To understand the Paul Getty kidnapping, you need to know a little bit about Getty family history. Paul, also known as John Paul Getty III, was the grandson of J. Paul Getty, the man who began making money from oil leases in the 1910s and became extremely wealthy. Despite his vast wealth, however, he was a very frugal man. He had all the money in the world but was very particular about how it was distributed among his children and grandchildren.

Getty was supposedly such a miser that his fifth wife, Teddy Getty Gaston, revealed her ex-husband got upset with her for spending too much on medical treatments for their 6-year-old son, Timmy, who had a brain tumor, and he demanded she pay the bills from her own small allowance. When Timmy passed in 1958 at age 12, his father did not attend the funeral. Teddy divorced him that year.

Knowing all of this, it doesn't seem too surprising that Getty refused to pay Paul's ransom after he was kidnapped in 1973. But was money really more important than blood?