Jim Bradshaw: Kidnapping had a happy ending

This the way the old news story began:
“On Christmas Eve, Dec. 24th, 1879, was witnessed the pleasant sequel of one of the most romantic cases of abduction that it has ever been our lot to recall.”
The victim of the kidnapping was Hermengildo Toro, the 8-year-old son and heir of Francois Toro, a rich New Orleans doctor and his first wife.
When the boy’s mother died, Dr. Toro married a widow who had two grown sons. One of them, Alexandre Borne, “knowing that his little half-brother … would inherit all of his step-
father’s property … conceived the diabolical conspiracy,” according to the story in the Opelousas Courier. Alexandre invited the boy to spend the night at his home, promising that “on the following day his aunt would take him on a visit, where he would greatly enjoy himself.”
On the next day Alexandre’s wife “took the lad and crossed over [the Mississippi River from New Orleans] to Algiers; got aboard the [train] and went to Brashear City.” There she hired a carriage “and brought her hapless victim to her uncle’s … in Queue Tortue, St. Landry parish.”
She told the uncle that the boy was an orphan named Emile Puncho, and asked the uncle to keep him for a few months, promising to come back and get him. As she was leaving, “Hermengildo begged passionately to be taken back; but she told him he would have to wait until she could send money to pay his passage home.”
Months passed and there was no word from New Orleans, but “a strong attachment had grown up between Mr. Navarre and his little protégé.”
The Navarres took good care of the boy, and “the early history of Hermengildo was gradually fading from his mind; his name had become familiar as Emile Puncho; he had long believed his father dead; and he had almost attained the age of manhood as a member of Mr. Navarre’s household” when destiny put “an angry Nemesis on the trail of the venal abductors.”
A man from New Orleans named LeBesque “discovered the boy by the merest accident.” He was on a business trip in the area and stopped to eat with a Mr. Guidry who lived near the
Lafayette Parish line. “Mr. Guidry incidentally mentioned the story … [and] the romantic features of it so interested Mr. LeBesque that he asked Mr. Guidry to send for the boy.” The boy told the story of how he got to St. Landry Parish and said he thought his father was dead.
When LeBesque returned to New Orleans he searched for a will or succession document, but found no record of Dr. Francois Toro. He then began “a diligent inquiry for Dr. Puncho —the surname the boy had been given by Mrs. Borne at the time of his abduction.”  That led him by chance to Dr. Toro, who was quite alive, but thought his long missing son was dead.
The doctor “was almost wild in his new found happiness,” when LeBesque told him that his son was living in St. Landry. “He had devoted long years in painful search and spent every cent of his money” trying to find out what happened to him.
Dr. Toro and Mr. LeBesque got to Opelousas on Dec. 23 and the boy, now 17 years old, recognized his father immediately.
“Was this not a happy Christmas eve to a parent and child?” the Courier asked.
It was indeed, but not so much for Mr. and Mrs. Alexandre Borne. They were arrested as soon as Dr. Toro and his son got back to New Orleans, and at the time of the Courier’s story were awaiting “swift retribution for their crime.”
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters," is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.