnapping?
You said 5,000 people came forward to claim that they were Charlie Ross?
(04:58):
Right. And most of them seemed to be interested in what they thought was the Ross fortune. Christian
Ross was known to be a businessman and he owned a business and was thought to be very wealthy.
But there was a significant stock market crash in the early 1870s and Christian Ross lost a lot of
his money.
(05:18):
So how are you connected with Charlie Ross?
Well, it's an interesting story as well because on February 4th, 1939, Gustav Blair, an Arizona man
that was known as a gardener, a painter, a carpenter, kind of a handyman, legally asserted
in a court of law that he was Charlie Ross. He told a Maricopa County court he was hidden in Lee
(05:43):
County, Illinois by the Miller family who were complicit in the kidnapping. He said the Millers
raised him as their own son, Nelson Miller, but he later changed his name to Gustav Blair.
I am a descendant of the Miller family and the jury that heard this case and declared that he
was in fact Charlie Ross, they got it wrong. And we have since proven he is actually my great uncle,
(06:06):
Nelson Miller.
That is absolutely amazing. When you first contacted me, Rod, I just couldn't believe what
I was reading and the information that you gave me. And I just have no words with how much research
that you've done in this whole case. So how did you first become involved with investigating this
(06:26):
case?
Well, I was 26 years old and in graduate school when I visited my parents in Mason City,
Iowa. That was in 1977. I'm from a family of 10 boys and three girls. I'm the youngest of the 10
boys. My father took me into the basement of our home and took out a collection of documents from
a wet mill dude cardboard drum and said, this is the story of Charlie Ross. That's all he said.
(06:50):
How did that conversation get started? Were you in the kitchen having some tea? What was happening?
Yeah, well, yeah, I just was home visiting and he said, I want to take, I want to show you
something. And he took me down to the basement. There was never any discussion of Charlie Ross.
I didn't know him from a hot rock.
He'd never brought it up until that day.
Yeah, until that day.
(07:12):
Wow.
We've later have referred to this set of documents as the black satchel. And I regret my dad and I
never spoke about it again.
Really?
It was documents home and I laid out 234, mostly typewritten onion skin papers to dry. They were
(07:33):
water and mildew damaged. They smelled. And this group of documents, my father, when he gave them
to me, said they belonged to his father and said, this is Charlie Ross. So among the other documents
was a draft of a book that my grandfather was writing titled Hunting for the Lost Charlie Ross.
(07:54):
Also was my great grandfather's signed confession that he murdered one of the kidnappers.
There was a tim type photo of Charlie Ross and multiple affidavits that were testifying to the
detail of the kidnapping looked pretty legitimate.
Wow.
So after studying those documents and taking into consideration,
(08:14):
my grandfather had committed murder and confessed to it. And my family was involved in the
kidnapping of a child. I decided I would just keep them hidden. But as I aged, I decided I would pass
them on to my nephew, Larry Miller in 2005. Larry is the son of my oldest brother and resides now
(08:35):
in Grimes, Iowa. So he digitally scanned and preserved all of the documents. Together, we
decided we'd use modern technology, the internet, and eventually DNA to investigate the story. And
we took on the personas of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
Which one were you?
I'm Dr. Watson.
(08:55):
How are Charlie Ross, Gustav Blair, and Nelson Miller related?
That's a mouthful, all those three names, but you know, they're the same person for our discussion
here today. It's really complicated and convoluted, but I'll try to make it really simple as possible.
But it all begins with the man, Nelson Miller. Nelson Miller was born in Lee County in 1874,
(09:18):
the same year that Charlie Ross was kidnapped. He was the seventh of 11 boys born to Renear
and Ann Miller, my great-grandparents.
So Nelson Miller is your great-uncle?
He is.
Okay.
So his father was a beekeeper and a farmer, well-known in the area, respected man. So Nelson
married and had six children, but he abandoned them in 1908 and went on a crime spree across
(09:45):
the Midwest with a friend, another man, and was finally arrested in Fresno, California,
tried, convicted, and sentenced to Folsom Prison.
Wow.
He was paroled in 1915 to his brother, which is my grandfather, here in Minnesota. He then
took on the name of Gustav Blair. So now we move from Nelson Miller to Gustav Blair.
(10:09):
And Gustav Blair dominated the story that we're talking about in his pursuit of the name Charlie
Ross. So over time, Gustav Blair gave a lot of explanations for why he changed his name,
but we, as we'll talk a little bit later, we concluded that it was to conceal his criminal
past.
I see.
So as early as 1932, he began promoting his claim that he was in fact Charlie Ross. And
(10:35):
you might remember that right around that time was another famous kidnapping in America,
the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping.
Yes.
So there was a lot of publicity and talk about child abduction and kidnapping and ransom. So
that may have stimulated this contrived story. We're not really sure, but it all happened at
(10:56):
the same time. So Gustav Blair began promoting that he was Charlie Ross. And he told reporters
that he had 12 affidavits that he would use in a court of law to prove that he was Charlie Ross.
Those are the affidavits we found in the black satchel. So it all started coming together here.
Wow.
With his contention, he sued the Ross family to be recognized as their brother. And the Ross
(11:19):
family just simply ignored his suit, ignored him, and didn't attend the trial.
Gustav Blair's trial was heard before a jury on May 9th, 1939. And they declared that he was in
fact Charles Brewster Ross. It only took them eight minutes. And as I mentioned earlier,
after 15 years of research and a DNA study, we have proven he in fact is Nelson Miller.
(11:42):
He could not have been Charlie Ross.
Wow. Do you think if the Ross family showed up to the trial that the outcome may have been
different?
None of them showed up. They completely ignored him. Walter Ross said, we know of this man,
and he is a fraud. And none of them attended. So the trial went on uncontested.
(12:04):
I see. Well, can you walk us through how DNA is analyzed and how you used it in your research?
Sure. DNA, as you know, is the genetic code of a person's heredity, their physical development,
their characteristics. It's passed from generation to generation through a system of X and Y
chromosomes. So paternity studies using DNA can identify exactly who a person's parents are.
(12:29):
But genealogical DNA testing is used to identify a broader perspective of a person's
ancestral relationship. This first came up in 1999 when a scholar by the name of Tom Everly
did really extensive research into the kidnapping of Charlie Ross and particularly Gustav Blair's
claim. So we weren't the first. And we have since met and have become very close friends with Tom
(12:52):
Everly. But he asked the Ross family at that time to participate in the paternity type study with
the Miller family to determine if Gustav Blair or Nelson Miller was in fact Charlie Ross.
The family didn't even respond or answer his inquiry.
So in 2011, we decided instead of proving Gustav Blair was Charlie Ross, we would prove he was not
(13:15):
and why DNA testing would not require the Ross family to be involved or to participate.
The reason is a man's male ancestry can be traced using DNA on the Y chromosome.
Y chromosome passes down almost unchanged from father to son, the genetic code. A man's test
(13:36):
results are compared to another man's to determine if the two individuals share a common ancestor.
And if the test results are perfect or nearly perfect, they are in fact related. And that's
what we did. We identified an accredited DNA test laboratory and they did our study. And on March
22, 2011, they reported the kinship test results. And what we did was we identified descendants of
(14:02):
two children of Renear and Ann Miller, the family that supposedly hit Charlie Ross.
Wow.
And we found two descendants that were willing to participate in this study. We collected DNA
from a male descendant of each two suspected Miller brothers, Harrison Miller and Nelson Miller,
whom we know is also known as Gustav Blair. So DNA analysis determined that they had a 99.99903
(14:28):
percent probability of kinship, meaning they were in fact brothers.
Okay.
They share the almost exact paternal lineage with a perfect 3737 strand marker match.
Wow.
So as I said, Gustav Blair was a Miller, Nelson Miller, he could not have been Charlie Ross.
We proved.
That is phenomenal. I mean, science in itself, it's always a guessing game,
(14:53):
but look how far we've come with DNA. That is so amazing. And I can't believe you put so much
time into this. What was the timeline from the time that you sent the testing off to the firm
until you got the results?
It was probably six months. We used scientific procedures and chain of evidence because
(15:14):
depending on the result, we didn't want our test to be questioned, challenged or contaminated.
Mm-hmm. When we did the collection from the participants, the two men that we had traced
that had direct lineage, one was my older brother. So he has the exact same wide DNA as I do. So we
sent a forensic laboratory to each of the homes and they scientifically collected, recorded the
(15:39):
specimens. And then the chain of evidence, the specimens never left the hands of a
monitored DNA specialist. So that took a little more time and we got the samples sent to the lab
in text and it took them about three months and they reported the results.
I see. So very methodical. That is just simply amazing. So you had mentioned that Gustav seems
(16:03):
to have a checkered past. You had said that a couple of minutes ago and can you tell us more
about that?
Yeah, it's a sad kind of story and it's kind of not something I'm particularly proud of
because he is my great uncle. But as I mentioned, Gustav Blair began his life as Nelson Miller in
Dixon, rural Dixon, Illinois. And he married and had children. He abandoned them, as I mentioned,
(16:27):
and he left Illinois with another man and they allegedly committed crimes as they traveled for
two years through Colorado, Idaho and California, where it stopped, as I mentioned earlier.
In 1910, when Nelson was 36 years old, he was convicted in Fresno, California on two counts of
embezzlement and was sentenced to nine years at Folsom Prison. After serving five of those,
(16:51):
he was paroled, believe it or not, to his brother Harrison Miller, my grandfather, in Oetana,
Minnesota in 1915. Now Harrison was a convicted felon too. He had just been released from the
Iowa State Penitentiary, where he served for cheating by false pretenses. And nowadays that
would be some kind of swindle. So here we have two convicted convict brothers living together,
(17:14):
both on parole in Minnesota in 1915. So nine months after Nelson was released and put in the
supervision of his brother, he was arrested again in Blue Earth, Minnesota. And sadly, this time he
was charged with sodomy of a 15-year-old boy. Now we speculate a lot about this because he came after
(17:37):
five years out of a prison setting and there's a lot of discussion about sexual activity and behavior
in prison. So we could speculate about this, but the fact is he was arrested and was charged. He
was held in the county jail for 55 days pending trial on the charge. He was released when the grand
jury could not indict him on the charge. And when I spoke with the court historian in Blue Earth,
(18:02):
they said, it's not unusual for a victim in these kinds of cases, especially juveniles, to refuse to
testify. So Nelson was released from that situation. And then his son got into some difficulty and was
also incidentally in the same jail in Blue Earth, Minnesota on another charge from which his son was
(18:24):
convicted and went to prison in Minnesota for three years. So Nelson, out of Oahu, Tana, Minnesota,
petitioned the Minnesota parole board for the early release of his son and said, I have a farm
that I bought in South Dakota and I want to put my son there to manage that farm and he will be a
respected citizen. And Minnesota believed him and they released Ralph and Ralph and Gustav Blair,
(18:50):
Ralph now took on his name. And another Miller attempted to swindle farmers and landowners out
of about $60,000 in Aberdeen, South Dakota. And Gustav Blair was arrested at the Northwestern
train depot attempting to flee the city in October of 1920. He was convicted and sentenced for another
(19:12):
three years in the state prison in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So you can see a checkered pass is
turning kind of darker and blacker as we go. It surprises me too with how many people it just,
the effort it takes to have that criminal activity as opposed to just having an honest living. It
just baffles me. Yes, it was very contrived, planned and deliberate. It wasn't like he was
(19:36):
accidentally involved in someone else's crime. Seven years after he left prison in South Dakota,
Gustav Blair married a woman by the name of Cora Eversall and they had a license to marry in 1929.
And since there was no record that Nelson had divorced his wife and their family of six children,
it's likely this constituted bigamy as well. And based on the records and the research we did,
(20:03):
Nelson Miller, as Gustav Blair appears to have committed many other crimes in his pursuit of
the Charlie Ross name, including perjury in the court of law, subordination of perjury by bringing
a witness in to testify to lie. Unfortunately, Nelson Miller, Gustav Blair has an extremely
checkered and shameful criminal past. So Gustav went on to take the Ross family to court,
(20:27):
like you had mentioned, with that claim that he was Charlie Ross. And that's where this conversation
between you and I came in. What was his motive and why do you think that he was able to convince
people that he was Charlie? Well, we have search of that as well. And we believe the motive was
money, like most of his life was swindle and cheat and deception and forgery. Before his 1939 trial,
(20:51):
Gustav Blair made multiple statements that he had no interest in the Ross fortune. But immediately
after the trial, he began pursuing his rightful inheritance as Charlie Ross. The Ross family said
there is no fortune to be had. He didn't believe them. He tried to sell his story as a movie. And
then as a book, I even have a draft of a book that he had written by a ghostwriter and it's called
(21:16):
My Return from the Dead, the true story of Charles Brewster Ross. Very original. I have the original
manuscript and it is a very bad write. Anyway, so Gustav Blair, the new Charlie Ross hired a law firm
in Philadelphia to evaluate his legal standing with the Ross family and if he had any possibility
(21:37):
of an inheritance and he did not. So despite what he said, he went after the money but got nothing.
He traveled the country on a media blitz as well. So Sherlock Holmes and I spent 20 years trying to
determine how this happened, why, when and with whom it all came about. Within the Miller family,
kind of two theories have been discussed. And one is that Nelson Miller knew all along he was not
(22:02):
Charlie Ross, but he collaborated with his two brothers to contrive this story that he thought
he could convince a jury was true and it was all for money. The other theory is that Nelson's older
brother Lincoln manipulated him and convinced him that he was Charlie Ross. And he was a pawn of his
older brother's deception, again motivated for money. So we don't really think Gustav Blair
(22:28):
convinced the world he was Charlie Ross, but that's how history actually records. Wow. It was 65
years after the kidnapping and the Ross family, they had aged and they had tired and they had
accepted the fate of Charlie Ross. They just ignored him. So history in that Maricopa County
court room was met with a lot of skepticism, but was reported at the time to have solved the
(22:52):
disappearance of Charlie Ross. Right. So we have to remember that his claim went uncontested and the
jury only took eight minutes to declare he was Charlie Ross. Wow. So later in 1943, after
succumbing to pneumonia and eventually dying, evidently either fully convinced he was Charlie
Ross or being unable to admit that he deceived the world. He died and was buried in Arizona
(23:20):
under the tombstone, Charles B. Ross. Is that still on the headstone today? It still is. I
visited it. I have a photograph at the headstone pointing at it and saying, this is not Charlie
Ross. Then I put up another mock headstone, which was Nelson Miller. Oh wow. He had to uphold
(23:44):
whatever stories he told for a very long time. So that is simply fascinating. His death certificate
actually says Charles Brewster Ross. Do you have that? I do. Wow. Goodness. Well, speaking of which
then, you had told me recently that you received 65 pounds of documents, writings, photographs,
(24:05):
anything from the Gustav Blair, Ralph Blair, which was his son, correct? Right. Have you had an
opportunity to look more into the contents to discover more than what you already know? Well,
I have. And we've already established that Gustav Blair is really Nelson Miller and his son Ralph
took on his name. So Ralph Blair, there's no record that he legally changed his name, but when he
(24:28):
married, he married as Ralph Blair and had two daughters. And I'm in contact with the one surviving
daughter, her name is Twyla. She is my second cousin. Oh wow. Twyla inherited her father's
attempt to write his father's story. What he called was an autobiography of the real Charlie Ross.
So Twyla passed on all of those documents to me last fall. And I was hoping to find a smoking gun
(24:52):
that might shed some light on when, why, with whom, and how this saga all unfolded. Unfortunately,
I did not find a smoking gun after looking through the documents. I'm still looking through
hundreds of documents, letters, and photographs. And so far I found collaboration and supportive
evidence of our research. Ralph's daughter, Twyla said that she watched her father, he was obsessed
(25:18):
trying to write his story before he died. And I have between, I would say, one and 200 pages of
handwritten drafts of his effort. Wow. Handwritten. But based on our research, his effort was to write
a story, not an autobiography. It's full of fabrication and far from the truth. And at best,
(25:38):
we might call it an attempt at historical fiction. I see. You've had publications on what you found
from 15 years of research, which I saw from your website, Blair Society, Pennsylvania Myths and
Legends. Can you give us more insight on this? Sure. We were interested in getting our story out.
So we wrote up a scholarly document, a research document that we were going to attempt to publish
(26:04):
in a number of ways. What we were able to accomplish was we were able to edit the Wikipedia page on the
Charlie Ross kidnapping. And I'm not sure if you're aware of how Wikipedia as a volunteer,
online encyclopedia, a free encyclopedia, how that really is created and made. And there's a
series of editors and an entire, you would not believe, detailed process for which you have to
(26:28):
go through to submit an article. And we were not able to even begin to qualify in that process.
But I was able, in kind of a workaround, I was able to modify the Wikipedia page. It's one of
the primary sources of information that appears at the top of almost every Google search on Charlie
(26:48):
Ross. So I was able to squeeze in the truth, the summary of our research in that document and link
it to our webpage. I'd also been in contact with the Blair Society for Genealogical Research. And
this is the Blair family, historic family. And they were very interested in and published our
(27:09):
entire research report in full. They were very happy to make it clear that Gustav Blair was not
a Blair. And then I got, I was contacted by Kara Hughes and she's an author and she included our
research in the Charlie Ross chapter of her second book that she published last fall,
Myths and Mysteries of Pennsylvania. Another investigative reporter in New York, Amber Hunt,
(27:34):
hosts a podcast that's called Crimes of the Centuries. And she did an episode on Charlie
Ross like you did, and I made contact with her. And now she is writing a book with the same title
and she's going to cite our research in that book. You don't want to write your own book on this.
You've done enough research now. I did, you know, and I began to, I'm not a writer,
(27:58):
so I began to contact some writing schools and some resources and was essentially told by a
couple of sources that there just wasn't a market for another Charlie Ross book. After Carrie Hagin's
book came out, her book is called We Is Got Him. And it's the first line of the first ransom note
(28:20):
that the kidnappers wrote to the family. And they said, we is got him, your son, Charles Ross.
I legitimately tried to read that ransom note in my podcast and was very unsuccessful.
That's right. I remember how bad that English was. And anyway, so it was thought that with
(28:42):
Carrie Hagin's book, there just wasn't enough a market for another book on Charlie Ross. So we
went to the other routes that we could. We did another podcast on a site called Order of the
Jackalope. They did an episode on Charlie Ross, just like you did. That was a phenomenal episode.
Yeah. So this is working. It's one way to get our message out. So you might join a list of
(29:06):
responsible podcasters and historians to help us correct history. We created our website where you
make contact with us. And we were very lucky that we could secure the domain charlieross.com.
Yes. It's all one word, Charlie Ross. And it was available. So we snatched it up. And that's where
we were reporting our findings. I was shocked to see that was available. You too. I was. Well,
(29:32):
it seems that you disprove the myths behind Gustav Blair's claims to be Charlie Ross.
Do you think this case will ever be put on record as a reverse decision by the courts?
Well, you know, the result of the Arizona court ruling is reported in almost all modern accounts
of the Charlie Ross kidnapping. And of those 5,000 claims to be him, only one person took
(29:55):
that claim into a court of law. So true. And the impact of the ruling, though, did not change the
Ross family narrative of the kidnapping. And it didn't have any financial or social impact
on the surviving descendants. So in 2011, one of the descendants attended a book signing with
Kerry Hagan on her book in Philadelphia. I was in contact with Kerry. And unfortunately, our findings
(30:21):
were too late to meet the publication deadlines for We Has Got Him. So we didn't make that deadline.
But I collaborated quite a bit with her. And she followed up with the Ross descendant and asked him
at that time if he would participate in the DNA study and to put an end to all the speculation.
And like his grandfather, Walter Ross, he didn't even respond. So it's pretty clear that the Ross
(30:47):
family has moved on beyond this generation. Sure. There was a discussion in 1939 that the Arizona
court ruling was legally recognized only in the state of Arizona. Now there was some legal contest
to whether that was true. But since the new Charlie Ross never attempted to use that name in a legal
(31:09):
proceeding, it was never tested. So I doubt that the Ross family really has any interest in
reopening this sad story. And next year, 2024, will be 150 years after the kidnapping of Charlie Ross.
It doesn't seem that long ago. Where do you think Charlie Ross is today?
Well, you know, that's the question that we are still pursuing. He is still lost. And the man
(31:35):
buried under that headstone is Charles B. Ross is not Charlie Ross. So where is he? So I'm going to
talk very briefly without going into the research behind it, that there are three theories that I
think maybe your audience might be interested in because it leads you somewhere from this discussion.
The discussion of Gustav Blair and Nelson Miller is kind of dead end. We know that he's not Charlie
(31:59):
Ross. So where is he? We're hoping that through these kinds of discussion, one shred or piece of
evidence or information may come out that's never been reported. And we might be able to prove up
one of these theories. So the first one is that Charlie Ross was hidden in plain sight and died
(32:19):
during his captivity. So this is my best guess. And it also was advanced in Kerry Hagan's book.
So Charlie Ross was hidden in plain sight in the family of his kidnapper, Bill and Marsha Moser.
It is unlikely that Bill Moser personally hid and cared for a four-year-old child. He had to have
accomplice to do that for him. And I believe that was his wife, Martha. After the Mosers became
(32:44):
suspect in the kidnapping, the family moved frequently among tenement houses, always ahead
of the authorities. They were being tipped off by Martha's brother, who was supposedly working as an
informant with the police, but was secretly telling the Mosers about the investigation.
So the Mosers kept on the move. They were hard to trace. They didn't establish neighbor relationships.
(33:09):
So no one would notice if another child suddenly appeared in an already large family.
So true.
Charlie was four years old, and he had a genetic illness that required 24-7 care and supervision.
He was on medication for that sickness. And the Ross family made this known when answering one of
(33:29):
the ransom notes as a plea to release him. Now, the authorities watched all the pharmacies in the
area for anyone who requested that medication, but nobody did. Charlie could have died for lack
of treatment at or around the time that the ransom note stopped and before the kidnappers were killed
in December of 1874, six months after the kidnapping. The kidnappers could no longer
(33:53):
produce the child because Charlie had died and they stopped trying.
But they kept the facade long enough to try to get the money out of the family.
So when Joseph Douglas, Moser's accomplice, he said when he was dying that Moser was in charge
of keeping the child. So we believe it's likely that Martha did that for him. And she buried Charlie
(34:15):
as one of her own without notice or she secretly discarded the body as she had done earlier with
another Moser child. Now that's another story about the child found in the wall of the oyster
bar that they owned and operated. That's another whole story. So it's very possible that there was
a history that they could conceal a child. So that's the first theory that he died. He was hidden in
(34:39):
plain sight and that he died from the illness because he was not treated and he was secretly
buried or discarded by the Moser family. The second theory is that Charlie was killed by plan.
It's also possible that his death, we think, was planned from the beginning. That Martha or whoever
(35:00):
hid Charlie were instructed to kill Charlie if Moser was captured or killed. Yes. They would be
charged as accomplices and go to prison for the kidnapping themselves. This would have left Martha,
her children, as orphans. So no one paid attention when she buried a child without a funeral or a
(35:20):
pauper's grave out of the way and out of the attention of the media. She could have actually
killed Charlie and buried him as one of her own children again. But given the heightened media
coverage after Moser and Douglas were killed, it would be very unlikely or extremely difficult
for her or any other accomplice to bury a child publicly around that age. So we believe it's more
(35:45):
likely that they secretly disposed Charlie's body. Yeah. And you had mentioned too, it was hiding in
plain sight, easy enough to bring an extra child into the house. Well, how easy is it just to make
them disappear again? Maybe they were just visiting. Exactly. So lots of speculation on that,
I suppose. But you know, something else that you had said too, Moser, who died first in that shootout,
(36:10):
right? Yep. I wonder why he never disclosed Charlie's location to Douglas, who was his
accomplice. Yeah, that's a really good question. And my speculation about that is he didn't trust
him. The last person you want to trust is a crook. So he didn't want Joseph Douglas to turn on him
to snatch the child and go for the ransom himself. Oh, yes, that makes sense. And you mentioned
(36:36):
something Deborah, really, that I should have said right up the front, is that this is all
speculation. It's been investigated many times, and there is evidence and circumstances that
support these theories, but it's all speculation. So the last little theory that I'll end with is
the one that involved the Miller family. And that is, I think this is very unlikely, but it's also
(37:01):
possible that a sick Charlie Ross was in fact delivered to the Miller farm in Illinois,
where he was supposed to be hidden. But unlike Blair's testimony in court, Charlie did not
survive to be raised as Nelson Miller. Instead, he died from this same illness. Now, Nelson,
or Gustav Blair in his testimony said that the Miller patriarch had killed a man who was one of
(37:29):
the kidnappers when he came to take the child back for the ransom. That man's name was John Hawk.
And this is the confession of murder that I was talking about earlier. And so when they killed
John Hawk to prevent him from taking the child that they had grown attached to, they buried him
in the backyard of the farmstead. So I went to Lillugin Grove, Illinois, through maps and property
(37:57):
transfers and located the homestead of Vernier and Ann Miller, just outside of Dixon, Illinois.
And I began looking into hiring cadaver dogs and forensic burial technology to possibly locate the
body of a child or an adult male to either prove or disprove this story. Wow. I found the property,
(38:18):
the house and the trees had been torn down and the homestead evacuated into or excavated into farmland
just six months earlier, making any trace of remains undiscoverable. Oh, wow. What timing.
Yep. Just really bad timing. So Charlie Ross is still lost. And we keep looking, as I said,
(38:41):
to some shred of evidence that has yet to come forward or that hasn't been disclosed that might
tell us where we might find Charlie. We have done an extensive and are still in conversation
with some other investigators on what happened to the Mosier family from the date of their marriage
(39:02):
and when they began having children till the death and to Martha Mosier's remarriage. So we're
tracing and tracking whether there are some additional burial records of the Mosier family.
And we've found a few. We're still looking. And if anyone listening to this podcast thinks they have
any leads or information, we're hoping and they can reach out to charlieross.com and we'll talk
(39:27):
with them. Yeah, that is so fascinating. I really hope Rod that you find the answers you're looking
for because you have put so much time, you and Sherlock Holmes, but it has been such a pleasure
talking with you today about Charlie Ross and learning about your family history. Clearly,
Rod, you have put a lot of work into this and your research. Everybody just needs to go to
(39:51):
charlieross.com. So I personally want to thank you for being here today. And for our listeners,
you can visit charlieross.com to learn more about Rod's research efforts, where he provides an
in-depth look on much of what we talked about today. Be sure to check those out and let me know,
or Rod know what you think about this episode. You can DM me personally on Instagram to provide
(40:18):
feedback on this podcast, or certainly go to charlieross.com to send Rod a message about the
great work that he has done on his family history and getting one step closer to solving that
mystery of Charlie Ross. Rod, do you have anything more that you want to add? No, thank you. I just
want to thank you so much for being a part of our effort to get the truth out. And you never know
(40:43):
from one listener, we might find a lead and we might eventually find out what happened to Charlie
Ross. Yeah, I really do hope for you that you get those answers, but just keep doing what you're
doing. Thank you. Thanks everyone for listening and we will talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to
Dying to be Failed, True Crime Podcast and our Dash mini series. Every week, we'll bring you a
(41:07):
variety of true crime episodes, a little dash of hope plus special bonus episodes with some really
cool guests. Before we go, we'd love for you to share this podcast with your friends and give us
a five star review. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest at Dying to be
Found or visit our website at Dying to be Found.com spelled just like you see it in our logo. Better
(41:33):
yet, click on our Linktree account found in the show notes where you'll find all the information
in one place. Be sure to dash in every Wednesday for our mini episodes plus every Thursday when I
get together with some of my family members. Thanks again everyone and we'll talk to you soon.
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