In the very beginning a not inconsiderable part of Omaha’s people had somehow come to the curious conclusion that there had been no Cudahy kidnapping. One story said that Eddie Cudahy was a wild youth, and that he himself had conspired with Crowe and Callahan to abduct him and get the ransom, since he needed a share of it for his own purpose, and he saw in this plan an easy method to mulct his unsuspecting father. A later version denied the boy’s guilt, but still insisted that the whole story, as told by the father and confirmed by the police, was a piece of fiction. What motive the rich packer could have had for such a fraud, no one could say. The best explanation given was that he saw in it a plan to get worldwide advertising for the Cudahy name. How this could have sold any additional hams or beeves, is a bit hard to imagine, but the story was so generally believed that two jurors at one of the trials voiced it in the jury room and scoffed at all the evidence. All this rumor is, of course, absurd. Crowe, after his acquittal, went straight, as the word goes. He has committed no more crimes, unless one wants to rate under this heading a book of highly romantic confessions, which he had published the following year. In this book he set forth the circumstances of the crime in great, but unreliable, detail. He made it very plain, however, that he and Callahan alone planned the crime and carried it out. Crowe personally conceived the whole plan and took Callahan into the conspiracy only because he needed help. The two held up the boy, as already related. As soon as they had him safe in the old house, Crowe drove back to the Cudahy home in his buggy and threw the note, wrapped about the stick and decorated with the red cloth, upon the lawn, where it was found the next morning by the coachman. Of the twenty-five thousand dollars in gold, Crowe gave his assistant only three thousand dollars, used one thousand for expenses, and buried the rest, recovering it later when the coast was clear. He selected Cudahy for a victim because he knew that the packer was a fond father, had a nervous wife, and would be strong enough to resist any mad police advice.