by Charles Fox
We turned around and we went north to a funny little carabinieri station and they didn’t really want to say anything. Nobody knew anything. “Oh yes, he’s all right. We have him, everything’s fine.” Chace said, “This is the boy’s mother. She wants to see her son. Where is he?” Then they said, “Well, he’s in the Carabinieri Due station at Lagonegro.” We drove to Lagonegro, the longest time I ever passed in my life.
Captain Elisco debriefed Paul as they waited and provided some understanding of why Paul had met with such rejection as he walked along the autostrada in the snow.
Elisco:
I determined that the boy was dropped off outside the tunnel three kilometers north of Lauria, on the autostrada. Around ten-thirty P.M., he entered the snack bar at the ESSO station. The people on the autostrada didn’t pick him up because this is very close to Calabria and people don’t like to get involved in anything. Also, this time of year, when the snow is falling, people take the lower roads. The autostrada is at twelve hundred meters and ices up, so there was little traffic anyway.
In the snack bar, Paul’s appearance probably frightened the people. He was wet. His hair was cut short and he had a bandage hanging from his left ear. This probably deterred the truck driver also.
It was now about six A.M. The journalists started arriving within the hour and the boy’s mother arrived at the barracks about seven forty-five A.M. to be met by fifty or so photographers. Then the TV people arrived from Potenza, with a lot of other curious onlookers.
Gail, Chace, and Iovinella at last arrived at Captain Elisco’s office. There was no love lost between the squadra mobile and the carabinieri. The squadra mobile, the crack Rome city police, regard the carabinieri as country bumpkins, and suddenly the shoe was on the other foot.
Gail:
When we got up into the captain’s office, it was like hell. There was pushing, screaming, yelling, photographers. The place was jammed. This was like eight in the morning, and everybody knew but us. There we were, the people that had done it all, wandering around in the hills, going through abandoned houses, and all the while the news had been on the radio. In Rome, Lou knew, the children knew, everybody knew except us.
At Lagonegro they somehow steered us through the crowd and took us up to the captain’s office. We sat there waiting for them to bring Paul in, but it went on and on and the captain wouldn’t let me see Paul.
It was like a dam breaking, watching the police fighting in their own office. They poured in and they were on top of us. It was really scary, the head of the squadra mobile and his assistant fighting each other and then the press. At last they brought Paul in. When we first saw each other all we did was hold on and cry, both of us. They wouldn’t give us the decency of being alone. It made me so angry. There they were, gaping. They wanted a photograph of that, but there was no way.
Paul and myself, we were like caged animals in there while the press was out there fighting for their rights: “We have a right to take photographs.” They’d been promised a photograph. The police had to push them out.
PRESS REPORTS OF DECEMBER 15
The meeting between Paul and his mother took place at 8:30 with a long embrace, which lasted 4 minutes. “At last it is over,” said the boy in English, while Gail, weeping, caressed him and kissed him on the right side of his face, which was marked by a wound. She said to her son, “I always believed you.”
Paul was sure they were giving him some kind of truth serum or some other nutty kind of stuff. I think what they probably did give him was a tranquilizer. You’re not going to tell me that that little man in Lagonegro had a bunch of speed on him. But they certainly were trying to force stuff on him. It could very well have been Valium.
They turned it into a big social event. “Won’t you have some tea or coffee?” Who wanted tea or coffee?
Chace at last came into his own. He was the hero of the hour. With his customary modesty he recalled:
They wouldn’t release Paul. I said, “You’re just trying to get all the publicity you can out of this. You’re holding him and he needs to be checked in medically. I promise you, he’s in bad shape and you’re holding him because you want the publicity and I’m going to give that to the press.”
The captain said, “Are you talking to me? I’m in command here in my station.”
“Yes, I’m talking to you.” I tapped him on the chest and said, “You’ve got five minutes. I’m going upstairs and in five minutes I’m coming down again with the boy and his mother. If you don’t let us go through, I’m going to talk to the press.”
I can look mean when I want to, and I looked mean. I knew in my own mind that I had him and was on top. I went upstairs and said, “Get ready. We’re getting out of here.” I put my coat on Paul and we walked right through the crowd of press, got in the car, and drove off.
I was in the front seat. I put Iovinella in the backseat with Gail and the boy. We laughed and we had an incredible ride to the city, rather fun, and a few of the press were passing us, taking pictures as they drove by.
When we got to the north end of the autostrada outside Rome, the press had put out these cones so all the lanes were closed except for one. They had a camera set up. I was using the radio. I had the other two squad cars behind us, so we were all compact. The press were right behind the two police cars. I told the driver to keep going, keep going, keep pushing. He pushed right through the crowd. We kept the windows shut.
Gail described the triumphant return of the Golden Hippie to Rome.
Gail:
The press did some incredible things. They had obviously paid off the people at the toll gates because it was all blocked when we got there. There were television cameras. Of course, when we got to Rome the whole place was blocked. The radio followed us from the time we left Lagonegro, they reported everything that happened, what we were doing now, where we were going, what the paparazzi were doing, they followed us all the way, right into Rome. There were even helicopters. People said it was one of the most dramatic things they’d ever seen or heard in their lives, the returning to Rome. We lost them when the police car behind us stopped in one of those very narrow streets and let us get away from the press, but when we went to the questura, there was more press.
The world had been following Paul’s plight for five months and now that he was free, he found himself to be an international celebrity. Rome has seen its share of triumphant returns, but nothing quite as bizarre as this.
Paul:
So many people and TV lights and everyone tried to look at me and they shouted my name. The police took me out of the car and the crowd closed in. They made a way for me through the crowd and inside the questura there was a big elevator. It had wire like a cage when it closed. There were all these people pressing against the wire, all these faces looking in at me through the wire and as the elevator started up, this one man, his face was right in front of me, said, “Ciao, Paolo. Remember your promise to us.”
Gail described the scene in Rome:
When they had finished questioning Paul at the questura, they smuggled us out the back door. Nobody knew we were going to a clinic. We walked right in. Lou was there and this Italian man from the clinic’s board of directors, who organized the whole thing. Probably they had Paul tranquilized, which was why he wasn’t hysterical.
Paul was sweet enough to ask me if Martine could come. “Anybody you want can come. You can have everything you want.”
When Martine came to the clinic, it was very funny. The two of them really didn’t have that much to say. She was terribly shy.
Martine remembered:
I was very afraid and nervous inside. I thought maybe Paul was completely down and distraught. I didn’t know what I would find. When I came in, I started to cry. Paul was completely cool. Of course we were happy to see each other, but he was cool in the sense of being really strong, very strong. He said, “It’s okay, I’m fine.”
The doctor came in and I went outside and I started crying a
gain. Gail was very sweet. She took me in her arms.
It was in the clinic that Paul and I talked again about getting married. We agreed that we would have a big wedding. We made these plans. We were very excited. It was a way not to talk about what had happened, I think. He didn’t have any clothes. Somehow they had all disappeared. So I went to that shop called Carmenila; all those kind of David Bowie clothes. I went there and got all the things together. I had the owner of the shop come with a whole trunk, and Paul picked what he wanted.
Newspapers around the world seemed to have more access than Gail imagined and where they didn’t, they seemed to exercise their own imaginations. Perhaps Paul was telling them what he thought they wanted to hear and what would get them off his back. Either that, or the staff of the clinic was paid for information. The reports come into conflict with the account Paul gave to me, particularly the account of how his ear was cut off. Presumably this saved him from further and far more complex explanation.
He refused plastic surgery because he said he wanted people to be reminded of the price he paid for “their money.”
GETTY REFUSES PLASTIC EAR SURGERY
Paul Getty III was in a private room in the Villa Carla clinic in Rome yesterday.
It was his first day of real freedom since he was kidnapped and held for ransom 158 days ago.…
Yesterday at the clinic he had with him his American mother, Mrs Gail Harris and a few friends.…
He walked doubled up at the clinic and had to be helped up the stairs. He said this was because he had been kept so long in the caves where he could not stand upright.
Captain Elisco, of the Carabinieri, found Paul sheltering from the rain by a closed petrol station. Paul’s first words were: “I am Paul Getty, Captain. Give me a cigarette.”
POLICE WAIT TO QUIZ BOY IN FIVE-MONTH KIDNAP ORDEAL
Yesterday a police inspector and the public prosecutor called at the private clinic in Rome where Paul is staying with his mother, but were barred by doctors.
They said the Getty boy was “very disoriented” and in need of ‘profound calm.’
Doctors said that when the words kidnap, hideout or car were mentioned the boy burst into uncontrollable shouting, “Why didn’t you believe me from the start? I’m sick and fed up with it all.”
Yet in calmer moments, sitting up in bed in blue pajamas, sipping Chianti with his mother in his £10-a-day private room next to the clinic bar, he says: “I have decided to change my life-style.”
But he did say his kidnappers hit him on the head to stun him while they cut off his ear.
“They cut it off with a kitchen knife. They stunned me with a club, but when the blade cut the flesh I woke up. I felt everything. It was terrible. Afterwards they gave me several injections.”
For a day or two they had privacy, or at least the appearance of it. Then the press discovered them.
Gail:
Everything was so tranquil at the clinic. Paul’s room had a little sitting room and a garden, and I had a room of my own. Police guarded the doors. They didn’t allow anyone up.
When the press finally found out where we were, they asked if they could have something on the television, anything. They certainly couldn’t see Paul, but it was suggested that I do something saying he was all right and saying thank you. Did I have any desire to say thank you to anybody? That was a heavy scene.
They dragged me out at nine o’ clock at night and there was every television camera, every photographer, everybody I’d seen through the whole thing. I had some pretty bad feelings, resentment, plus I was starting to finally fall apart a little bit. The Italian on the clinic board of directors took me to meet the press. I told him, “If you see me starting to go, grab my arm, do whatever you can to get me out. I’m on the edge.”
Anyway, one thanked various people and I said a special thank-you to the newspaperman Paolo Graudi and the Il Messaggero man. It was so strange. They asked the most extraordinary questions, which of course I couldn’t answer. They finally got me away.
We used to sneak the children in to see their brother. We had a special entrance going. Marcello, Martine, everybody was walking in and out. Each night somebody stayed, Marcello, Lou, or Philip. They stretched out on chairs in his room, and Paul was happy as a lark.
He was terribly protective of me, which I found strange. It was sweet, but it was strange, although Paul’s always been that way with me. He didn’t want to tell me anything about what he had been through and I didn’t particularly want to hear it. He was really like a little boy. He just wanted to eat and have loads of orange juice. He just ate his heart out.
He was very neurotic about what was around him, who was there. Outside there were terraces and rooftops, and we had to do a whole number every night. I’d go ’round and check. He was terrified somebody was out there, coming after him. We had to be sure the doors and windows were locked.
The British press understandably focused on the local interest.
GETTY SENIOR PLANS FAMILY REUNION FOR HIS GRANDSON
Getty Senior has invited his grandson, now recovering in Rome, to Britain to spend Christmas.
Last night grandfather Getty said: “I am so very happy that the boy is alive.… He is very welcome to come home for Christmas, but if he needs medical treatment a visit early in the new year will be certain.
“His safe return is a birthday gift I will never forget.” His birthday, December 15th, had just passed.
Despite earlier statements by the senior Getty that he would not pay “one cent” in ransom, fearing it would endanger his other 13 grandchildren; it was clear last night that he did contribute to the family fund.
16.
Paul recovered rapidly, even for a seventeen-year-old. Soon after his release he went to London to see his father. It was a disaster.
Paul:
When we left the clinic, we went to my mother’s apartment. Martine was there every day. My mother was very nice to her. I was very shy. I couldn’t speak to anybody. I was scared of people. When people came, I hid in the kitchen; I didn’t want to see anybody. The paparazzi were so bad that we went to some friends of my mother’s, Martine and I needed our own apartment and money to get a film together. They all convinced me to go to London to see my father. So I phoned him, and said, “I’m coming tomorrow.” He said, “Great.”
I arrived, dressed nice, white pants, white shirt, tie and everything. Derek came and said, “Wait here,” and I must have waited four hours before he even came down. Nobody was there—just him—very strange, very strange. Finally he came down; by that time it was so strained. He said, “Excuse me, I was in the bath.”
We went into his study. He has one of those video things [VCR], we watched some movies, then we ate. It was really nice as long as you didn’t talk about anything to do with responsibility; it was okay.
I explained that thing about Victoria. He probably believed it because they weren’t together anymore and he was pissed off with her. But I mean, he’s just mad. We never got into anything heavy and then I said, “I need to get things together, I’d like to make a movie. Maybe you can help me.” He said he wanted to produce a porno film, a two-hour porno film, a full-length feature.
I said, “My God, why don’t you let me do something a little bit more intelligent?”
And he said, “No, I like this.”
So we watched these things, you know, everybody fucking around—little movies they made at home, all these chicks. And then we got into this kidnapping. I mean it had to come out at one point. He then said, “You should tell me a little bit about the kidnapping.”
I said, “I don’t feel like it. We’ll do it tomorrow when we have more time. My mother told me you believe that I did it.”
He said, “Yes, I believe that you had something to do with it, I’m sure you did.”
That’s just one point too much. And really paranoid, Charlie. I mean, it’s shocking. Just put yourself in my position. You just might blow your mind. You’
d spent fucking five months, almost half a year with some gangsters, and you come back to this.
He said, “I know you have something to do with it, and goddammit, now I’m going to have to pay sixty thousand dollars a month.” It was bullshit, he didn’t have to. I flipped out, really furious. There was a knife. I wanted to slit his throat. And then I thought, Well, hold on, maybe he’ll be nice now. Nothing, complete blank.
I started to cry. He said, “Why are you crying? What is there to cry about? Go up to your room. Leave tomorrow.”
I slept upstairs. I hadn’t been there since that acid trip. It was so dreary and dark. The whole upstairs was locked and I got this really scary thing, like maybe he had a corpse up there. I phoned my mother that night before two and said, “Get me away from here.”
The next day he comes crying in my face and I was really heavy with him. Then he had Byron, the driver, take me to the airport. Victoria had this blue jean coat which I just adored—maxi, looks like so—and I took it with me. On the way to the airport we had to stop at somebody’s house to pick up some books for my father. I had stolen this coat and I got to the house and the minute we walked in the phone rang. “Leave that coat.” So I did. He sent me back to Rome with one pound in my pocket—one pound. Incredible.
When I got back to Rome, we went to Austria to [go] skiing, somebody had some money.
With his father’s refusal to help him, Paul was thrown back into chaos. He was a celebrity, appearing to have everything, but in reality it was the opposite. He and Martine wandered aimlessly and soon the drugs reappeared, but this time it was heroin.
Martine: