CNJ+ March 2024

The Crime of the Century THE KIDNAPPING OF THE LINDBERGH BABY By Pam Teel

Like so many other big cases of the past, the Lindbergh baby case has often been referred to as the “Crime of the Century.” Unfortunately, during that period in time, people were des perate and the kidnapping of important peo ple happened more than it should have. The difference being that those cases remained out of the history books and off the desks of the FBI. Baby Lindbergh might have been one of those statistics had it not been for his famous father.

While the meetings between “John” and Condon were going on, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover stated that the organization would be involved in finding those responsible for the crime. Previously, kidnapping was considered only a local crime— though it would later be come a federal crime when Congress passed legislation informally dubbed the “Lindbergh Law.” On May 12, 1932, two months after the Lindbergh baby went missing, a baby’s body was found four and a half miles from the Lind bergh home by a truck driver. The head of the partly buried, decomposed baby was crushed. There was a hole in the skull and some of the body parts were missing. A Coroner’s exam ination showed that the child had been dead

Charles Lindbergh was the first aviator to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris. He became the first International Celebrity. His transatlantic flight garnered him multiple awards and a Medal of Honor. The press went crazy. No newspaper or magazine was void of his picture. He was even named Time Maga zine’s man of the year. Shortly after, his wife, Anne Morrow, welcomed their first son, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., on June 22, 1930. Again, the couple was thrust into the limelight when their 20-month old son was kidnapped from the family’s second-story mansion, which was located in Hopewell, NJ. It happened around 9 p.m. on March 1, 1932. The baby was discovered missing from his nursery an hour later by his nurse, Betty Gow. A ransom note demanding $50,000 was found on the nursery window sill. There were traces of mud on the floor and a homemade ladder was found outside the window. A rung had been seemingly broken during the ascent or descent into the nursery. No fingerprints were left at the scene just muddy footprints. A second note was received by Colonel Lindbergh on March 6, 1932. The note, postmarked from Brooklyn, increased the demand to $70,000. John F. Condon, a retired school principal, wrote a letter to the Bronx Home News offering $1,000 if the kidnapper turned the baby over to a Catholic priest. He offered to be the mediator between the kidnapper and the Lindberghs. Shortly thereafter, another note was sent from the person who claimed to be the kidnapper, also postmarked in Brooklyn, agreeing with the fact that Condon should mediate. Colonel Lindbergh, who pretty much took over the investigation, approved of the request, assuming that the notes were genuine. He gave Condon $70,000 in cash as ransom, and Condon began discussing payment details through newspaper columns, using the code name “Jafsie.” He then received a message in person from a taxicab driver, who claimed he had received it from an unidentified stranger. The note told them where to find the next note which led Condon to a cemetery to meet a man named John. Condon met with “John” who provided the baby’s pa jamas as a way to prove he had the child. The suit was delivered to Colonel Lindbergh, who confirmed it belonged to his son. At a later meeting, Con don handed John $70,000 in return for the Lindbergh baby. Instructions to find the kidnapped child led them to a boat named “Nellie” near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. After an exhaustive search, neither the child nor the Boat Nellie was found. Artist rendering of the man Condon met with to discuss the ransom money.

Bruno Richard Hauptmann

for about two months and that the child died after a blow to the head. It was later positively identified as Charles Lindbergh, Jr. Authorities theorized that the kidnapper may have accidentally dropped the boy while climb ing down the ladder. The baby’s nurse was taken in again for questioning. She professed her innocence but ended up committing suicide because she couldn’t take any more of the suspicion that she was involved. Heartbroken by their son’s death, Lindbergh, his wife, and their sec ond-born son, Jon, secretly moved to Europe to escape the unrelenting me dia frenzy surrounding the case. They donated their mansion to charity and lived in England and France for nearly three years before returning to New York in April 1939. Two years after the kidnapping, in September 1934, a man in a Dodge se dan pulled up to the gasoline pumps at a service station in upper Manhattan. To pay for his gas, the driver reached into his inside coat pocket and took out a gold certificate, which had been pulled from circulation over a year earlier. The attendant thought it was suspicious and figured he could be a counter feiter, so when the driver left, he jotted down the car’s license plate number. After the service station deposited the certificate, a banker tell was also sus picious of the certificate. He found out that the marked bill was connected to the $70,000 ransom paid to the kidnapper of Charles Lindbergh Jr. The bank notified federal investigators, who tracked the bill down to Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a carpenter who lived in the Bronx. Hauptmann was arrested the next day. Police found $13,750 of the ransom money hidden inside a dirty oil can, which was stuffed in a package inside a wall and buried beneath the garage floor in a jar inside his garage. Handwriting experts claimed his handwriting matched that of the ransom notes. Hauptmann denied having anything to do with the missing baby. He claimed he had been given the money by a deceased business partner. His neighbors stated that Hauptmann suddenly stopped working in 1932, during the Great Depression. A sensational trial followed, and, in 1935, Hauptmann was convicted of kidnapping and murder. He was executed by electrocution on April 3, 1936. It would never be known if he acted on his own or if he had an accomplice. The prosecution’s case was not particularly strong; the main evidence, be

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