Kidnapers Send Ear in Ransom Demand

ROME — Kidnapers holding a wealthy Italian landowner sent what was believed to be one of the victim’s ears to a Rome newspaper with a message purportedly from the captive saying, “Please pay, they’re not joking.”

The macabre package received Sunday night also included a photograph showing 64-year-old Marzio Perrini with one of his ears mutilated, police said.

In 1973, the kidnapers of J. Paul Getty III, grandson of the late U.S. oil billionaire, cut off one of his ears and sent it to a Rome newspaper. He was freed after a reported payment of $2.7 million.