The Lindbergh Kidnap-Murder Case

On the night of March 1, 1932, the son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was abducted

from their home in the Sourland Mountains of New Jersey. The kidnapper apparently climbed a

crudely-built ladder and took twenty-month old Charles, Jr., from his crib in the second floor

nursery. The kidnapper left behind a ransom note demanding $50,000 for the child's safe return.

Betty Gow, the child's nurse, discovered young Charles was missing, and a household servant

notified the police. The Lindbergh’s received three additional ransom notes through the mail,

raising the demand to $70,000. Charles Lindbergh authorized Dr. John F. Condon to contact and

to negotiate with the kidnappers. Dr. Condon made contact with "Cemetery John," a man with a

heavy foreign accent, who claimed to have committed the crime. When they met at Woodlawn

Cemetery in the Bronx, Cemetery John proved that he was the kidnapper by describing the

baby's sleeping arrangements, information which had not been released to the public. On April

2, l932, Dr. Condon exchanged $50,000 in marked bills with Cemetery John for a note, giving

the location of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. This note proved to be a complete hoax. A month later,

on May 12, a truck driver discovered a child's decomposed body, later identified by Lindbergh as

his son, about four miles from the Lindbergh Estate.

On September 19, 1934, two and a half years after the discovery of the child's body, New

York policemen arrested Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German-born carpenter, following his

attempt to buy gas with one of the ransom bills. Police found a total of $14,700 in ransom

money in Hauptmann's house and garage. Judge Thomas Trenchard presided at his trial, which

lasted from January 2, 1935, until February 14, 1935, in Flemington, New Jersey. New Jersey

Attorney General David Wilentz served as prosecutor, and Edward J. Reilly and Lloyd Fisher

acted as defense attorneys. A long list of prosecution witnesses appeared against Hauptmann.
Cecila Barr identified him as the man who paid for a movie ticket with a ransom bill. Joe

Perone, a taxi driver, identified him as the man who gave him a note to deliver to go-between

Condon's home. Wood expert Arthur Koehler matched wood from the kidnap ladder to a board

from Hauptmann's attic. The Osborne’s, father and son handwriting experts, testified that the

German carpenter's handwriting matched that on the four ransom notes (Nash 134-36). Millard

Whited and Amandus Hochmuth testified to seeing him in and around the Lindbergh estate just

before and on the day of the crime. Dr. John F. Condon swore in court that Cemetery John was

Bruno Richard Hauptmann; Lindbergh himself identified the defendant's voice as the one he

heard yell, "Hey, doc" or "Hey, doctor" in St. Raymond's Cemetery on the night of the ransom

payment. On February 14, 1935, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of the kidnap-

murder of Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.,and sentenced to death. He was executed in the electric

chair at Trenton's New Jersey State Prison on April 3, 1936.