The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping

[Mayerling]

I'm actually inclined to believe that Billy the Kid lived. Everyone at his funeral said the corpse looked nothing like him.

Hi Errata,

Actually, there is a similar story that Jessie James was not killed on April 2, 1882 in his home by "that dirty coward who shot Mr. Howard". I saw some discussion on the history channel last year that Jessie found a substitute, and may have lived into the 1930s. But there is a similar story that Butch Cassidy was not killed in Bolivia, but lived in California when he died in the 1940s. And Jay Robert Nash wrote a book that Dillinger was not the man shot by the F.B.I. in the alley near the Biograph Movie Theater in Chicago in 1934. Somehow this is a kind of wishful thinking.

I could have mentioned the theories about John Wilkes Booth's surviving until 1903 in Oklahoma too!

Jeff

[Mayerling]

For what it's worth, and I do not know a great deal about the case, I'm with Archaic concerning the photograph of the baby.

I must admit to always having been uncomfortable with the crime scene photos of MJK being published and displayed so often, but there is a very great deal of difference between a crime scene photo being reproduced in order to uphold a debate or illustrate the work of JtR, and a photo taken by someone who has been prepared to invade the coffin and disrupt the privacy and dignity a dead child (or anyone lese) should afford. Were these photographs published? It's unthinkable and ghoulish is the exact word I would use.

Hi Limehouse,

Actually, I have a confession - I really find the two photos of the dead Mary Kelly so appalling that I rarely look at them. In fact if I see them I try to avert my sight of them or I will skip the thread they appear on. To me all murder photos are awful (and there are many, including those of the other Ripper Victims), but the only pictures that I have seen that compare to Mary's two pictures are those of the dead "Black Dahlia", some of the Andersonville prisoners (one looking like a living skeleton) and the victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Interestingly I am used to the photo of Andrew Jackson Borden's dead (hacked) body in his home in Fall River, Massachusetts.

But I do agree with your point of view. The police photos and autopsy photos served a purpose for investigating crimes. Some idiot who burst into a church to force his way to the body in the coffin for a shot to sell to a newspaper is beneath contempt. I suppose the best known example (although it was done by a New York Daily News staff photographer) was the 1928 photo (published on their front page) of the electrocution of Ruth Snyder). It was the heyday of sensational journalism, but if they got the photo again in a similar case I bet they'd put it in again!

It also does not have to be a murder case. In their book, THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE LUSITANIA, A.A.Hoehling and Mary Hoehling mentioned some newsreel photographer who was taking film of the passengers and crew of the rapidly sinking liner because, "this will be the greatest film ever!" (his words). I am glad to say that he drowned, and the film was never found.

Jeff

[Errata]

I'm actually inclined to believe that Billy the Kid lived. Everyone at his funeral said the corpse looked nothing like him.

[RavenDarkendale]

Like I said it's tiny, but here is Jon Marrow Lindbergh


Now we get into the realm of the claimant:


Supposed to be Charles A Lindbergh, Jr

Notice that there is some resemblance, but not really. Can't do DNA on the baby's body as he was cremated. Perhaps Lindbergh's lids should have the DNA ran either to shut him up, or discover yet another illegitimate child, for if Lindbergh is his father, he still isn't the Lindbergh baby

[RavenDarkendale]

RivkahChaya

This loon is almost as bad as The Tichborne Claimant. The baby died, Lindbergh was careful to visit his illegitimate kids as often as possible, so why in the name of all that is holy would he not track down his firstborn if he were alive?

Read about The Tichborne Claimant: http://www3.hants.gov.uk/community-h...e-claimant.htm

People also claimed they were Princess Anastasia, her brother Prince Michael, Amelia Erhart, Billy the Kid, and so on. People will do anything if there's money or fame involved...

Compare these pictures:


Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh


Land Morrow Lindbergh


Reeve Lindbergh


Anne Spencer Lindbergh

I couldn't find one of their brother Scott Lindbergh of which I was certain it was he, and most of Jon Morrow Lindbergh were tiny and I'm at my limit on pictures.


Lindbergh's illegitimate children With Brigitte Hesshaimer, confirmed by DNA,
Dyrk and David Hesshaimer and their sister Astrid Bouteuil, obviously Lindbergh's kids!

I also failed to turn up pictures of Vago and Christoph Hesshaimer, Lindy's kids by Brigitte's sister Marietta Hesshaimer, and we only know his kids by Valeska (surname unknown) were a boy and a girl.

[Limehouse]

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

For what it's worth, and I do not know a great deal about the case, I'm with Archaic concerning the photograph of the baby.

I must admit to always having been uncomfortable with the crime scene photos of MJK being published and displayed so often, but there is a very great deal of difference between a crime scene photo being reproduced in order to uphold a debate or illustrate the work of JtR, and a photo taken by someone who has been prepared to invade the coffin and disrupt the privacy and dignity a dead child (or anyone lese) should afford. Were these photographs published? It's unthinkable and ghoulish is the exact word I would use.

[RivkahChaya]

Here's the loon who has been stalking the Lindbergh children, trying to get them to have DNA tests.

There are a couple of other claimants who are still living, and who get some press from time to time. One of them is a woman. I am not making that up. She sounds mentally disturbed; apparently she has a book published, but I haven't tracked it down, so I suspect it may have been a vanity press-- or she just fantasizing. There's a guy who tried for a while to get Anne Morrow to meet him while she was still alive, and apparently freaked her out pretty thoroughly. I think he's the same guy who now calls himself Charles Lindbergh, jr., and has the website, but I'm not positive, as more than one person has used this name, and the guy running the site is tight about what his real name is.

This guy insists he was treated as an orphan, and "raised by strangers," but is really vague about the details, so I don't know whether he was adopted, raised by relatives of his parents because they died when he was young, or really was abandoned, or maybe orphaned by immigrants who didn't have any family, and then a foster child, which back in his day, meant he was sort of lent out by an orphanage to do farm work, or housework. I'd think if it were the last one, he'd be more candid, because that actually could mesh with the kidnapping story, if Hauptmann had somehow lost track of the child because the ransom wasn't paid as quickly as he'd thought. Don't misunderstand-- don't think for a moment that this guy is the Lindbergh child-- I'm just saying that if there really were anything at all murky about his past, he'd probably tell the story straightforward, instead of being evasive.

[Ginger]

Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I ended up with The Case that Never Dies, which so far seems very satisfactory.

[RivkahChaya]

Well. a picture was taken, I posted it. I think it an official police photo, but could be this stupid money grubbing idiot's photo I guess...

Oh, I agree that crashing a funeral is terrible, no matter what the reason. The Westboro Baptist Church people are disgusting, and the people who crashed Ryan White's (a teenager who died of AIDS in the 90s) funeral because Michael Jackson was attending, and they wanted to see him were disgusting. But I don't think it was ghoulish, since the motive was profit.

RD, I think that was the police photo. Police photos have been reprinted in books that were published while Anne Morrow was still alive, so I assume those were part of the public record once the trial was over, because they were admitted as evidence.

[RavenDarkendale]

Well. a picture was taken, I posted it. I think it an official police photo, but could be this stupid money grubbing idiot's photo I guess...

[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

[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

[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.

[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

[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