John Paul Getty III: The Kidnapping That Shocked The World

At 16 years old, wealthy heir John Paul Getty III was infamously kidnapped. To get the ransom, his captives cut off his ear and mailed it to his family. Caught in a standoff between ruthless criminals and one of the world’s richest men, Getty survived the horrific experience. But shockingly, fate had a much crueler twist in store. John Paul Getty III was born on November 4, 1956, into one of the richest families in the world. His grandfather was John Paul Getty Senior, who had made his millions in the oil business. Getty’s father was John Paul Jr., whose destiny was ultimately shaped by his father’s success. John Paul Getty III spent his youth in Rome, living in a castle with his divorced mother, Abigail Harris. He spent his time hanging out in the city’s underground scene. Even though he was still a teenager, his friends were artists, left-wing radicals, and socialites. While he was living his bohemian lifestyle in Rome, Getty eventually met German twins by the name of Gisela Martine and Hutta Schmidt. Even though the twins were seven years older than him, the three of them quickly became extremely close, and they eventually got an apartment together.

But having older and wilder friends had a real negative impact on Getty’s education. Of course, being a Getty, John Paul III ended up at some very prestigious schools. Sadly, he wasn’t all that into academia. In fact, several of the schools had to expel him for his bad behavior. One of his stunts was more than just a little unnerving. Getty gave one of the schools a real scare with a painting prank. He had heard of the horrendous behavior of the Manson family back in California, so for a laugh, he painted the school’s halls in a way that made reference to the horrible deeds of the infamous cult. That was scary enough, but pretty soon, his antics would become dangerous. Around this time, he and his girlfriend Gisela had some serious financial troubles. That’s when he started coming up with some pretty strange ideas. According to Gisela, he believed a fake kidnapping would be an easy way to make some very real cash, although it all went terribly wrong. Getty actually met up with some small-time hoods and he started talking about a potential abduction plot that would help them get money from the Getty coffers before they went through with the outrageous plan.

Though, the kid ended up getting some much-needed work as a model. Now that he had made a little bit of money, it seemed like he wasn’t that interested in his plan. So, he ended up calling off the fake kidnapping. But somehow his hare-brained scheme did not end there. On July 10, 1973, the worst happened. 16-year-old Getty was in the Piazza Farnese at 3:00 a.m. when men grabbed him, put him in a vehicle, blindfolded him, and drove to southern Italy. This had suddenly become very real. Getty’s abductors threw him into a cave in Calabria and kept him prisoner. As it turned out, these were not some petty thieves. They were members of Italy’s notorious ‘Ndrangheta, which is one of the most powerful gangs in the world. Getty was now in serious trouble. Of course, the mafia wanted money, and they didn’t waste any time issuing their demand. They wanted $17 million, which would be worth over $120 million today. Getty’s mother didn’t have anything close to that amount of money. She wasn’t rich like her ex-husband’s family, and so she had no way to access their multi-million dollar fortune.

So, she contacted her ex-husband, Getty’s father, but he didn’t have the money either. Of course, everyone knew that the mafia had their sights on John Paul Senior’s money. Getty’s estranged grandfather had disinherited his own son, John Paul Jr., who now had the unenviable task of going to his tight-fisted father and asking for it. It was a huge sum, and it’s hard to know what John Paul Jr. expected to hear from his stubborn father. Well, he was about to learn how heartless dear old dad really was. Sadly, he had no idea how much his son was going to suffer for it. John Paul Senior gave his son a hard no on paying the ransom. His reasoning was that if he paid this one, then his other grandchildren might also need bailing out of a difficult situation. He famously said, “I have 14 other grandchildren. If I pay one penny now, then I will have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” But there was another reason why he wasn’t ready to part with his money. More than one member of the Getty family had a sneaking suspicion. They thought that the young Getty had faked the whole kidnapping.

When you think about it, they weren’t so far off. Getty had talked about doing it, and it ended up being a bit like the boy who cried wolf. Now the boy was in the hands of his captives, and no one was coming to save his life. His charmed, wealthy existence had become a nightmare in the blink of an eye, finding himself held against his will in a cave. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. At first, the treatment he received from his captors wasn’t too alarming. They did annoying things like taking away his radio, which was his only form of entertainment. Then, when he caught a bird and kept it as a pet, they snuffed out its life. Unfortunately, as the captors grew impatient, they started treating him in increasingly horrifying ways. It wasn’t long before the kidnappers started to understand that the Getty family did not believe that their son had been really kidnapped. They got him to write a letter so that the family would understand the authenticity of their threats. The letter read, “Dear Mommy, since Monday, I have fallen into the hands of kidnappers. Don’t let me be killed.”

Unfortunately, things were about to get even more deranged. At some point, Getty’s captives started playing a tormenting game of Russian roulette on Getty’s head. Of course, this distressed him on a deep psychological level. On top of this, he was also beaten relentlessly. But while the boy was suffering, there was still no word from his grandfather about paying the ransom. So, his captives decided to take things to the next level. Amping up the horror, the kidnappers sent out another demand, but this time with one chilling addition—something that would get his family’s attention in the worst way possible. About four months after Getty first went missing, an Italian newspaper received a letter through the mail. In the envelope, there were three things: a written message, a lock of hair, and a human ear. It soon became apparent that the hair and the ear belonged to Getty. The enclosed message was equally shocking. In the letter, the mafia assured everyone that the hair and ear were Getty’s. They wrote, “This is Paul’s ear. If we don’t get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive.” In other words, he will arrive in little bits.

The strange thing was that they had reduced the amount owing drastically. They were now after only $3.2 million, down from the $17 million they had asked for previously. If John Paul Senior was heartlessly trying to wriggle down the price, he was winning. Meanwhile, back in the cave, Getty was in really rough shape. Obviously, he had a wound where they’d removed his ear, but when the injury got infected, the situation got even diceier. And to make things worse, he also came down with pneumonia. With Getty’s health spiraling out of control, his captors needed to get their hands on some penicillin to keep him alive. But even this went awry. Treating Getty turned out to be a major headache for his captives. Unfortunately, giving him such high doses of penicillin had a negative effect, and he developed an allergy to the medicine. Their solution to this problem was even worse. When the penicillin stopped working, Getty’s captives started treating him with large amounts of booze. They thought this would help with the pain and maybe keep him warm, but it only caused him to become extremely dependent on it.

Getty really needed his grandfather to pay the lower ransom. It was his only hope at surviving. John Paul Senior still wasn’t willing to fork out what they needed to pay for the ransom. But he did make Getty’s dad an offer. He finally coughed up $2.2 million, which turned out to be the highest amount that he could use as a tax deduction. He then gave the remaining money as a loan, one that his son would have to repay at 4% interest, which tells you everything about what kind of man this was. Getty’s father finally had the money. He was relieved. Now he just had to save his son. The payment of the ransom went off without a hitch. Authorities found Getty at a gas station on December 15, 1973. He’d been in captivity for more than five months and he was now a year older. Obviously, he was in terrible shape, both physically and mentally. He also had to face his family, the same ones who had let him languish in captivity before they finally paid his ransom. It was going to be very awkward. Likely at some point, the young man eventually found out that his grandfather refused to pay the initial ransom, allowing him to remain in anguish for months.

Still, in the end, John Paul Getty Senior had come through in his own stingy way. Getty’s mother insisted that he call up his grandfather to say thank you. As if adding insult to injury, John Paul Getty Senior refused to pick up the phone. After everything the boy had gone through, it was now crystal clear that his family allowed him to suffer while they haggled over money. That cruel realization would go on to shape the rest of his life. Getty may have won his freedom, but his suffering didn’t end there. On the bright side, he still had his friends, the twins. Before the kidnapping, the relationship between Getty and Gisela had gotten more intense. And after the kidnapping, they built on this romantic foundation, eventually getting married in 1974. He was just 18 years old when he and Gisela had their own child. After all, Gisela had been five months pregnant at the time that they said, “I do.” They then had a son they called Balthazar. It seemed possible that Getty could put the trauma of his kidnapping behind him and have a normal life with his wife and child. But that all depended on one thing: he had to get over the psychological scars, and they were deep.

On the surface, he tried his best to return to some semblance of normalcy. In 1981, he appeared in the dark comedy The Territory. This seemed like a strange choice for his recovery. The film is about a group of lost campers who resort to cannibalism, which might sound a little too close to the ordeal in the cave. Well, I guess he knew what he was doing, because his next film was an equally strange choice. The experimental filmmaker Wim Wenders borrowed the entire cast and crew from The Territory to make his film The State of Things. The film had an eerie reference to owing money to the mafia, which of course mirrored Getty’s own life. As it turned out, Getty wasn’t coping all that well with his psychological scars. He and Gisela moved to New York City, where they became involved with the art crowd surrounding Andy Warhol. At this point, the young man had started constantly drinking and getting high. He was in no condition to be a husband or a father, and worst of all, he was in jeopardy of losing his family. Reportedly, Gisela grew weary of Getty’s lifestyle, and sources say she packed up the kids and moved to San Francisco, where she started working for a theater company.

Getty was left to his own devices back in New York, and that’s when his life went completely off the rails. With his wife and children gone, he continued on his downward spiral. He simply couldn’t face the reality that came with sobriety. The reality was that he was still deeply traumatized from all those months he spent chained up in a cave at the mercy of his criminal captives. It was all too much for him to cope with, and it culminated in a disaster in 1981 when Getty’s addictions took him to a very bad place. He mixed some dangerous substances and ended up having both a stroke and liver failure. While these two things sound treatable, together they resulted in something much, much worse. This chilling medical incident changed John Paul Getty III’s life forever. He would never be the same. Not only did Getty lose his ability to speak, but his eyesight was also disastrously affected, and he became partially blind. At just 25 years old, he was now a quadriplegic and would need to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life. And his troubles didn’t end there. After his catastrophic medical event, it would be reasonable to think that his wife would return to help her husband recover.

But in truth, they had already separated beforehand, though they remained amicable. She wound up moving to Germany and found a home in Munich. Of course, you might expect someone from the Getty clan to step up, but this didn’t happen either. The only one willing to lend a helping hand was Getty’s mother. But there was one big problem: his mother was on board to help her son through his recovery, but as we know, she just wasn’t rich like her ex-husband’s family. She had to go to great lengths to get the family to help her. Even her ex had a shocking response to their son’s dire situation. He didn’t want to dip into his own fortune to help him out. Getty’s father had an enviable trust fund that allowed him over $20 million every year. So paying for his son’s medical expenses might have seemed like a no-brainer. Shockingly, he resisted as best as he could. It was Getty’s uncle Gordon who initially stepped in to pay the bills, but the mess just kept getting messier. Ultimately, his mother took legal action against his father, suing him so that he would pay the $28,000 a month that she needed for their son’s medical expenses. But as we’ve learned from this story, money just cannot solve all your problems, and Getty certainly couldn’t turn back the clocks.

Still, at the very end, there were some glimmers of hope and humanity. Though his family had failed him on several occasions, there was still time for a reconciliation. At this point, his not-so-supportive father had become a sir because of all his philanthropic enterprises. It seemed that John Paul Jr. had been generous with everyone except his own son, whom he had turned his back on. But at the very least, he did try to fix his relationship with Getty at the end. He bought a huge country estate in Buckinghamshire, England, and invited Getty to visit. It’s not clear if Getty ever forgave his grandfather for not paying his ransom or his father for not willingly covering his medical expenses, but we do know that he spent some time at his father’s estate. In fact, that’s where he ended up passing away. It happened on February 5, 2011, and it was a consequence of his long-term health struggles since his overdose. This was the end of a tragic story, one that the world wanted to hear. Getty’s story inspired two books, Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty and Man on Fire. There was enough interest in this story that both books eventually turned into films. It seemed like there was no end to the public’s desire to see rich families face problems. In the end, though, Getty’s life, shaped by both unimaginable wealth and profound suffering, became a cautionary tale, a reminder that privilege does not shield one from pain. His kidnapping shed light on the chilling reality of how much money can complicate and fracture relationships.