On This Date in Minnesota History: July 27

July 27, 1972 – Virginia Piper, wife of Harry C. Piper, Jr., board chairman of the Minneapolis brokerage firm of Piper, Jaffray & Hopwood, Inc., was kidnapped from her home in Orono, Minn., on this date. She was held for one million dollars ransom, then the largest ransom ever reported in the United States and the third largest in the world. Piper was found two days later, handcuffed and chained to a tree in the dense woods of Jay Cook State Park, near Duluth.
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