In February 1935, Cumberland Police received a call from their brother officers in Frostburg. A man from Cumberland had walked into their office and reported he had been kidnapped.
Robert Peltier was a 30-year-old salesman from Lima, Ohio. He worked for a sewing machine company that had a branch office in Cumberland.
Peltier told police that he had been getting into his car, which had been parked in front of the Cumberland Evening Times building on South Mechanic Street, when a stranger got in the passenger side. He drew a pistol and ordered Peltier to start driving.
They got onto Route 40 and continued onto Borden Shaft. The abductor jabbed the pistol in Peltier’s direction and ordered him out of the car.
Peltier climbed out of the car, and his abductor drove off, leaving Peltier standing in the middle of nowhere. He walked 2.5 miles to Frostburg to report the kidnapping.
State, county and city police searched for the abductor for hours without any luck. However, they did find Peltier’s car abandoned near Gilmore. It had run out of gas.
County Investigator Terrence J. Boyle was assigned the case and opened an investigation. He started asking questions of people who lived and worked around the Evening Times building, Borden Shaft and Gilmore. He found witnesses who recognized Peltier and said he had walked to a service station near Gilmore and attempted to get gas for a car.
“Peltier, police authorities say, has either a clever imagination or thought he could fool the local and county police authorities with a story he told,” the Evening Times reported.
Boyle took Peltier to the state’s attorney’s office and questioned him. Peltier finally admitted he had lied about the kidnapping.
It turned out that Peltier was going through some hard times. He owed a large balance on his car and couldn’t make the payments.
To make matters worse, the bearings had burned out on the car, and it needed repairs.
Peltier’s plan was to report the car stolen so he could avoid making at least one payment while there was an ongoing investigation. He figured the car would eventually be found.
When it was, he planned on claiming the kidnapper had caused the burned-out bearings so that his insurance would replace them at no expense to him.
Realizing he could be charged with making a false police report, Peltier offered to leave the county if the police released him.
This seems to have been what happened, as no mention of charges being filed or a court appearance is found in the newspapers.
Peltier returned home to Lima and, apparently, had no other major run-ins with the law. He married Helen McFarland, and although they had a long marriage, they had no children.
On May 26, 1976, after a short illness, he died in a hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was 70 years old. He had continued working as a salesman, but he had moved on from sewing machines and was selling life insurance for Bankers Life Insurance Co.