March 4, 2007
The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping
by
Lona Manning
As Bruno Richard
Hauptmann counted down the days to his execution at the State Prison in
Trenton, N.J., his wife Anna went on the lecture circuit, asking her fellow
German immigrants to donate to the Hauptmann defense fund. Her husband was
not guilty of the "Crime of the Century," she pleaded -- he had not
kidnapped and murdered the little Lindbergh baby.
Many checks were mailed directly to Hauptmann at the
Death House. He realized that the donors who sent only one dollar didn't
necessarily believe in his innocence, they wanted him to endorse the check
so they could have the autograph of the man condemned for killing the child
of the world-famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh.
But he's acquired a host of new supporters in the
decades since he died in the electric chair. Conspiracy theories abound
about the Lindbergh kidnapping case, and many people unfamiliar with – or
dismissive of – the evidence, believe Hauptmann was framed.
The Lone Eagle
"Do you have the baby, Mrs. Lindbergh?" the nursemaid,
Betty Gow, asked her employer.
"No." Anne Morrow Lindbergh looked at Betty in
bewilderment.
"Perhaps Colonel Lindbergh has him, then." Betty ran
downstairs to the study. "Colonel Lindbergh, have you got the baby, please
don't fool me."
"The baby? Isn't he in his crib?"
The wind rattled the shutters against the window
glass. The night outside was pitch black. A ransom note lay on the nursery
windowsill. The crib was empty.
So began the most celebrated kidnapping case of the
last century, a case that is still hotly debated today. Who stole little
Charles Lindbergh, Jr., on March 1, 1932? And was Bruno Hauptmann wrongfully
convicted?
Charles Lindbergh became an overnight world-wide
celebrity in May of 1927 when he flew his single-engine aircraft, the
Spirit of St. Louis, across the Atlantic, becoming the first person to
fly solo non-stop from New York to Paris. The publicity and adulation for
Lindbergh was intense. He was young, (just 25 years old), six foot three
inches tall, handsome in a clean-cut All-American way, nonchalant about his
bravery, and good to his mother. He was called "Lucky Lindy" and the "Lone
Eagle." More than two hundred songs were written in his honor. There were
ticker-tape parades, torchlight parades, poetry contests. News photographers
dogged his every move.
In the five years following his transatlantic flight,
The New York Times alone mentioned him over 2,700 times. In
1929, Lindbergh married Anne Morrow, the pretty, gentle daughter of a
wealthy diplomat; their first son was born a year later. But the family's
fame made their baby a vulnerable target. The Lindberghs chose a secluded
spot to build their spacious home, on 360 acres near the small town of
Hopewell, N.J., about 60 miles from New York City. On the night of March 1,
the Lindberghs, their servants and their pet dog were downstairs when the
kidnapper climbed a ladder to the second-story nursery and escaped before
the baby's disappearance was discovered by the nursemaid, who had gone to
check on him.
The
ransom note was marked with a distinctive device of two overlapping
circles and three punched holes. The note demanded $50,000 (roughly
equivalent to several million dollars today) and warned, in badly-spelled
English, not to make "anyding public or for the polise."
Not make anything public? Impossible. This was the
Lindbergh baby. This was the "crime of the century." His birth "was one of
the biggest news stories of 1930," said a contemporary newspaper report,
"and his first photograph was one of the most prized pictures in the history
of journalistic photography." "For the second time in five years,"
Lindbergh's biographer A. Scott Berg noted, "the world revolved around
Charles Lindbergh." The kidnapping of the "Little Eaglet" awakened a wave of
sympathetic grief, horror and outrage across the nation and the world.
Church-goers prayed for the baby's safe return. Boy Scout troops turned out
to search ditches, fields and forests. Even Al Capone, the notorious
gangster, vowed he would do everything possible to help find the baby – if
the authorities would just let him out of prison.
"The crime has brought on the biggest newspaper scoop
in the history of journalism, not excepting the [first] World War," said the
Hopewell Herald, the local paper. "Over 900 writers, photographers,
telegraph operators, radio announcers and engineers, aviators, police, [and]
detectives… are stationed in this area…. Every form of communication known
to science connects Hopewell at the present time with the world. The town is
shrouded in a veritable web of telephone wires… and at least 18 or 20
telegraph outlets including also the radio broadcasting setups."
The New Jersey State police took over the case from
the small local police force. Their commander was Norman Schwarzkopf, whose
son would later distinguish himself during the First Gulf War. The police
checked into the backgrounds of everyone who worked on building the house.
Border guards searched cars passing from the Northeastern United States into
Canada. Everyone carrying a blue-eyed child with blonde curls came under
scrutiny. Lindbergh insisted that the priority be getting the baby back, not
catching the kidnappers. "Lindbergh leading hunt for his baby," the
newspapers proclaimed, adding "Lindbergh is ready to pay [ransom] if he can
get the baby safely back to its mother's arms." The State of New Jersey
posted a $25,000 reward for information and people across the country sent
in contributions for the ransom.
A week later, the kidnappers mailed more letters,
which complained "We have warned you note to make anything public…. It is
[is it] realy necessary to make a world affair out of this… We will form you
latter were to deliver the money. But we will note do so until the Police is
out of the cace and the pappers are qute [papers are quiet]."
"Jafsie" Enters The Case
Dr. John Condon was a retired teacher who lived in New
York. Eccentric, self-important, intelligent and outgoing, he loved to air
his opinions in letters to the editor. After the story of the Lindbergh
kidnapping broke, Condon wrote to his favorite newspaper, the Bronx Home
News, to publicly offer his services to help recover the lost child.
This impulsive act on Condon's part might have come to
nothing – except that the kidnappers saw the letter and wrote him, accepting
his services as a go-between. The letter to Condon used the same symbol as
the other ransom notes – two overlapping circles with three holes punched
inside them.
|
 |
|
The ransom note "singnature",
photo courtesy Kelvin Keraga. |
Condon plunged into a secret world of intrigue, with
Lindbergh's blessing. He communicated with the kidnappers by placing cryptic
messages in the newspaper, signing himself as "Jafsie," a name based on his
initials J.F.C. The kidnappers communicated through notes which were
delivered to the house. Those notes in turn contained instructions for where
to find other notes which would direct Condon to a meeting place. (For
example, "Take a car and drive to the last supway station from jerome Ave
here. 100 feet from this last station on the left seide is a empty
frankfurther stand with a big open Porch around, you will find a notise in
senter of the porch underneath a stove.") At one point, Condon asked for a
"code" to communicate with the kidnappers. "It is note necessary to furnish
any code," the kidnappers replied. "You and Mr. Lindbergh know ouer Program
very well."
Following his instructions, Condon was led to a
cemetery on the night of March 11 and was met by a man with a German accent
who called himself "John." John wore his hat pulled low over his forehead
and his coat collar turned up, but Condon later provided a description for a
composite sketch.
John didn't have the baby with him and Condon had no
ransom money at that first meeting, but they agreed to meet again.
A month had gone by since the kidnapping, when Condon
and Lindbergh followed a second trail of notes that guided them to a night
rendezvous at another cemetery. Lindbergh stayed behind while Condon entered
the cemetery, but was close enough to hear a man call, "Hey, Doc." Condon
handed over the money in exchange for a note which read "The boy is on the
Boad Nelly. It is a small boad 28 feet long. Two persons are on the boad.
The are innosent. you will find the Boad between Horseneck Beach and gay
Head near Elizabeth Island."
Lindbergh and the Coast Guard searched the Martha's
Vineyard area for the boat Nelly. The boat was never found.
Although, at Lindbergh's request, the ransom money was
not marked – the kidnappers had warned him not to – investigators kept note
of all the serial numbers. A portion of the ransom was paid in
gold
certificates, which were worth their face value in gold.
Investigators knew that next year, all citizens were
required to exchange gold certificates for regular greenbacks because people
were hoarding gold during the Depression, which drained the country's gold
reserves. That meant the kidnapper would have to deposit or spend his gold
certificates, increasing the chance that someone would spot a matching
serial number.
There were other false leads, and an extortionist who
pretended to be negotiating with the kidnappers was caught and arrested, but
there was no break in the case. The local police, the state police, border
and customs officials, and the FBI were all involved in the investigation.
But the massive publicity was more of a hindrance than a help. As a recent
FBI article noted, investigators were buried in "a mass of misinformation
received from well-meaning but uninformed, highly imaginative individuals,
and a deluge of letters written by demented persons, publicity seekers, and
frauds."
Tips came in from all over the world – sightings of
the Lindbergh baby were reported from England, France, South America and
India. But the tragic truth was that he had never gone far from home.
A Heart-Breaking Discovery
Two and-a-half months passed, while Anne Lindbergh
agonized over her missing baby and her husband stoically worked with the
investigators. The ransom notes had repeatedly emphasized that the "child is
in gut care," "There is no worry about the boy. He is very well." But on May
12, a truck driver pulled over to the side of the road a few miles away from
the Lindbergh property and walked into the woods to relieve himself. There
he spotted the partially buried body of a small child. Only the back of the
head and upper body of the tiny corpse were visible. The exposed flesh was
dark like tanned leather.
The body was badly decomposed, and mauled by animals.
But it had golden curls, it was wearing a little flannel undershirt the
nursemaid had sewn hours before he disappeared, and its toes overlapped, a
Lindbergh family trait. The Lone Eagle was called to the Trenton morgue to
identify his son. The attending physician declared that the child had died
of a blow to the head, and had probably died on the night of the kidnapping.
Lindbergh instructed that the body be cremated.
The perfunctory autopsy and hasty cremation were the
subject of much criticism later. Lindbergh was trying to protect his son in
death from the thousands of people who obsessed about the case and might
even want to rob the corpse from the grave.
Now the search shifted to finding a murderer. The New
York Police Department was already involved and the FBI, under its long-time
commander, J. Edgar Hoover, joined the investigation. Early on, it was
surmised that the kidnappers must have had some inside information on the
Lindbergh household. Who knew that the Lindberghs had decided to stay at
Hopewell that night, instead of going to Anne's mother in Englewood, as they
had originally planned? How had the kidnappers known which room was the
nursery, or that the shutters on one particular window were warped and
couldn't be locked? The servants were interrogated, and Violet Sharpe, a
maid who worked for Anne Morrow Lindbergh's mother, came under suspicion
because she resisted questioning and couldn't remember the name of the movie
she'd supposedly been to that night, nor the friends she'd been with. After
several interviews with police, Sharpe committed suicide by drinking a
poisonous cleaning product. In time, police established that she'd been with
some men at a local speakeasy, a place where alcohol could be illegally
purchased during the alcohol-free
Prohibition years.
Sharpe may have wanted to hide her personal life from
her employers, but understandably, suspicion about her possible role in the
kidnapping has persisted. No proof has ever been established.
The only tangible leads were the ransom notes and a
home-made wooden ladder found on the ground outside the house. The language
and handwriting of the ransom notes suggested a foreign-born writer,
possibly German. The ladder was built in three sections, designed to fit
into a car, and had been left behind as the kidnapper fled. It was built of
random pieces of lumber, and the side rails of the middle section had split
lengthwise along the grain. Investigators surmised the kidnapper, descending
with the additional weight of the baby, had broken the ladder and fallen.
This may have been when the baby sustained his fatal head injury. The
kidnapper might have injured himself as well.
Any other forensic evidence, such as foot prints or
tire tracks, was destroyed when the Lindbergh property was overrun with
police, reporters, and sympathetic citizens in the hours after the baby's
disappearance. However, modern-day critics who condemn the investigation as
"botched" seldom acknowledge the enormous resources thrown into the case,
the sustained effort put forward to catch the kidnappers, and the problems
the authorities had to contend with.
The investigation was thorough and recognizably modern
in its approach. FBI agents searched through boat registrations, looking for
the boat Nelly. The employees of the cemeteries where Dr. Condon and
"John" had met were screened. New York police checked the names and
signatures of anyone who rented a safe-deposit box that spring. They checked
every person who had once been a pupil under Dr. Condon to see who had
criminal records, and every person released from a mental hospital before
the kidnapping. Previous kidnapping cases were re-examined, in hopes of
turning up a similar modus operandi.
But it was the painstaking forensic work of an
employee of the U.S. Forest Service Laboratory, Arthur Koehler, which most
resembles a modern CSI sleuth. He
analyzed the marks from the saw used to
mill the lumber and contacted 1,600 lumber mills. He eventually determined
that most of the wood for the ladder had been milled in South Carolina and
sold at a lumberyard in the Bronx.
One of the uprights on the top-most section of the
ladder did not come from the lumberyard; it appeared to be recycled wood
because it had some extra nail holes in it. Because the wood was unweathered,
Koehler figured that wherever it came from, it must have been indoors in a
dry place. This piece came to be known as Rail 16.
The authorities delivered 250,000 copies of a pamphlet
with serial numbers of the ransom money, concentrating on the New York area
where the mysterious man who called himself "John" apparently lived. They
visited and re-visited banks and business institutions to urge that the case
not be forgotten. It's probable that much of the money was spent and was
never checked. In early May, 1933, over $2,000 worth of gold certificates
was deposited at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. But the depositor had
used a false name and address. By early 1934, the trail went dry. Nine long
months went by and no ransom money surfaced.
In September, individual ransom bills began popping up
all over New York. Some merchants were able to provide descriptions of the
customer because they remembered the man who made small purchases, as little
as 10 cents, but paid with a ten dollar gold certificate, which meant
handing over a lot of change. The customer spoke with a pronounced German
accent, was of average height and build, with high, broad cheekbones and
piercing blue eyes. The case, J. Edgar Hoover proclaimed, went "red hot."
On Sept. 15, a gas-station manager suspiciously eyed a
$10 gold certificate from a man paying for 98 cents' worth of gas. The
manager knew that gold certificates were supposed to be out of circulation.
"You don't see these much anymore," he ventured. Suspicious, the manager
jotted down the license plate number of the customer's car on the bill, as
per company policy.
Three days later, a teller going over a deposit from
the gas station realized the certificate matched one of the ransom serial
numbers. The license plate number written on the note provided investigators
with a name and address.
Soon, investigators were staring at Bruno Richard
Hauptmann's application for a driver's license. His handwriting formation
was distinctively European. He spelled New York with a hyphen, just like the
kidnapper. He placed the dollar sign after the number, "5$" instead of "$5,"
just like the kidnapper. The kidnapper spelled "night" as "nihgt." Hauptmann
spelled "light" as "lihgt."
 |
Hauptmann's distinctive "x",
which looks like two "e"'s.
A comparison of the ransom note with his driver's registration from
the 1937 book,
The Hand of Hauptmann.
|
After two and a half years, investigators were certain
they had found "John."
Hauptmann was picked up on the evening of Sept. 19,
1934. An angry mob gathered outside the Greenwich Police Station, where he
was taken.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann
Hauptmann was born in Germany in 1899. He and two of
his brothers fought in World War I but only Hauptmann survived. Post-war
Germany was in desperate economic straits, and the unemployed Hauptmann
became a burglar and also committed armed robbery. He escaped from prison
and stowed away on a ship to the United States. Caught and returned to
Germany, he made one more failed attempt before successfully entering the
U.S..
Hauptmann was a good-looking, athletic man who
resembled the composite picture of "John." Once in America, Richard
Hauptmann found work as a carpenter and married another German immigrant,
Anna Schoeffler, who worked in a bakery. Later, Time magazine would
unkindly describe Anna as the "loyal, horse-faced wife."
Although eyewitness testimony was used, to dubious
effect, in the trial, it was circumstantial evidence that damned Hauptmann
to the electric chair.
When Hauptmann was arrested, he had $20 of the
ransom money in his pocket. Police found $14,000 more stashed in the
garage he rented.
Hauptmann had quit his job as a carpenter,
where he made $100 a month, on the very weekend that Dr. John Condon
paid the ransom money to "John." Since then, he had only worked
occasionally. His wife also quit her job at the bakery.
That same month, he opened an account with a
brokerage firm to buy stocks. He told friends that he was living on
his stock earnings, a remarkable accomplishment during the
Depression.
He had another bank account his wife didn't
know about, and in April, he started depositing change and small
bills, like someone who had broken larger denominations by making
small purchases.
As the prosecutor exclaimed: "He had more
money than this jury and myself, all of us put together…Here is a
poor carpenter, that had slaved for $100 a month, frugal, thrifty,
and he spends $400 for a radio. When? During a time when the country
was in the midst of the worst depression in its history, 1932. $125
for field glasses. Field glasses! Talk about luxury! Trips to
Florida….. He buys a canoe. He sends his wife to Germany…She bought
a chest of silverware there."
Hauptmann's explanation, which came to be derisively
known as "the Fisch Story," was that his friend and occasional business
partner, Isidor Fisch, gave him a shoebox before Fisch left for Germany.
Fisch, a failed businessman with a knack for conning
friends out of money, died of tuberculosis and never returned to the U.S.
Hauptmann claimed that he stored the shoebox in a closet but it had gotten
soaked by a leaky pipe. He claimed the shoebox disintegrated, revealing
thousands of dollars. Hauptmann explained that since Fisch owed him money,
he decided to pay himself back. He said that he had no idea it was the
Lindbergh ransom money. He took the money out of the shoebox, dried it, and
hid bundles of money here and there in his garage.
Authorities had strong evidence to tie Hauptmann to
the ransom demands. But did he have anything to do with the kidnapping and
death of little Charles? What if he was just an extortionist? If he was the
kidnapper, had he acted alone, or did he have an accomplice? Hauptmann was
questioned aggressively day and night and also beaten. He insisted he knew
nothing about the Lindbergh kidnapping.
Rail 16 – The Ladder
While searching the attic of Hauptmann's rented home
for more ransom money or other clues, police Det. Lewis Bornmann noticed
that an eight-foot section of the attic wood flooring was missing and there
was a little pile of sawdust where it had been sawn away. In the single most
damning piece of evidence against Hauptmann, wood expert Arthur Koehler
matched Rail 16 of the kidnap ladder with the flooring from the attic. The
four irregularly spaced extra nail holes in Rail 16 matched up perfectly
with the holes in the attic floor joists.
Hauptmann had worked part-time at the Bronx
lumberyard which sold some of the wood for the ladder.
The kidnap ladder was made with 8-penny nails
from the Pittsburgh Steel Company. Hauptmann had a keg of these
nails in his garage.
Koehler matched the nicks and groove marks
made by Hauptmann's hand planer, to nicks and grooves on the wood
used in the kidnap ladder, much as a ballistics expert would match
bullet scratches to the barrel of a particular gun. Hauptmann had
worked very little since the time of the kidnapping, and apparently
had not resharpened his plane, which still retained the distinct
series of nicks in the blade
The Defense
Modern celebrity trials, like O.J. or Michael Jackson,
have been compared to circuses. But no modern trial could compare to the
Hauptmann trial, held in Flemington, N.J. Thousands thronged the courthouse,
lining up at 3 in the morning to get a seat inside. Movie stars and
politicians got some of the coveted seats. Ordinary folk who couldn't get
inside waited outside all day in the rain and sleet for a glimpse of the
Lindberghs. Vendors sold little model kidnap ladders. The noise from the
crowds out front sometimes grew so loud that the attorneys could not hear
the witnesses.
The jurors were ordinary working class men and women
for whom the $3 a day stipend was real money after five years of the
Depression, while being sequestered at the local hotel with free meals was
the equivalent of a holiday. In addition, there was the glamour of seeing
the Lindberghs up close and all of America's top journalists such as Walter
Winchell and Damon Runyon, in town to cover the proceedings.
A New York tabloid paid the bills for Hauptmann's
lawyer in exchange for access to Hauptmann and his wife. The lawyer they
selected, Edward J. Reilly, was the bombastic, emotional type who could be
relied on provide colorful copy for the papers. History hasn't been kind to
Reilly, but he was a well-respected defense lawyer in his day. Court
observers were surprised when Reilly conceded that the corpse found in the
woods was the Lindbergh baby instead of trying to cast doubt on the
identification. When it came to the ladder, however, Reilly recognized how
dangerous that evidence was for his client and unsuccessfully tried to keep
the ladder out of court.
Arthur Koehler's testimony proved to be
devastating. Time magazine noted Reilly's "nimblest cross-examination
failed to shake this implacably precise witness."
The defense promised seven experts who would testify
that Hauptmann had not written the ransom notes, but in the end could only
produce one, who argued that the letter-formation and spelling peculiarities
in the ransom notes were common among Europeans, not just Hauptmann. The
prosecution provided eight handwriting experts who testified that only
Hauptmann could have written the notes. Prosecutor Wilentz broke up their
dry testimony by bringing on a statuesque beauty, Hildegarde Alexander,
described as "a blonde pajama model," who testified that she saw Hauptmann
staring at Dr. Condon in a telegraph office. Alexander was one of many
eyewitnesses for both sides whose testimony seems contrived.
Even Lindbergh's claim that he recognized Hauptmann's
voice as being the same voice that said "Hey, Doc," at the cemetery
two-and-a-half years earlier seems far-fetched. But he was the Lone Eagle.
As the prosecutor told the jury, "And Lindy remembered that voice. And who
is to say he didn't? Are you going to substitute your judgment for his?"
Major trials seem to attract a certain type of odd
duck – people who appear at the last minute, people who claim to have been
holding on to devastating evidence, but who never thought to mention it to
anybody until the cameras and crowds gather for the trial. (This strange
phenomenon continues today – a man showed up at the trial of the
Long Island
Shooter, claiming that someone controlled the murderer with a
microchip implanted in his brain.)
At the Lindbergh trial, a man almost caused a mistrial
when he stood up in the courtroom and yelled that he knew the identity of
the killer and that Hauptmann was innocent. (Between 200 and 250 people
confessed to the Lindbergh kidnapping over the years, authorities say).
What is inexplicable, even inexcusable, is that
lawyers for both sides put some of these bizarre people on the stand. One
87-year-old Hopewell man, testifying for the prosecution, claimed that
Hauptmann drove by his house the morning of the kidnapping. That is, he
remembered the face of a stranger in a car, before he had any reason to take
notice of him, and could pick him out in the courtroom three years later.
Only after the trial, the defense learned that this witness was legally
blind. Another local yokel with an amazing memory for faces was well-known
around Hopewell as a thief and liar.
An equally dubious line-up testified on behalf of
Hauptmann. Even with his imperfect English, Hauptmann could see that it
didn't do his case any good when a defense witness swore they saw somebody
else with the baby, or saw Hauptmann at his wife's bakery, and then the
prosecution got up and brought out that the witness was an ex-mental patient
or a criminal. "Where are they getting these witnesses from?" Hauptmann
complained. "They're really hurting me." His wife Anna, a meticulous
housekeeper, testified that she cleaned her closet "almost every week," but
never cleaned the top shelf and so never noticed if there was a shoebox full
of money up there. Hauptmann himself made a poor showing on the stand,
alternately arrogant and surly.
The defense suggested that Violet Sharpe, the dead
maid, and Isidor Fisch, the dead business partner, were the real kidnappers,
but they couldn't take apart the forensic evidence of the kidnap notes, the
ransom money, and the ladder. "I don't care about handwriting! I don't care
anything about wood!" Reilly blustered, but in vain.
Hauptmann was found guilty on Feb. 13, 1935. A
messenger boy inside the courthouse ran to a window and shouted the news to
the thousands of people waiting outside. The courthouse bell began to toll.
A great roar of satisfaction swept over the crowd as they learned the jury
had decided on the death penalty.
Although Hauptmann was executed only 19 months after
his arrest, his case was reviewed formally and informally and he was allowed
several stays of execution. New Jersey Gov. Harold Hoffman, who was no fan
of Schwarzkopf of the State Police,
publicly aired his doubts about
Hauptmann's guilt.
Sam Leibowitz, one of the nation's best attorneys,
spent hours with Hauptmann, reviewing the evidence against him. Leibowitz
told him frankly there were weaknesses in his story that he had to explain.
Hauptmann steadfastly insisted he was innocent. He
turned down a newspaper's offer of $75,000 – more money than the ransom
amount – to confess and name any accomplices. Hauptmann went to the
electric chair in the Death House in Trenton State Prison on April 3, 1936.
Hauptmann Rehabilitated
Hauptmann continues to attract defenders and
sympathizers 70 years after his death. Anna Hauptmann stayed loyal to her
husband for the 60 years of her widowhood. "I know my Richard could never do
such a thing," she repeatedly declared. Over the years, dozens of men, (and
one African-American woman!) have come forward, claiming to be the Lindbergh
baby. The New Jersey State Police conducted a review of the case in 1981. As
part of their research, the police used an electron microscope to analyze
the clothes found on the baby's corpse. They confirmed that the clothes on
the body came from the Lindbergh home.
Ten years later, Hauptmann's widow, aged 92, pleaded
one last time for the case to be reopened. Robert R. Bryan her lawyer, told
The New York Times that the "evidence was faked and that witnesses
were both pressured and bribed to support the state's case." Bryan, an
anti-death penalty activist, had also done legal work for one of the
Lindbergh baby claimants. Bryan declared the "Trial of the Century was the
greatest fraud in U.S. legal history."
Bryan went through the reams of Lindbergh files, which
included the thousands of letters with false leads, crazy theories, and
dubious eyewitness sightings. He decided the prosecution had buried vital
exculpatory evidence, that is, evidence that could have raised a reasonable
doubt or even exonerated Hauptmann. He gave the example of Frieda von Valta,
who claimed she saw Hauptmann on the subway the night of the kidnapping. Jim
Fisher, a Lindbergh historian, has countered that this claim was not
suppressed – according to police reports at the Lindbergh case archives, she
came forward at the trial and Reilly refused to put her on the stand. She
was a crackpot who constantly phoned the police with accusations against her
neighbors. Anna Hauptmann's suit garnered much publicity but went nowhere.
Nevertheless, Hauptmann's trial was undeniably unfair,
for a number of reasons:
The trial was unfair because of the
overwhelming media attention and public clamor. However, this
publicity was not created by the prosecution or the Lindberghs and
was often as much of a burden on them as it was on the defense. For
example, the newspapers broke the news that ransom money was being
tracked by serial numbers – certainly something that could have made
the kidnapper stop passing bills. But if Hauptmann was guilty of
killing the world's most famous baby, it is an act of unmitigated
gall to complain that the publicity engendered by his actions was
unfair to him. (As one of the kidnap notes said, "[is it] realy
necessary to make a world affair out of this"? And the author of
that note knew that the baby was dead.)
The trial was unfair in the sense that all
trials of that period were unfair by modern standards. The
prosecution brought forward "surprise" eyewitnesses without giving
the defense time to prepare. Handing over all evidence which may be
exculpatory was not explicitly required of prosecutors until the
1963 Brady case.
The Hauptmann trial took place before Brady
and before the Miranda you-have-the-right-to-remain-silent
ruling of 1965. Hauptmann was not singled out for unfair treatment
in this respect, he received treatment that other defendants of the
time received, treatment that today we regard as unfair.
The trial was unfair because of the prejudice
against Hauptmann as a foreigner and a German. Wilentz, the
prosecutor, made inflammatory remarks such as: "[The kidnapper]
wouldn't be an American. No American gangster and no American
racketeer ever sank to the level of killing babies. Ah, no! Oh, no,
it had to be a fellow that had ice water in his veins, not blood."
Prosecutors today could probably not get away
with charging Hauptmann with felony-murder. Manslaughter committed
in the course of a burglary was a capital offence. Hauptmann was
charged with stealing the clothes the baby was wearing, and thus the
prosecutors could ask for the death penalty.
But modern-day champions of Hauptmann are not upset
because a baby killer didn't get a fair trial. They are conspiracy theorists
who argue Hauptmann was innocent, deliberately
framed with manufactured
evidence.
The Microscope Effect
In his analysis of the O.J. Simpson trial, Patrick
Frey, a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles County, wrote: "I have a
theory. Put anything in life under an intense microscope – anything – and
you can find questions. Especially if you want to find them, and you proceed
off of incomplete information and jump to conclusions…. people ignore simple
theories based on basic evidence in favor of huge, unwieldy conspiracies
that could never be kept together in real life. Or they focus on one piece
of evidence at a time without looking at the big picture…. I call it the
Microscope Effect."
The Microscope Effect could equally well apply to the
Lindbergh case. The ransom notes, the lumber from the attic, the ransom
money in Hauptmann's possession, all tie Hauptmann to the crime.
Nevertheless, some researchers pore minutely over the case archives and have
built ramshackle theories which obscure the basic facts.
Not that the conspiracy theorists agree with one
another. Det. Ellis Parker thought the corpse in the woods wasn't the
Lindbergh baby; investigative journalist Ludovic Kennedy calls the
suggestion "ludicrous." Kennedy believes Hauptmann's "Fisch" story about the
money in the shoebox, others acknowledge that Hauptmann was an extortionist,
but argue he wasn't the kidnapper. Virtually everyone connected with the
case has been accused, at some time or another, of being complicit in the
murder, including Dr. John Condon, the mysterious Isidor Fisch, the
nursemaid, the other servants, Lindbergh's sister-in-law, and Lindbergh
himself. Other suspects have no known connection to the case – a disbarred
lawyer, the Purple Gang of Detroit, Lufthansa Airlines. The investigators,
the prosecutor and Arthur Koehler the wood expert have been accused in no
uncertain terms of fabricating evidence, committing perjury, and sending an
innocent man to the chair.
In fact, there was friction, rivalry, and resentment
between the State Police, the NYPD, and the Treasury Department, and
vociferous arguments about how to conduct the investigation and who should
get credit for what. It is difficult to imagine them pulling together an
air-tight conspiracy under such circumstances.
There are unresolved issues, evidence of police
bungling or overzealousness, and unexplained discrepancies in the thousands
of pages of the case file. There are questions about whether the time sheets
and payroll records at Hauptmann's last job were tampered with. Dr. Condon
was such an eccentric character that particulars of his testimony are
suspect. He initially hedged when asked to identify Hauptmann in a live
line-up, but at trial he had no doubts. Hauptmann's wife and friends gave
him reasonable alibis for the kidnapping night and the night the ransom
money was exchanged. Experts can quibble forever over the ransom notes,
although a majority of forensic experts who compared Hauptmann's writing
with the notes have concluded Hauptmann probably wrote them. But sweep every
dubious witness – for both sides – every crackpot confession, every
anonymous tip, off the table; the circumstantial and forensic evidence
speaks loud and clear.
Hauptmann told reporters, "If I made that ladder, I
would be a second-rate carpenter." (The kidnap ladder was cleverly but
crudely made.) And why would a carpenter, with ready access to lumber, go up
to his attic of his rented home and start ripping up floorboards? And yet,
even if there is no obvious explanation, physical evidence trumps
psychological theorizing. Ludovic Kennedy believed Rail 16 did not come from
Hauptmann's attic, but if it had: "It would of course have been conclusive
proof – as good as a set of fingerprints – that Hauptmann had been actively
involved in the kidnapping…"
In 2005, 70 years after Hauptmann's conviction,
Court TV
presented a re-investigation of the physical evidence.
"I was surprised by the strength and the overwhelming
amount of forensic evidence linking Hauptmann to this crime," Paul Dowling,
the show's producer, told the Associated Press. The program presented the
findings of Kelvin Keraga, an independent researcher, who coordinated an
extensive study of Rail 16. He compared it to the remaining piece of wood
found by Bornmann and to the rest of the planking in the attic. Using
meticulous comparison of wood grain, wood rings, mill planing marks, and
nail holes, Keraga concluded that there was "irrefutable evidence that Rail
16 was indeed part of Bruno Richard Hauptmann's attic floor prior to the
kidnapping." It therefore follows, Keraga added, that the serious
accusations against the police and Arthur Koehler regarding Rail 16 are
baseless.
 |
|
A diagram by
Kelvin Keraga showing the alleged position of Rail 16 in the
attic. (click to enlarge) |
Since the physical evidence and the case files in the
Lindbergh saga have been preserved, (much of it at the New Jersey State
Police Museum), future technological advances may bring more revelations
about the case. William J. Fitzpatrick, a district attorney in New York,
suggested in the New York Law Journal that the envelope flaps on the
ransom notes could be tested for DNA. He predicted "HBO will do a sequel to
the Crime of the Century called Gee, Hauptmann Really Did It."
Questions remain, of course. Was the baby killed
deliberately or accidentally? Did Hauptmann act alone? Did Violet Sharpe,
the maid, commit suicide because she was racked with guilt for some
involvement in the kidnapping? Was it chance that Hauptmann successfully
picked the right room, the right window, the right night for his crime? Why
didn't he confess in a plea-bargain? Hauptmann took these mysteries to the
chair with him.
Epilogue
Charles and Anne Lindbergh went on to have five more
children. In the years following the trial, Americans grew disillusioned
with Lindbergh when he made a friendly visit to Nazi Germany and urged
America to stay out of the coming European conflict. For his part, Lindbergh
was disillusioned with America and Americans. Lindbergh, more than anyone,
was hounded by America's least desirable characters – wackos, extortionists,
bogus psychics and the reporters who treated him and his family like
exhibits in a zoo. On two occasions after the kidnapping, obsessive stalkers
climbed up to the Lindbergh's second-story windows with ladders. He finally
took his yong family abroad to England, a move that sparked a brief flurry
of self-recrimination in the nation's tabloids, which faded as q.uickly a.s it
did after the car accident in which Diana, Princess of Wales, died. In his
later years, Lindbergh became an ardent conservationist. Lindbergh died in
August, 1974 and his wife in February , 2001.
Further Reading
There is much more fascinating detail available about
the Lindbergh case.
This writer recommends
Loss of Eden: a biography of
Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, by Joyce Milton and
Kidnap: the
Shocking Story of the Lindbergh case, by George Waller.
Lindbergh, by A. Scott
Berg, is a Pulitzer-prize-winning biography. Berg interviewed Anna Hauptmann
and nursemaid, Betty Gow, 60 years after the kidnapping. Berg told Terry
Gross of NPR's Fresh Air, "it was a fervent hope of mine that I would
find enough evidence to clear Bruno Richard Hauptmann…Unfortunately, the
deeper I got into the case and the more I studied the evidence, the more I
read the transcripts…. the guiltier he came up."
Attorney Robert R. Bryan remains convinced that
Hauptmann was framed: "My goal remains to historically right this terrible
wrong." A number of books, such as
Scapegoat, by Anthony Scaduto,
The Airman and the Carpenter, by Ludovic Kennedy, and
Crime of the
Century: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax, by Gregory Ahlgren and Stephen
Monier, promote the view that Hauptmann was framed, although they present
different theories of the crime.
The Lindbergh Case and
The Ghosts of Hopewell: Setting the Record Straight on the Lindbergh Case,
both by Jim Fisher, put the case for Hauptmann's guilt and answers many of
the conspiracy theories.
Crimes of the Century,
by Gilbert Geis and Leigh B. Bienen, has a chapter on the Lindbergh case,
with a useful discussion of the legal issues.
Charles Lindbergh and Ann Morrow Lindbergh published
numerous books about their life and work. Lindbergh wrote
The Spirit of
St. Louis about his epochal flight. Anne's most famous work is
Gift from the Sea, a meditation on being a woman. Her published
journal,
Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, covers the period of the
kidnapping. Their daughter Reeve Lindbergh has written
Under a Wing,
about growing up a Lindbergh.
Internet resources
Kelvin Keraga's forensic study of Rail 16 of the
kidnap ladder (.pdf
report) is part of Court TV's Forensic Files web site on
The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping: Investigation Reopened.
Prof. Douglas O. Linder developed the University
of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School Of
Law's Famous Trials web site
that includes photos, a discussion of the case, and
excerpts from the trial transcripts:
Famous American Trials: Richard Hauptmann (Lindbergh Kidnapping) Trial
1935.
A website with Frequently Asked Questions:
members.aol.com/LindyTruth/.
Featured Subject: Charles A. Lindbergh is a selection of
New York Times articles about
Lindbergh (free registration required).
The New Jersey based Hunterdon County Democrat
newspaper has a special online section on the
Lindbergh Trial.
Famous Cases: The Lindbergh Kidnapping is an FBI article discussing how Hauptmann was tracked
down with the ransom money.
A Charles Lindbergh tribute site:
charleslindbergh.com.
The Hauptmann kidnapping trial is periodically
reenacted in the courthouse where the real trial took place by
Famous Trials
Theater.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann Denies Lindbergh Baby Killing, April, 1935 (:37): A sound clip of Richard Bruno Hauptmann proclaiming his innocence, and
more pictures at The Authentic
History web site.
