By 1920, 39-year-old Jacques Villard was a successful, albeit legless man who epitomized the American Dream. He arrived in New York from France in 1913, with only $17 to his name and knowing no one. A polyglot and hard-worker by nature, Mr. Villard immediately put his nose to the grindstone, undeterred by the loss of his lower limbs in 1916 and the deaths of several relatives in the first World War.
Now, as the editor of the New Age—a Polish/English magazine edited in St. Louis and distributed in Chicago—and owner of a St. Louis language correspondence school, Mr. Villard had amassed a decent fortune. He was known to tip well and to carry several thousand dollars on his person, and didn’t feel a need to hide his wealth.
On December 10, 1920, Mr. Villard and his wife, Marie, travelled to Chicago on magazine-related business, and checked into the historic La Salle Hotel. Villard’s goal was to find a Polish-American to serve as associate editor for the New Age, and he immediately began advertising in local newspapers.
It’s unclear how many people responded to Mr. Villard’s advertisements: according to Among the Missing, Mr. Villard interviewed several waves of candidates throughout December. Contemporaneous reporting, however, suggests Mr. Villard was only contacted by one applicant. Regardless, we know Mr. Villard interviewed at least one person, but was nonetheless dissatisfied with the pickings. On Sunday, December 26th, his wife reluctantly returned to St. Louis.
Aside from a few telegrams, Mrs. Villard didn’t hear much from her husband for several days after returning home. She became aware that her husband’s disappearance when she attempted to send a telegram to her husband at the La Salle Hotel, but the telegraph was returned. Concerned, she then phoned the hotel, where a desk clerk related that, on December 27th, Mr. Villard had been wheeled off by a “tall blond man, apparently a Swede or Pole, had carried him downstairs, paid his bill and taken him away with his luggage in a large black limousine.”
It became apparent to Mrs. Villard that her husband—who had $2000 in cash and $4000 in jewelry in his luggage—had been kidnapped for his wealth.
At some point, the Burns Detective Agency was employed to search for the missing editor. When detectives were unable to locate Mr. Villard, they looped Chicago police in for help.
On January 31st, Mrs. Villard received a somewhat bizarre letter from her husband, that stated he’d gone to New York to continue his search and was delayed. The letter was signed “Jack,” rather than “Jacques,” which further roused Mrs. Villard’s suspicions.
Villard remained missing until, on January 7, 1921, an insurance salesman stumbled upon a legless beggar crying for help in a gutter on East Chestnut street. And, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, that legless beggar was none other than Jacques Villard, reappearing as mysteriously as he vanished 11 days earlier.
“We’ve got to get rid of him.”
After returning to St. Louis on January 8th, Mr. Villard told reporters that he was suffering so greatly from the shock of “an experience” with the kidnappers that he was unable to make a statement to the press. The Burns Detective Agency, however, issued a statement that same day detailing the alleged circumstances of the kidnapping.
Per the detectives’ statement, an unidentified man with a Polish name used a ruse to abduct Mr. Villard from the Hotel La Salle on December 27, 1920. The unidentified man apparently answered Mr. Villard’s advertisement, but ultimately turned the job down before suggesting his cousin in New York might be a good fit for the role. The very kind stranger offered to transport Mr. Villard and his belongings to the train station, but ultimately led the editor to a house in the outskirts of Chicago, where he was blindfolded and held by three men in a darkened room.
The kidnappers robbed Mr. Villard of all the cash and jewelry on his person, and repeatedly tried to coerce Mr. Villard to write his wife and ask for money in exchange for his release. Fearing his absence would alarm his wife, the kidnappers made Mr. Villard draft a note saying he was in New York, which he then sent to one of his New York-based subscribers who agreed to mail the message to Mrs. Villard. Mr. Villard signed the letter “Jack,” in a rather crafty attempt to let his wife know something was wrong.
Near the end of his ordeal, Mr. Villard apparently heard his kidnappers weighing the pros and cons of killing him, saying:
This guy’s getting into the headlines. We’ve got to get rid of him.
Apparently, they discussed the advisability of throwing him into the Chicago River. Ultimately, however, they decided to let him go. Fearing their captive would freeze to cold in the bitter Chicago winter, the men wrapped Mr. Villard in a heavy blanket before throwing him out 0f their car near Franklin Court and Chestnut Street. Mr. Villard nearly died of exposure as he crawled for two blocks before finding help.
Unfortunately, the trauma of the ordeal seems to have consumed Mr. Villard. Less than two years after his kidnapping, on September 25, 1922, Jacques Villard fatally slashed his own throat in his home in University City.
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