Las Vegas Sun

April 25, 2024

Sun Flashbacks: Kidnapping case left all with feeling of emptiness

Harold Hyman, crime reporter from 1965-1990, on his coverage of the most infamous child kidnapping case in Las Vegas history -- the 1978 abduction of Cary Sayegh, son of Carpet Barn owners Sol and Marilyn Sayegh, from a Jewish school at Temple Beth Sholom:

"The kidnapping was an affront to the entire community and Hank had several of his reporters doing surveillance work to try to get information that would lead to Cary's rescue.

"I was once on a surveillance with attorney (now Las Vegas Mayor) Oscar Goodman at the school. We believed the man who we thought was the kidnapper would return there because his girlfriend had a kid at the school. We thought we could follow him and maybe find Cary.

"A lot of what we learned we didn't print. We only wrote about the police and FBI investigations, not ours. When we got a tip that Cary was buried (alive with oxygen while ransom was pending) on Tropicana Avenue at a trailer park near Paradise Road, Hank personally went out with a shovel and dug around.

"Cary was never found. We felt a lot of emptiness after working sometimes all day and all night on that story."

Today, Harold Hyman does surveillance and other detective work for a Las Vegas private investigator.

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