A lot of us have been watching the anguishing ordeal Savannah Guthrie and her family have been going through

in the kidnapping of her mom, Nancy Guthrie. And it make me think about another abduction that transfix

the nation just over 50 years ago. In this case, there was a very different response from the family.

It's the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III. I'm Patty Steele,

the horrifying life and death of an impossibly rich but very sad kid. That's next on the backstory.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

We're back with the backstory.

It is easy to fantasize about growing up as the air to a massive fortune.

All the fancy houses, cars, clothes, and stuff.

But it's not always the case.

Worse yet, when you don't get the love and support every kid needs,

a lot of people just don't feel your pain. John Paul Getty, the third, was born in 1956.

To differentiate him from his dad, John Paul Jr. and his grandfather, the original Jay Paul Getty,

they called him Paul.

Jay Paul Sr. started making money in the 1910s from oil leases, and he made a boatload of it.

At one point, he was the richest man in the world. But he was also the ultimate miser when it came to his five wives and most of his children and grandchildren. You want proof?

Well, his fifth wife, Teddy, said J. Paul Sr. got furious with her for spending too much money

on their six-year-old son, Timmy. Not for toys, not for vacations, or even school. He was angry about

the money she spent on doctors.

Timmy had a brain tumor, and Jay Paul Sr. demanded that his wife paid for the medical treatment

out of her own very small inheritance. Timmy died in 1958 when he was 12 years old, and his dad

never showed up for the funeral since he'd abandoned the family a few years earlier.

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