The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping

[kidtwist]

Archaic,

The ladder was a pretty inventive thing. It must have taken quite a bit of time to build it. Why leave something that can be traced? And it was traced and was connected to Hauptmann. I think two men would have easily dismantled it and put it pack in the truck they must have brought

Mike

For what it's worth, I believe there was likely more than one kidnapper, but I'm not totally averse the idea that Hauptmann might have pulled it off alone.

I think the kidnapper(s) intended to take the ladder with them, but when it broke loudly enough to be heard inside the house, they panicked and left it and took off. I think they left something else too (chisel or screwdriver--don't remember).

If the baby fell and died when the ladder broke, they sure wouldn't have wanted to be caught there with a dead baby while slowed down by a ladder.

Mark

[RivkahChaya]

I think it's interesting that Hauptmann refused to plead guilty, even as he went to the electric chair. I've wondered if he really was innocent of the kidnapping, or if he just couldn't bear for his wife and the rest of the world to know that he had kidnapped and caused the death of a little baby.

The idea that he could be sparing his children the cloud of suspicion is interesting. But he just may have been sticking to his lie to the bitter end. If you are, in fact, guilty "stick to your lie" is usually the best plan, at least when there are no mitigating factors whatsoever. Changing and fudging your story is going to trip you up at some point.

Re: the ladder, Hauptmann was contemptuous of the rickety thing, because he was a skilled carpenter. So maybe that was just an act & he deliberately built it to look "unprofessional" to draw attention away from himself, or maybe he didn't build it after all.

The design of the ladder was very clever, and inasmuch as it appeared homemade, not purchased from the Sears catalogue, it did look like something an experienced carpenter would make; however, it was make with scrap wood, including that plank from Hauptmann's attic, which was so damning. So, clever design, but cheap materials. The rung probably cracked because the wood was old, and too dry, or rotten. The rungs were far apart, probably because of an attempt to save materials, and if the baby did, in fact, get dropped when a rung broke, that might actually be the result of the rungs being so far apart. If whoever was carrying the baby stepped down 14" to the next rung, instead of six, or eight inches, and the rung broke, causing his foot to drop another 14", for a total that was almost the whole length of his inseam, and he's got just one hand free, you can see how it happens.

You can also see how someone with no knowledge of forensics, or how the police work, might abandon the ladder, thinking that being caught with it in one's possession might be how one gets caught-- and implicated in murder, and maybe doesn't realize how a ladder can be traced back to the owner.

The ransom notes were in his writing, syntax, and spelling. I have read that the handwriting match was controversial, with some experts convinced Hauptman wrote the ransom letters, and some convinced that it wasn't his writing but an imitator

I think the controversy is that, in later writing samples, the police told Hauptmann how to spell words, so that everything would be spelled just like the ransom notes, misspellings included, for better comparison. This information didn't get passed along, and at some point, it became part of the case that Hauptmann "naturally" spelled words just the way they were spelled in the ransom note.

To this day, people claim to be the Lindbergh baby.

There's one loon with a website, who complains that the children of Lindbergh and Anne Morrow refuse to acknowledge him or submit to DNA tests, because OMG! It's a huge conspiracy, and plus, they don't want to share the family money with him. Never mind that they willingly submitted to testing to verify the lineage of their father's illegitimate children, albeit, they waited until after their mother had died.

One reason I think Hauptmann acted alone in the kidnapping is because the ladder was left at the scene. This was presumably a folding ladder and if there had been two men on the job, why not take down the folding ladder. It was brought there so why not fold it up and bring it back. I think it was because the lone kidnapper's hands were full.

Mike

It wasn't exactly folding, it was sectional, and the sections sort of hooked together, but that's still a very good point.


Just a reminder: it's an assumption that the baby died because it was dropped when the ladder broke. On the balance of evidence, it does seem likely, but we do not actually know that. No confessed kidnapper has ever come forward to tell up what happened that night.

[Archaic]

re: Panicked Flight

Archaic,
The ladder was a pretty inventive thing. It must have taken quite a bit of time to build it. Why leave something that can be traced? And it was traced and was connected to Hauptmann. I think two men would have easily dismantled it and put it pack in the truck they must have brought

Hi Mike.

Well, I don't claim to know the real answer, but my guess is that when the ladder step cracked and the kidnapper(s) accidentally crushed the poor baby's head, they panicked.

Maybe the kidnapper(s) had every intention of taking "good care" of little Charles Jr, and returning him to his family in exchange for a large sum of money. Maybe that had assuaged their consciences, and even gotten their wives and girlfriends to agree to go along with the plot. Maybe they truly thought they had planned everything to the last detail, and had carefully arranged a safe place to hide the baby, caregivers for him, an elaborate communication code... but all their plans fell to pieces with the rickety ladder.

Think about it, all the work, all the planning, all the preparation- but the accidental and unfortunately fatal head injury happened within just few seconds of snatching him from his bed. I'm sure they weren't prepared for that. Now they were no longer the brazenly clever con men and professional extortionists they might have thought themselves to be before- they were murderers. And what's worse, they were baby killers. They haplessly killed one of the most beloved babies in America, and America was going to be out for their blood. I think they lost their cool, forgot their plans, and in a complete panic ran like hell. Even if there had been 2 kidnappers, their only goal at that point would have been to get away.

The whole crux of their original plan was the belief that having possession of the Lindbergh baby gave them POWER- the power to fool, control, manipulate and extort not only Charles Lindbergh, but pretty much everyone in America; the public, the police, the bankers, and the media. But with the baby dead in the first few seconds of their botched kidnapping, that all dissolved.

Later the kidnapper(s) would try to carry on with the ransom plot in order to still extort some cash, but I have reasons for thinking they panicked on the night of the kidnapping.
I think one compelling proof that the kidnapper(s) panicked & ran is that THEY DIDN'T KEEP THE BABY'S BODY WITH THEM.

Think about it. If the kidnapper(s) had been psychologically prepared for the possibility of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. dying in his own back yard that night they would have done things much differently. They didn't bury his little body where he couldn't be found; they didn't bury him at all. They didn't get far away from the Lindbergh home and leave his body someplace relatively 'safe' so they could come back and retrieve it later when they had completed their getaway, calmed down, and decided how best to proceed.

And the kidnapper(s) didn't take the child's body with them to their home or hideout, so the sad little remains were eventually found and their villainous FAILURE was exposed to the world.

To me these are all signs of panicked flight from the scene of the crime. With the Lindbergh baby dead, dragging along a broken ladder as they fled was the last thing on their minds.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Graham]

I think Archaic's got it about right with regard to what happened during and after the abduction of the baby, but this case is vastly complicated and convoluted. For example:

- how did the kidnapper(s) know which window to put his/their ladder to?

- was it just coincidence that they arrived while the family were downstairs having dinner?

- to me, the above suggests that they had assistance from someone within the family who knew their habits and also where the baby slept. Violet Sharpe, maybe, who could have accompanied the Morrows on a visit to Hopewell? Betty Gow? A N Other?

- under 'normal' circumstances, their quarry being accidentally killed, I would expect the kidnapper(s) to simply disappear, never to be heard from again, but he/they didn't. They went ahead with their ransom demands and the pretense that he/they had a live and well baby in their possession who would be returned to the bosom of his family for a consideration of $50000.

- was the corpse found by the trucker really Buster Lindbergh, or as has been claimed a child from the nearby Catholic children's home? Why was the body cremated with what appears to be unseemly haste?

- I personally never quite understood why Lindbergh seemed to rely so much on Dr J F Condon - "Jafsie" - who seems to me to have been rather a comic and self-important figure. (He even apparently set up a kind of music-hall act after the kidnapping, based on the events).

- Condon, when speaking to the kidnapper on the phone, claimed to have heard someone speaking Italian in the background. There were rumours circulating that Al Capone was involved....

- Who was Cemetery John? Was it Hauptmann? Why did he ask Condon if he'd 'burn' if the baby was dead? Do we take this as a veiled admission that they baby was dead?

- What if any was the role of the strange Isidore Fisch?

- How much if any evidence found at Hauptmann's house was planted by the police?

- How much is known of the background of Harold Olsen, who suspected he was Buster Lindbergh, and also that Al Capone was behind the whole thing?

- There were rumours at the time and since that the baby was accidentally killed by Lindbergh during boisterous play, and that as an All-American hero Lindbergh could not allow the world to learn that he had killed his child. I don't think there is much basis for believing this, but as is always the case in such mysteries, there is rarely smoke without fire.

And many more questions....!

Graham

[RavenDarkendale]

There's one loon with a website, who complains that the children of Lindbergh and Anne Morrow refuse to acknowledge him or submit to DNA tests, because OMG! It's a huge conspiracy, and plus, they don't want to share the family money with him. Never mind that they willingly submitted to testing to verify the lineage of their father's illegitimate children, albeit, they waited until after their mother had died.

Quite so, Reeve Lindbergh, his youngest daughter with wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, published Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age and Other Unexpected Adventures, a book of essays that includes her discovery in 2003, of the truth about her father's three secret European families and her journeys to meet them and understand an expanded meaning of family.

In other words, the illegitimate children were accepted by Lindbergh's legitimate children as family, being half-brothers and sisters. There is no way that they would deny a claimant to be their oldest brother if they thought at all he could really be their brother. I think they would and probably have ran the DNA to shut him up.

A sad note here, I have seen crime scene pictures of the discovered body of Lindbergh's child



and that any parent would have to identify that decomposed little body when they had cooperated with the kidnappers and expected to find him alive, is a horror I don't like to think about.

[Errata]

[QUOTE=Graham;257927

On the night of the kidnap Lindbergh said he heard a noise like 'an orange crate' being broken up, and when the ladder was discovered it was broken at the top joint (it was in three sections, presumably to ease transportation). It was suggested that the ladder broke under the weight of the kidnapper who was carrying the baby, which he dropped to its death on the ground below.
G[/QUOTE]

Now that's something I don't understand. He hears the sound of breaking wood, and it must be unusual or else he would not have noted the sound, and he doesn't go see what it is? That house has a lot of wood in it. You don't want to check that the staircase is still sound, or nothing has somehow punched through the ceiling? I'd go look. I would want an explanation for that noise.

I've always wondered if something else was going on in the house at the time of the abduction. Something they didn't want people to know about. Not that they were involved in the kidnapping, but they were doing something that they could not afford getting out. Maybe they were smoking week and getting drunk. Maybe they were holding a pagan ritual, wife swapping, who knows. Something. And maybe the kidnapper knew they would be involved, and that's why he chose the time he did. Or she.

[Graham]

Now that's something I don't understand. He hears the sound of breaking wood, and it must be unusual or else he would not have noted the sound, and he doesn't go see what it is? That house has a lot of wood in it. You don't want to check that the staircase is still sound, or nothing has somehow punched through the ceiling? I'd go look. I would want an explanation for that noise.

According to Lindbergh himself, he heard the noise at about 9.10pm and did nothing until at about 10.00pm Betty Gow asked if they had the baby, which they didn't. I agree - it's slightly surprising that Lindbergh didn't immediately go to see what the noise was and where it came from. As far as I know the only occupants of the house that evening, apart from the baby, were the Lindberghs and Betty Gow. But in fairness to him, as soon as he realised the baby was missing, and that the kidnapper(s) had left a letter on the window-sill of the baby's bedroom, Lindbergh forbade anyone to touch anything and called the police.

Graham

[RivkahChaya]

One thing in regard to the kidnappers going forward after the baby died-- they had already left the note, and they may have spent money on preparations for the plot that they desperately needed to recoup.

Lindbergh may have described the sound as "an orange crate breaking" after the fact, but they lived near a wooded area, which I did for about ten years at one point. You hear wood snapping and cracking all the time. It's not worth investigating, because it's doubtfully anything meaningful to you, and there's always the outside possibility that it could be something like a coyote nearby. It's more likely a neighbor's dog, or a branch falling out of a tree, or deer. There are so many things it could be. "Zebra" is probably more likely than "kidnapper," even.

I'm not sure why the cremation seems to have been done with "unseemly" haste. The Lindberghs probably were anxious to get the body out of the police morgue, and after it had been out in the open, and scavenged by animals, they probably were in a hurry for a proper disposal and funeral. I don't know why they chose cremation, but maybe they come from a tradition where funerals have open caskets and since that wasn't and option, somehow hastening the baby's "return to dust" felt right. I don't think wanting the body back, and the funeral to proceed as quickly as possible is "unseemly," whether there was a cremation or not.

If Lindbergh had killed the baby himself, accidentally, and the family wanted to cover it up, I think there were simpler ways (eg., "he tried to climb out of his crib, and fell"), than an elaborate kidnap staging, with a body dump in a nearby woods, taking a chance the body never would be found. It's also hard to imagine Anne Morrow not being in on it, and I don't think she would stand by and let a man she knew was innocent go to the chair.

[Errata]

One thing in regard to the kidnappers going forward after the baby died-- they had already left the note, and they may have spent money on preparations for the plot that they desperately needed to recoup.

Lindbergh may have described the sound as "an orange crate breaking" after the fact, but they lived near a wooded area, which I did for about ten years at one point. You hear wood snapping and cracking all the time. It's not worth investigating, because it's doubtfully anything meaningful to you, and there's always the outside possibility that it could be something like a coyote nearby. It's more likely a neighbor's dog, or a branch falling out of a tree, or deer. There are so many things it could be. "Zebra" is probably more likely than "kidnapper," even.

If Lindbergh had killed the baby himself, accidentally, and the family wanted to cover it up, I think there were simpler ways (eg., "he tried to climb out of his crib, and fell"), than an elaborate kidnap staging, with a body dump in a nearby woods, taking a chance the body never would be found. It's also hard to imagine Anne Morrow not being in on it, and I don't think she would stand by and let a man she knew was innocent go to the chair.

I may be hypersensitive because I used to do set design. And that sound is something that always means something terrible happened, or is about to happen.

I always liked Anne Morrow far more than her husband.

[RivkahChaya]

I've lived in Manhattan, I've lived in suburbs, and I've lived out in the boondocks, practically out in the woods. The sounds of the city, and the sounds of the country a very different, and when you go from one to the other, the sounds at night can't freak you out for a few days, mainly because it takes you a while to tune them out. Depending on what you ate used to, the sound of cracking wood might, or might not seem really obviously something that needs checking out. Just like the sound of a car pulling up, late at night, when you are home alone and not expecting anyone, can scare you when you live in the middle of nowhere. When you move to an apartment building where you can hear cars pulling into the parking lot, it takes getting used to. When someone from a rural area visits you in the city, and they hear air brakes from a bus, at night, they jump.

I have a feeling the cracking sound is like the cry of "Oh, murder!" (or whatever it might have been), the night Mary Jane Kelly was murdered. It wasn't worth investigating, because it seemed normal at the time, but the next day, when you learn what has happened, suddenly something you remember becomes important.

[Archaic]

re: Cremation

I have read that the Lindbergh's decided to cremate the baby's remains because some disgusting ghoul of a newspaper reporter actually pushed his way in to where the child's casket was, wrenched it open, and took a photo of the baby's remains.

The Lindberghs feared it would happen again, and that someone might actually attempt to take a piece of the child's body as a "souvenir", or even dig up the corpse- imagine having to go on with their lives fearing something so horrific. They had already endured so much horror.

I sincerely hope that the photographer who wrenched open the casket and took a photo went to jail for a long time. I think the Lindberghs made the right decision to cremate the child's remains. It was the only way to cope with the sick carnival that the case had begun.

I think it was for similar reasons that the Kennedy family decided to cremate the remains of JFK Jr and his wife and bury them at sea. (Sorry, I can't recall if this was also done with the sister-in-law, but I think it was.)

Best regards,
Archaic

[Archaic]

The Noise Lindbergh Heard

I too found Lindbergh's mention of hearing a cracking noise and assuming it to be a wooden slat falling off an orange in the kitchen very odd.

Did slats used to spontaneously pop off wooden orange crates? I've never heard of such a phenomena. Even if they did, wouldn't a security-conscious celebrity who was also a parent take a second to investigate?

Where was the kitchen located in relation to the baby's upstairs bedroom and the sitting room (I believe that's correct) where Lindbergh was located when he heard the noise?

Are the bedroom and kitchen even on the same side of the house? One would expect him to at least get the general direction right.

Best regards,
Archaic

[RivkahChaya]

I always liked Anne Morrow far more than her husband.

IIRC, she was already pregnant with their second child, and given the powerlessness of women back then, not to mention the fact that if Lindbergh was already prepared to lie himself, and the servants with him, she probably thought she might not even be believed if she had a different story, and she certainly would have put herself and her child in a difficult place if the story ruined their marriage, or his reputation. So I can see her agreeing to say the baby fell out of his crib, when the truth was that his father was tossing him up in the air, and dropped him.

I just cannot see her letting an innocent, and in-no-way-involved man be executed, though.

I have read that the Lindbergh's decided to cremate the baby's remains because some disgusting ghoul of a newspaper reporter actually pushed his way in to where the child's casket was, wrenched it open, and took a photo of the baby's remains.

I believe you that this happened, but in this case, then the poster who described the cremation as having been done in "unseemly haste" was way off base. "Unseemly haste" doesn't sound like 21st century language, though. Is that a quote from a reporter? maybe he worked for the same paper as the photographer who tried to get a picture of the decomposed corpse.

Be careful with words like "disgusting ghoul," though. We're people who go over pictures of Mary Kelly's butchered corpse arguing about whether something is a right hand, or a smudge on the negative. His behavior in disrupting the funeral was disgusting, but he wasn't wrong in thinking that he would have had a million-dollar picture, after all. I doubt it was for his private collection of corpses.

[The Good Michael]

An interesting JTR connection: Many people are suggesting the cracking of a ladder rung could have panicked the kidnapper(s) enough that they didn't bother to take the ladder apart and remove the incriminating piece of evidence. Fair enough. Yet, the idea of JTR NOT mutilating a victim because he may have heard someone coming, is met with a lot of agonizing arguments against Stride being a victim. The fact is, noises startle people, so of course the argument is always valid.

Mike

[Archaic]

The Difference

Be careful with words like "disgusting ghoul," though. We're people who go over pictures of Mary Kelly's butchered corpse arguing about whether something is a right hand, or a smudge on the negative. His behavior in disrupting the funeral was disgusting, but he wasn't wrong in thinking that he would have had a million-dollar picture, after all. I doubt it was for his private collection of corpses.

Hi Rivkah.

I strongly disagree with you, and I think most other seasoned Casebookers will back me up.

There is a very great difference in posting 125-year-old police crime scene photos on a History forum where members trade ideas in an effort to achieve some kind of belated justice for the victims, and being a ruthless commercial photographer who barges into the mortuary and forcibly pries the lid off the sealed casket of a recently murdered baby in order to take a photograph that he intends to sell for profit.

In my opinion, Mary Jane Kelly has received a great deal more sympathy, empathy, prayers, and RESPECT on Casebook than she ever did in her short sad life.

Best regards,
Archaic