[5] At the time of the kidnapping, Woolverton was secretary and treasurer of the Malleable Steel Range Manufacturing Company, based in South Bend, Indiana.
At about 11 p.m. on that date, while the Woolvertons were driving back to their own home a few blocks away, a car skidded to a stop next to them (or blocked their path, according to some reports)[9] while simultaneously a male pedestrian jumped on the running board of Woolverton's five-seat Pierce-Arrow automobile, pointed a gun through the car's slightly open window, and demanded to be let into the back seat.
Woolverton was ordered to stop in a remote area a few miles west of South Bend and was informed that he was being kidnapped for $50,000 (an amount equal to about $2 million in 2020 dollars).
Hundreds more papers throughout the United States, including the New York Times, ran wire reports of the crime.
The law, passed in summer 1932, is typically called the "Lindbergh Law", with credit for its passage attributed solely to its namesake, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. Woolverton's kidnapping featured prominently in several newspaper series researched and prepared in the weeks following his abduction, and were quite possibly inspired by it.
Two such projects, by Bruce Catton of the Newspaper Enterprise Association and Fred Pasley of the Daily News of New York City, were ready for publication within a day or two of the Lindbergh kidnapping.
[21] Following publication of the February 1937 article, The South Bend Tribune telegrammed Hoover asking for more information about his allegations.