CHARLES AUGUSTUS LINDBERG, JR 20MOS (The Lindbergh Kidnapping) (6-22-1930 TO 3-2-1932) (KB-Bruno Richard Hauptmann-Stranger) May 24th, 2014 @3:02 PM Born: June 22nd, 1930 Englewood, New Jersey Died: March 2nd, 1932 (aged 20mos) Hopewell Township, New Jersey Cause Of Death: Blow to the Head Body Discovered:May 12th, 1932, in Hopewell, New Jersey Resting Place: Ashes scattered in the Atlantic Ocean Nationality: US Other Names: Lindbergh baby Known For: Kidnap victim The kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the son of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was one of the most highly publicized crimes of the 20th century. The 18mon old toddler was abducted from his family home in East Amwell, New Jersey, on the evening of March 1st, 1932. Over two months later, on May 12th, 1932, his body was discovered a short distance from the Lindberghs home in neighboring Hopewell Township. A medical examination determined that the cause of death was a massive skull fracture. After an investigation that lasted more than two years, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and charged with the crime. In a trial that was held from January 2nd to February 13th, 1935, Hauptmann was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. He was executed by electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison on April 3rd, 1936. Hauptmann proclaimed his innocence to the end. Newspaper writer, H. L. Mencken called the kidnapping and subsequent trial The Biggest Story Since The Resurrection. The crime spurred Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act, commonly called the Lindbergh Law, which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime. The Crime At 8:00 PM on the 1st of March 1932, Betty Gow, the nurse of the family, put Charles Lindbergh Jr., then 20mos old, to bed in his crib. She wrapped the baby in a blanket and fastened it with two large pins to prevent him from moving during sleep. Around 9:30 PM, Charles Lindbergh Sr., the babys father, heard a noise that made him think that the slats from the full orange crate in the kitchen had broken off and fallen. However, at 10:00 PM, Betty Gow returned to the babys bedroom to discover that he was not in his crib. She asked Mrs. Lindbergh, who had just come out of her bath, if the baby was with her. Not finding Charles Lindbergh Jr. with his mother, the nurse came down to talk with Mr. Lindbergh, who was in the library just below the babys room in the southeast corner of the house. Charles Lindbergh went immediately to the childs room to see for himself that the baby was gone. As he searched the room, he found a white envelope on the window sill above the radiator. Lindbergh took his gun and went around the house looking for intruders. In 20mins, the local police were on the way to the home, along with the media and the familys lawyer. Later that night, one tire print was discovered in the mud caused by the rainy weather conditions earlier that day. Shortly after the police had begun searching near the perimeter of the house, they discovered three pieces of a ladder in a nearby bush that appeared intelligently designed but crudely constructed. The Investigation First on the scene was Chief Harry Wolfe of the nearby Hopewell Borough police. Wolfe was soon joined by New Jersey State Police officers. The police searched the home and scoured the surrounding area for miles. After midnight, a fingerprint expert arrived at the home to examine the note left on the window sill and the ladder. The ladder had 400 partial fingerprints and some footprints left behind. However, most were of no value to the investigation due to the surge of media and police that were present within the first 30 to 60mins after the first call for help. During the fingerprint discovery process, not a single usable fingerprint was found in the room, none from Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh, none from the baby, and none from Betty Gow. There were smudges found proving that the nursery was not wiped clean as suggested by some authors. Getting any solid evidence outside the house proved to be virtually impossible. The ransom note that was found by Lindbergh was opened and read by the police after they arrived. The brief, handwritten letter was riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical irregularities: Ransom Note Left At Site Of Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Dear Sir! Have 50.000 $ redy 25,000 $ in 20$ bills 15,000$ in 10$ bills and 10,000$ in 5% bills After 2–4 days we will inform you were to deliver the mony. We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the Police The child is in gut care. Indication for all letters are Singnature (Symbol to right) and three hohls. There were two interconnected circles (colored red and blue) below the message, with a hole punched through the red circle and two other holes punched outside the circles. Word of the kidnapping spread quickly, and, along with police, the well-connected and well-intentioned arrived at the Lindbergh estate. There were military colonels offering their aid, though only one had law enforcement expertise: Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. The other colonels were Henry Skillman Breckinridge, a Wall Street lawyer; William J. Donovan (a.k.a. Wild Bill Donovan, a hero of the First World War who would later head the OSS). Lindbergh and these men believed that the kidnapping was perpetrated by organized crime figures. The letter, they thought, seemed written by someone who spoke German as his native language. Charles Lindbergh, at this time, used his influence to control the direction of the investigation. They contacted Mickey Rosner, a Broadway hanger-on rumored to know mobsters. Rosner, in turn, brought in two speakeasy owners: Salvatore Salvy Spitale and Irving Bitz. Lindbergh quickly endorsed the duo and appointed them his intermediaries to deal with the mob. Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf Several organized crime figures – notably Al Capone, Willie Moretti, Joe Adonis and Longy Zwillman — spoke from prison, offering to help return the baby to his family in exchange for money or for legal favors. Specifically, Capone offered assistance in return for being released from prison under the pretense that his assistance would be more effective. This was quickly denied by the authorities. The morning after the kidnapping, U.S. President Herbert Hoover was notified of the crime. Though the case did not seem to have any grounds for federal involvement (kidnapping then being classified as a local crime), Hoover declared that he would move Heaven and Earth to recover the missing child. The Bureau of Investigation (not yet called the FBI) was authorized to investigate the case, while the United States Coast Guard, the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Immigration Service and the Washington, D.C., police were told their services might be required. New Jersey officials announced a $25,000 reward for the safe return of Little Lindy. The Lindbergh family offered an additional $50,000 reward of their own. The total reward of $75,000 was made even more significant by the fact that the offer was made during the early days of the Great Depression. A few days after the kidnapping, a new ransom letter arrived at the Lindbergh home via the mail. Postmarked in Brooklyn, the letter was genuine, carrying the perforated red and blue marks. A second ransom note then arrived by mail, also postmarked from Brooklyn. Then, a third letter was mailed. It too came from Brooklyn. This letter warned that since the police were now involved in the case, the ransom had been raised to $70,000. John Condon During this time, a well-known Bronx personality and retired school teacher, John F. Condon—subsequently known as Jafsie (a pseudonym based on a phonetic pronunciation of Condons initials, J.F.C.)—wrote a letter to the Bronx Home News, offering $1,000 if the kidnapper would turn the child over to a Catholic priest. Condon received a letter reportedly written by the kidnappers. It authorized Condon to be their intermediary with Lindbergh. Lindbergh accepted the letter as genuine. Following the latest letters instructions, Condon placed a classified ad in the New York American: Money is Ready. Jafsie. Condon then waited for further instructions from the culprits. A meeting between Jafsie and a representative of the group that claimed to be the kidnappers was eventually scheduled for late one evening at Woodlawn Cemetery. According to Condon, the man sounded foreign but stayed in the shadows during the conversation, and he was thus unable to get a close look at his face. The man said his name was John, and he related his story: he was a Scandinavian sailor, part of a gang of three men and two women. The Lindbergh child was unharmed and being held on a boat, but the kidnappers were still not ready to return him without a payment of the ransom. When Condon expressed doubt that John actually had the baby, he promised some proof: the kidnapper would soon return the babys sleeping suit. The stranger asked Condon, ...would I burn (be executed), if the package (baby) were dead? When questioned further, he assured Condon that the baby was alive. On March 16th, 1932, John Condon received a package by mail that contained a toddlers sleeping suit, which was sent as proof of their claim, and a seventh ransom note. Condon showed the sleeping suit to Lindbergh, who identified it as belonging to his son. After the delivery of the sleeping suit, Condon took out a new ad in the Home News declaring, Money is ready. No cops. No secret service. I come alone, like last time. One month after the child was kidnapped, on April 1st, 1932, Condon received a letter from the reported kidnappers. They were ready to accept payment. Payment Of The Ransom The ransom was packaged in a wooden box that was custom-made in the hope that it could later be identified. The ransom money itself was made up with a number of gold certificates that were to be withdrawn from circulation in the near future. It was hoped that anyone passing large amounts of gold notes would draw attention to himself and help aid in identifying the abductors. Also, while the bills themselves were not marked, the serial number of each bill was recorded at the insistence of Bureau of Internal Revenue Intelligence Unit Chief Elmer Lincoln Irey. The next evening, April 2nd, Condon was given a note by an unknown cab driver. Condon met John and told him that they had been able to raise only $50,000. The man accepted the money and gave Condon a note. The child was supposedly in the care of two women who, according to the note, were innocent. Discovery Of The Body On May 12th, 1932, delivery truck driver William Allen pulled his truck to the side of a road about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) south of the Lindbergh home near the hamlet of Mount Rose in neighboring Hopewell Township. He went to a grove of trees to relieve himself, and there he discovered the body of a toddler. Allen notified the police, who took the body to a morgue in nearby Trenton, New Jersey. The body was badly decomposed, and it was discovered that the skull was badly fractured. The body looked like it had been chewed on and attacked by various animals as well as indications that someone had made an attempt to hastily bury the body. Lindbergh and Gow quickly identified the baby as the missing infant based on the overlapping toes of the right foot and the shirt that Gow had made for the baby. They surmised that the child had been killed by a blow to the head. Mr. Lindbergh was insistent on having the body cremated afterward. Once the U.S. Congress learned that the child was dead, legislation was rushed making kidnapping a federal crime. The FBI could now aid the case more directly. In June 1932, officials began to suspect an inside job perpetrated by someone the Lindberghs trusted. Suspicions fell upon Violet Sharp, a British household servant at the Morrow home. She had given contradictory testimony regarding her whereabouts on the night of the kidnapping. It was reported that she appeared nervous and suspicious when questioned. She committed suicide on June 10th, 1932, by ingesting a silver polish that contained potassium cyanide just prior to what would have been her fourth time being questioned. After her alibi was confirmed, it was later determined that the possible threat of losing her job and the intense questioning had driven her to commit suicide. At the time, the police investigators were criticized for what some felt were the heavy handed police tactics used. Following the death of Violet Sharp, John Condon was also questioned by police. Condons home was searched as well, but nothing was found that tied Condon to the crime. Charles Lindbergh stood by Condon during this time as well. John Condons Unofficial Investigation After the discovery of the body, John Condon remained unofficially involved in the case. To the public, he had become a suspect and in some circles vilified. For the next two years, he visited police departments and pledged to find Cemetery John. Condons actions regarding the case were becoming increasingly flamboyant. On one occasion, while riding a city bus, he saw a suspect and, announcing his secret identity, ordered the bus to a stop. The startled driver complied, and Condon darted from the bus, though Condons target eluded him. John Condons actions were also criticized as exploitative when he agreed to appear in a vaudeville act regarding the kidnapping. Liberty magazine published a serialized account of John Condons involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping under the title Jafsie Tells All. Tracking The Ransom Money Investigation of the case was soon in the doldrums. There were no developments and little evidence of any sort, so police turned their attention to tracking the ransom payments. A pamphlet was prepared with the serial numbers on the ransom bills, and 250,000 copies were distributed to businesses mainly in New York City. A few of the ransom bills turned up in scattered locations, some as far away as Chicago and Minneapolis, but the people spending them were never found. An Example Of A 1928 Series $10 Gold Certificate As per Executive Order 6102, Gold Certificates were to be turned in by May 1st, 1933. A few days before the deadline, a man in Manhattan brought in $2,980 of the ransom money to be exchanged. The bank was busy and no one could remember anything specific about the person. He had filled out a required form, which gave his name as J. J. Faulkner. The address supplied was 537 West 149th Street in New York City. When authorities visited the address, they learned that no one named Faulkner had lived there – or anywhere nearby – for many years. U.S. Treasury officials kept looking and eventually learned that a woman named Jane Faulkner had lived at the address in question in 1913. She had moved after she married a German man named Giessler. The couple was tracked down, and both denied any involvement in the crime. Capture Of A Suspect Bruno Richard Hauptmann For thirty months, New York Police Detective James J. Finn and FBI Agent Thomas Sisk had been working on the Lindbergh case. They had been able to track down many bills from the ransom money that were being spent in places throughout New York City. A map created by Finn recorded each find and eventually showed that many of the bills were being passed mainly along the route of the Lexington Avenue subway. This subway line connected the East Bronx with the east side of Manhattan, including the German-Austrian neighborhood of Yorkville. On September 18th, 1934, a gold certificate from the ransom money was referred to Detective Finn and Agent Sisk. Although President Roosevelt had issued an executive order on April 5th, 1933, calling for all gold certificates to be turned in by May 1st, 1933, under the penalty of fine or imprisonment, some members of the public held on to them past the deadline. As of July 31st, 1934, $161 million in gold certificates were still in general circulation. The ten dollar gold certificate was discovered by a teller of the Corn Exchange Bank at 125th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan. It had a New York license plate, 4U-13-41-N.Y, penciled in the margin, which helped the investigators trace the bill to a nearby gas station. The station manager, Walter Lyle, had written down the license plate number feeling that his customer was acting suspicious and was possibly a counterfeiter. It was found that the license plate number belonged to a blue Dodge sedan owned by Richard Hauptmann of 1279 East 222nd Street in the Bronx. Hauptmann was found to be a German immigrant with a criminal record in his homeland. When Hauptmann was arrested, he had on his person a twenty dollar gold certificate. A search by police of Hauptmanns garage found over $14,000 of the ransom money. During the police investigation, the garage that Hauptmann had built was torn down in the search for the money. Hauptmann was arrested by Finn; he was interrogated, as well as beaten at least once, throughout the day and night that followed. The money, Hauptmann stated, along with other items, had been left with him by friend and former business partner Isidor Fisch. Fisch had died on March 29th, 1934, shortly after returning to Germany. Only following Fischs death, Hauptmann stated, did he learn that the shoe box left with him contained a considerable sum of money. He took the money because he claimed that it was owed to him from a business deal that he and Fisch had made. Hauptmann consistently denied any connection to the crime or knowledge that the money in his house was from the ransom. In the search of his apartment by police, a considerable amount of additional evidence that he was involved in the crime surfaced. One item was a notebook that contained a sketch for the construction of a ladder similar to that which was found at the Lindbergh home in March 1932. John Condons telephone number, along with his address, were discovered written down on a closet wall in the house. A key linking piece of evidence, a piece of wood, was discovered in the attic of the home. After being examined by an expert, it was determined to be an exact match to the wood used in the construction of the ladder found at the scene of the crime. Hauptmann was indicted in the Bronx on September 24th, 1934, for extorting the $50,000 ransom from Charles Lindbergh. Two weeks later, on October 8th, 1934, Hauptmann was indicted in New Jersey for the murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. Two days later, he was surrendered to New Jersey authorities by New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman to face charges directly related to the kidnapping and murder of the child. Hauptmann was moved to the Hunterdon County Jail in Flemington, New Jersey, on October 19th, 1934. The Trial The old Hunterdon County Courthouse, site of the trial Hauptmann was charged with capital murder, meaning that conviction would result in the death penalty. He pleaded not guilty. Held at the Hunterdon County Courthouse in Flemington, New Jersey, the trial soon became a sensation: Reporters swarmed the town, and every hotel room was booked. In exchange for rights to publish Hauptmanns story in their newspaper, Edward J. Reilly was hired by the Daily Mirror to serve as Hauptmanns attorney. David T. Wilentz, Attorney General of New Jersey, led the prosecution. In addition to Hauptmanns possession of over $14,000 of the ransom money, the State introduced evidence showing a striking similarity between Hauptmanns handwriting and the handwriting on the ransom notes. Eight different handwriting experts (Albert S. Osborn, Elbridge W. Stein, John F. Tyrrell, Herbert J. Walter, Harry M. Cassidy, Wilmer T. Souder, Albert D. Osborn, and Clark Sellers) were called by the prosecution to the witness stand, where they pointed out similarities between words and letters in the ransom notes and in Hauptmanns writing specimens (which included documents written before he was arrested, such as automobile registration applications). One expert (John M. Trendley) was called by the defense to rebut this evidence, while two others (Samuel C. Malone and Arthur P. Meyers) declined to testify at the trial. The latter two demanded $500 for their services before even looking at the notes and were promptly dismissed when Fisher declined to render such an amount. Based on the forensic work of Arthur Koehler at the Forest Products Laboratory, the State also introduced photographic evidence demonstrating that the wood from the ladder left at the crime scene matched a plank from the floor of Hauptmanns attic: the type of wood, the direction of tree growth, the milling pattern at the factory, the inside and outside surface of the wood, and the grain on both sides were identical, and two oddly placed nail holes lined up with a joist splice in Hauptmanns attic. Additionally, the prosecutors noted that Condons address and telephone number had been found written in pencil on a closet door in Hauptmanns home. Hauptmann himself admitted in a police interview that he had written Condons address on the closet door: I must have read it in the paper about the story. I was a little bit interested and keep a little bit record of it, and maybe I was just on the closet, and was reading the paper and put it down the address. When asked about Condons telephone number, he could respond only, I cant give you any explanation about the telephone number. The defense did not challenge the identification of the body, a common practice in murder cases at the time designed to avoid exposing the jury to an intense analysis of the body and its condition. Lindbergh On The Witness Stand Condon and Lindbergh both testified that Hauptmann was John. Another witness, Amandus Hochmuth, testified that he saw Hauptmann near the scene of the crime. Hauptmann was ultimately convicted of the crimes and sentenced to death. His appeals were rejected, though New Jersey Governor Harold G. Hoffman granted a temporary reprieve of Hauptmanns execution and made the politically unpopular move of having the New Jersey Board of Pardons review the case. They found no reason to issue a pardon. Hauptmann turned down a large offer from a Hearst newspaper for a confession and refused a last-minute offer to commute his execution to a life sentence in exchange for a confession. He was electrocuted on April 3rd, 1936, just over four years after the kidnapping. Following Hauptmanns death, some reporters and independent investigators came up with numerous questions regarding the way the investigation was run and the fairness of the trial. Questions were raised concerning issues ranging from witness tampering to the planting of evidence. Twice during the 1980s, Anna Hauptmann sued the state of New Jersey for the unjust execution of her husband. Both times the suits were dismissed on unknown grounds. Controversy Like other notorious crimes, the Lindbergh kidnapping has attracted hoaxes and alternative theories. Review Of The Evidence Erastus Mead Hudson was a fingerprint expert who knew the then-rare silver nitrate process of collecting fingerprints off wood and other surfaces on which the previous powder method could not detect fingerprints. He found that Hauptmanns fingerprints were not on the wood, even in places that the man who made the ladder would have had to touch. Upon reporting this to a police officer and stating that they must look further, the officer said, Good God, dont tell us that, Doctor! The ladder was then washed of all fingerprints, and Schwarzkopf refused to make it public that Hauptmanns prints were not on the ladder. Several books have been written proclaiming Hauptmanns innocence. These books variously criticize the police for allowing the crime scenes to become contaminated, Lindbergh and his associates for interfering with the investigation, Hauptmanns trial lawyers for ineffectively representing him, and the reliability of the witnesses and the physical evidence presented at the trial. Ludovic Kennedy, in particular, questioned much of the evidence, such as the origin of the ladder and the testimony of many of the witnesses. A recent book on the case, A Talent to Deceive by British investigative writer William Norris, not only declares Hauptmanns innocence but also accuses Lindbergh of a cover-up of the killers true identity. The book points the finger of blame at Dwight Morrow, Jr., Lindberghs brother-in-law. No proof is offered, however. At least one modern author disagrees with these theories. Jim Fisher, a former FBI agent and professor at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, has written two books on the subject, The Lindbergh Case (1987) and The Ghosts of Hopewell (1999) to address, at least in part, what he calls a revision movement regarding the case. In these texts, he provides an interpretation discussing both the pros and cons of the evidence presented at trial. He summarizes his conclusions thus: Today, the Lindbergh phenomena is a giant hoax perpetrated by people who are taking advantage of an uninformed and cynical public. Notwithstanding all of the books, TV programs, and legal suits, Hauptmann is as guilty today as he was in 1932 when he kidnapped and killed the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindbergh. In 2005, the truTV television program Forensic Files conducted a re-examination of the physical evidence in the kidnapping using more modern scientific techniques. Kelvin Keraga concluded that the ladder used in the kidnapping was made from wood that had previously been part of Hauptmanns attic. Three forensic document examiners, Grant Sperry, Gideon Epstein, and Peter E. Baier, PhD, worked independently of each other. Sperry concluded that it was highly probable that the kidnappers notes were written by Hauptmann. Epstein concluded that there was overwhelming evidence that the notes were written by one person and that one person was Richard Bruno Hauptmann. Baier wrote that Hauptmann probably wrote the notes, but Baier said, Looking at all these findings no definite and unambiguous conclusion can be drawn. The program concluded that Hauptmann had indeed been guilty but it noted that many questions remained, such as how he could have known that the Lindberghs would be remaining in Hopewell during the week. Several authors have suggested that Charles Lindbergh, the father, was responsible for the kidnapping. In 2010, Jim Bahm, author of the book Beneath the Winter Sycamores about the Lindbergh Kidnapping, implied that the baby was physically disabled and Charles Lindbergh wanted to have someone else raise the child in Germany. In the book, after 10 days, the baby died of pneumonia, and the kidnappping plot blew up in Lindberghs face. Robert Zorns 2012 book, Cemetery John, proposes that Hauptmann was the foot soldier in a conspiracy with two other German-born men, John and Walter Knoll. Zorns father, economist Eugene Zorn, had been investigating an incident from his teen years that convinced him he had witnessed the conspiracy being discussed. After the elder Zorns death, son Robert continued the investigation. If you suspect that a child is being abused or neglected...It is your duty to report it! :( Call this number to report child abuse ANY WHERE 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or National Center For Abused, Missing and Exploited Children 1(800)843-5678. Please Share!!! Thank you! ^_^ FOR Missing CHILDREN: 1-800-THE LOST (1-800-843-5678) Website: themissingkids Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 22:43:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015