April 29, 1927
Hollywood
There’s nothin’ a kid likes more than a writ of habeus corpus!
Darling Priscilla Dean Moran is being sought by Sheriff’s deputies to-day, after being kidnapped and spirited away by "new owners" John and Myrtle Ragland to some cottage in a Hollywood canyon. Mrs. Margaret Becker of Long Beach has stated that she is the aunt and deserves custody, while an Ella Schaber of Tulsa has sent a message to the judge asking for possession.
And why is this sundry so all-fire interested in Priscilla? Because the eight year-old lass is a juvenile star, and the small waif with large paycheck has been actively engaged in film work for some time, her last picture selling for 100k (1,180,180 USD2005).
The judge eventually ruled that Ragland and Schaber were trying to buy the child, and so she was, for better or worse, awarded to petitioner-for-the-writ Aunt Margaret. Read all about it here.
