Murder, Mischief & Mayhem!

On May 28, 1938, a toddler is kidnapped in the middle of the night from his bedroom in a rural South Florida town on the edge of The Everglades. The father shapes up a posse to find the culprit and the child. Soon, all the locals join in the hunt – and are suspects. Local law enforcement and the Miami office of the FBI join the rescue effort; it produces three ransom notes and one failed attempt to rendezvous with the kidnapper – but no 5-year-old. With help from the government, Bailey Cash, the father, gathers up the considerable ransom money, makes a second trek to the agreed-upon drop, deposits a shoebox full of cash and waits anxiously for the return of his son.

During a kidnap-for-ransom crime wave that plagued the country during the Great Depression (beginning with the notorious Lindbergh baby kidnapping case in 1932) a 5-year boy is snatched from his crib in a remote town on the edge of the Florida Everglades. 

The parents, Bailey and Vera Cash, find a ransom note demanding $10,000 for the safe return of their son. The kidnapping of “Skeegie” Cash attracts immediate national attention when J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI czar, decides to get out from behind his desk and take over the investigation himself. 

It would be the only time that Director Hoover (to score political points and save the Bureau from defunding) led his “G” men in a the field. What follows turns out to be a Keystone Cops comedy of procedural mishaps by the Feds – until the local sheriff quietly breaks the case wide open.