Angelo LaMarca was a family man, living in Plainview, New York with 2 kids and a pregnant wife. He was working as a taxi dispatcher and truck driver, when he ran into money problems. He couldn't afford his house, the unpaid bills started piling up, and he was being threatened by a loan shark. On July 4, 1956 he was driving around Westbury trying to figure out how to get the money he needed. When he saw baby Peter alone on a porch, he acted on instinct; wrote a ransom note, snatched the baby and drove off. LaMarca had previously been arrested for bootlegging by the Department of Treasury, which helped the FBI convict him. Similarity between the handwriting on both the ransom not and probation letters inevitably led to his arrest.