[Indexed as: (Mahfood case), “Seeks Kidnaped Son In Woodland; Ohio Father Asks The Aid Of Marshall Lawson; Believes Gypsy Band Here Are Thieves,” Woodland Daily Democrat (Ca.), Jul. 24, 1924]

Harking back to last winter when a band of gypsies were camped on the Sterling Peart ranch .near Woodland, is a letter received several days ago by City Marshal Perry P. Lawson wherein Tony Mahfood of Steubenville, Ohio, is hoping to locate his son, James Mahfood, who was kidnapped by a band of the Bohemian nomads six years ago and when the lad was 10 years of age.

It will be remembered that Sheriff J. W. Monroe stopped a ceremonial intended to bring a great assemblage of spectators to the ranch wherein Queen Julia Williams, ruler of 560 gypsy families sought to stage a wedding between “George Adams,” a white boy, alleged to have been “adopted” by the tribe and Catherine Williams, daughter of the queen. This story went around the country as a freak of the news, the pictures of the queen and boy being published in the Steubenville Daily Gazette of March 24.

Mahfood noticed a similiarity between the photo of “George Adams” appearing in the article, and his kidnaped son. Immediately he got in touch with Marshal Lawson here through lawyers and the chief of police of Steubemille. The boys are not the same because “George Adams” was a decided blonde while James Mahfood had “dark eyes and dark hair” and is of Syrian nationality.

The letter to Lawson is quite pathetic and is a strong appeal of a father for the recovery of his lost or strayed son. It states that the elder Mahfood is of poor circumstances, yet will somehow get a regard for the person who furnishes him any information concerning his boy, now past sixteen years of age.