There is historical precedent for Beaufoy's interpretation. Soon after John Paul III was kidnapped, his mother, Gail Harris, received a letter that said, "Dear Mummy, since Monday I have fallen into the hands of kidnappers. Don’t let me be killed.” But since John Paul had joked about faking his own kidnapping in the past, some of his relatives and the police department wrote the letter off as a hoax. Getty, too, may have been hesitant to pay for the ransom because he thought it was all a scam.