After his second wife's death, Getty became reclusive for a time and his heroin addiction continued to spiral as he was racked with guilt for his wife's death. In 1973, his eldest son, John Paul Getty III, was kidnapped in Rome by Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mobsters and held in the Calabrian Mountains, chained to a stake in a cave. Getty did not have enough money to pay the $17 million ransom demand, and his father refused to help, saying "I have 14 other grandchildren, and if I pay one penny now, then I will have 14 kidnapped grandchildren."[14] However, when one of his son's ears was delivered by mail to a newspaper in Rome (delivery had been delayed by three weeks because of a postal strike), his father finally agreed to help out with the ransom through a $2.2 million payment (the maximum that was tax-deductible) and a $1 million loan which he extended to his son at 4% interest.[14]