Could A Million Dollar Ransom Still Be Buried In Minnesota?

The date was July 27th, 1972. It was on this below-average 68 degree cloudy Thursday that the wife of Minneapolis chairman and CEO Harry 'Bobby' Piper, Virginia, was kidnapped from the front yard of their Orono home at gunpoint. Virginia was found two days later chained to a tree in Jay Cooke State Park near Duluth. The kidnappers only revealed Virginia's location after Piper agreed to and paid a $1 million dollar, in cash, ransom. That ransom money, other than $4,000 that was recovered was never seen again. Some think it is still buried up on a property in Central Minnesota.

That million-dollar ransom would be worth today $6.336 million, and according to a Fox 9 story that aired last night, might be still buried on the property of acquitted kidnapper Don Larson who was sentenced to life in prison in 1976 for committing mass murder on the same property located near Willow River.

According to the Fox 9 story, "Larson had told a former boss that he buried some money in his yard in Willow River and put a rock on top of it...The FBI got a search warrant and began digging up the 80-acre property in Willow River, looking for the million dollars in ransom money but found nothing."

So the question is where did the million-dollar ransom go? Only $4,000 was ever recovered, and many associated with the infamous kidnapping case have died including Larson and both Pipers.

Did Larson indeed bury on his property and the FBI just wasn't able to find it? Did an accomplice stash the money and no one was ever able to safely recover it? One thing is certain, wherever that money is now isn't where anyone else knows about it, and it can probably sit for another roughly 50 years.

You can watch the full report from Fox 9 below