Crime of the Century: The Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. Kidnapping

At about 9:00 PM on March 1, 1932, the kidnapper or kidnappers climbed by ladder into the second-story nursery of the Lindbergh home near Hopewell, New Jersey, abducted the child, and left a ransom note demanding $50,000. The Lindbergh baby, dubbed “the Eaglet” by the press, was discovered missing by Betty Gow, the child’s nanny, about an hour later. The Lindberghs notified the local authorities, who in turn ceded control of the investigation to the New Jersey State Police. A search of the crime scene uncovered the ransom note, on the sill of an open window and muddy but indistinct footprints in the nursery. A ladder was discovered some distance from the Lindbergh house, broken at a point where two sections were joined, and footprints were found leading into the woods at the edge of the property.

Although H. Norman Schwarzkopf (father of Persian Gulf War Commander Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf) of the New Jersey State Police was nominally the lead investigator in the case, control of many of the details was ceded to Lindbergh. Two more ransom notes were received in quick succession, the first of which raised the kidnappers’ demand to $70,000. After various attempts to contact the kidnappers failed to bear fruit, a retired New York City teacher named John F. Condon placed an advertisement in a Bronx newspaper on March 8, 1932, offering to act as an intermediary between the Lindberghs' and the kidnappers. The following day Condon received a note from the kidnappers, stating that they would accept him as a go-between. Over the following weeks a cat-and-mouse game ensued, with Condon communicating through newspaper columns under the name “Jafsie” and the kidnappers secreting written messages at locations across New York City. On March 16 Condon received the child’s sleeping suit as proof of identity, and within two weeks the kidnappers demanded delivery of the ransom. On the night of April 2, Condon, with Lindbergh waiting in a car nearby, met a man whom he called “John” at St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx. He negotiated with “John,” getting him to agree to the original ransom of $50,000, in exchange for the location of the Lindbergh baby. “John” took the money—primarily gold certificates, the serial numbers of which had been recorded by the Treasury Department—and gave Condon a note that stated that the child could be found on a boat called the Nelly, near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Lindbergh himself led the ultimately unsuccessful search for the Nelly, and the team of investigators were forced to concede that they had gained nothing in return for the ransom.

Investigations 

Undaunted by that setback, the search for young Charles continued, and the serial numbers of the bills paid to “John” were released to banks and published in major newspapers. The case took a tragic turn on May 12, when the child’s badly decomposed body was found less than 5 miles (8 km) from the Lindbergh home. An autopsy found that the Lindbergh baby had been killed by a blow to the head during or shortly after the kidnapping. While this discovery brought some closure to Charles Lindbergh Sr., it also raised more questions than answers: Who could have committed such an unthinkable crime? How did they manage to evade capture for so long? And perhaps most hauntingly - why?

The U.S. Bureau of Investigation (now the Federal Bureau of Investigation) had, until the discovery of the body, been acting in a purely advisory capacity. On May 13, however, Pres. Herbert Hoover authorized the bureau to serve as the primary federal agency on the case, and the full resources of the U.S. Department of Justice were committed to the investigation of the crime. Public outrage led the U.S. Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act (known as the Lindbergh Law) on June 22, 1932—the day that would have been Charles’s second birthday. The Lindbergh Law made kidnapping across state lines a federal crime and stipulated that such an offense could be punished by death.

The bureau and the New Jersey State Police initially focused their efforts on Condon and on the Lindbergh household staff, but no concrete leads emerged. Condon aided the bureau in constructing a profile of “John,” and gold certificates from the ransom payment began surfacing in the New York area. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order on April 5, 1933, stating that all circulating gold certificates must be exchanged for Federal Reserve notes by May 1, 1933. While this was done to prevent the hoarding of gold during the Great Depression, it benefited investigators by making the ransom money even easier to track. More than a year passed before the case had its major break, though, when a service station attendant in New York City recorded the license plate number of a man who had paid with a $10 gold certificate. Federal and local authorities traced the license plate to the Bronx residence of a German carpenter who matched the physical description of “John” that had been provided by Condon. On September 19, 1934, Bruno Hauptmann was arrested, and a $20 gold certificate from the ransom payment was found on his person.

The “trial of the century”

The case against Hauptmann mounted quickly. The day after his arrest, more than $13,000 in gold ransom certificates was discovered in Hauptmann’s garage, and he was later identified by Condon as “John.” Handwriting analysis found that Hauptmann’s penmanship was stylistically consistent with the ransom notes that were sent by the kidnapper or kidnappers, and he drew additional suspicion for having a prior criminal record that included burglary. In his defense, Hauptmann claimed that he was holding the money for a friend, Isidore Fisch, who had returned to Germany in 1933 and had since died. On October 8, 1934, Hauptmann was indicted for the murder of Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.

As the new year dawned, the world focused its attention on the Hunterdon County courthouse in Flemington, New Jersey. Jury selection in the case of The State of New Jersey v. Bruno Richard Hauptmann took place on January 2, 1935, and the trial began the following day. The evidence presented against Hauptmann was primarily circumstantial. Tool marks on the ladder used in the kidnapping appeared to match tools owned by Hauptmann, and the ladder incorporated a piece of flooring that was missing from his attic. Additionally, Condon’s telephone number was found written on a closet door frame in Hauptmann’s home.

Lindbergh himself took the stand, testifying that he recognized Hauptmann’s voice from the night of the ransom payment. When defense attorneys called Hauptmann to the witness stand, he professed total innocence, claimed that he had been subjected to beatings by the police, and stated that he had been forced to produce handwriting samples that matched the ransom notes. After more than five weeks of testimony and 11 hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict on February 13, 1935, and Hauptmann was sentenced to death. A series of appeals, ultimately reaching the Supreme Court in December 1935, were unsuccessful, and a clemency bid was rejected on March 30, 1936. Hauptmann, denying until the end any involvement in the crime, was executed by electric chair on April 3, 1936.