Before dawn on Aug. 17, 1975, about 60 police officers and F.B.I. agents charged into the Brooklyn apartment of a fireman named Mel Patrick Lynch.
The living room was dimly lit; its blinds were drawn. Mr. Lynch sat on the couch next to the unshaven, foul-smelling, bound and blindfolded 21-year-old scion of one of America’s richest families, Samuel Bronfman II, who had been missing for nine days.
The authorities arrested Mr. Lynch and an accomplice, Dominic Byrne. The men confessed to abducting Mr. Bronfman, describing the planning and execution of the crime and identifying the hiding spot of two garbage bags containing a $2.3 million ransom.