The Lindbergh Kidnapping (Part II)

Trial and execution

Trial

Hauptmann was charged with capital murder, which meant that a conviction would result in the death penalty. The trial was held at the Hunterdon County Courthouse in Flemington, New Jersey, and was soon dubbed the "Trial of the Century".  Reporters swarmed the town, and every hotel room was booked. Judge Thomas Whitaker Trenchard presided over the trial.

In exchange for rights to publish Hauptmann's story in their newspaper, Edward J. Reilly was hired by the New York Daily Mirror to serve as Hauptmann's attorney.  David T. Wilentz, Attorney General of New Jersey led the prosecution.

Evidence against Hauptmann included $20,000 of the ransom money found in his garage and testimony alleging handwriting and spelling similarities to that found on the ransom notes. Eight handwriting experts (including Albert S. Osborn) pointed out similarities between the ransom notes and Hauptmann's writing specimens. The defense called an expert to rebut this evidence, while two others declined to testify; the latter two demanded $500 before looking at the notes and were dismissed when Lloyd Fisher, a member of Hauptmann's legal team, declined.  Other experts retained by the defense were never called to testify.

Based on the work of Arthur Koehler at the Forest Products Laboratory, the State introduced photographs demonstrating that part of the wood from the ladder matched a plank from the floor of Hauptmann's attic: the type of wood, the direction of the tree growth, the milling pattern, the inside and outside surface of the wood, and the grain on both sides was identical, and four oddly placed nail holes lined up with nail holes in joists in Hauptmann's attic.  Additionally, Condon's address and telephone number were written in pencil on a closet door in Hauptmann's home. Hauptmann admitted to police that he had written Condon's address:

I must have read it in the paper about the story. I was a little bit interested and keep a little bit record of it, and maybe I was just on the closet and was reading the paper and put it down the address ... I can't give you any explanation about the telephone number.

Additionally, a hand-drawn sketch that Wilentz suggested was that of a ladder was found in one of Hauptmann's notebooks. Hauptmann said this picture, along with various other sketches contained therein, had been the work of a child who had drawn in it.

Despite not having an obvious source of earned income, he had enough money to purchase a large $400 radio (nearly $7,000 today) and to send his wife on a trip to Germany.

Hauptmann was positively identified as the man to whom the ransom money was delivered. Other witnesses testified that it was Hauptmann who had spent some of the Lindbergh gold certificates, that he had been seen in the area of the estate in East Amwell, New Jersey near Hopewell on the day of the kidnapping, and that he had been absent from work on the day of the ransom payment and quit his job two days later. Hauptmann never attempted to find another job afterward, yet continued to live comfortably.

When the prosecution rested, the defense opened up their case with a lengthy examination of Hauptmann himself. In his testimony, Hauptmann denied being guilty, insisting that the box found to contain the gold certificates had been left in his garage by a friend named Isidor Fisch, who had returned to Germany in December 1933 and died there in March 1934. Hauptmann claimed that he had one day found a shoebox left behind by Fisch, which Hauptmann had stored on the top shelf of a kitchen broom closet, later discovering the money which, upon counting, added up to nearly $40,000. He further claimed that since Fisch owed him around $7,500 in business funds, Hauptmann kept the money for himself and had lived on it since January 1934.

The defense called Hauptmann's wife Anna to corroborate the Fisch story. However, upon cross-examination, she was forced to admit that while she hung her apron every day on a hook higher than the top shelf, she could not remember seeing any shoe box there. Later, rebuttal witnesses testified that Fisch could not have been at the scene of the crime, and that he had no money for medical treatments when he died of tuberculosis. Fisch's landlady testified that he could barely afford his $3.50 per-week room.

In his closing summation, Reilly argued that the evidence against Hauptmann was entirely circumstantial, as no reliable witness had placed Hauptmann at the scene of the crime, nor were his fingerprints found on the ladder, the ransom notes, or anywhere in the nursery.

Appeals

Hauptmann was convicted and immediately sentenced to death. Hauptmann's attorneys appealed to the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals, then the state's highest court; the appeal was argued on June 29, 1935.

New Jersey Governor Harold G. Hoffman secretly visited Hauptmann in his cell on the evening of October 16, accompanied by a stenographer who spoke German fluently. Hoffman urged members of the Court of Errors and Appeals to visit Hauptmann.

In late January 1936, while declaring he held no position on the guilt or innocence of Hauptmann, Hoffman cited evidence that the crime was not a "one person" job and directed Schwarzkopf to continue a thorough and impartial investigation in an effort to bring all parties involved to justice.

It became known among the press that on March 27, Hoffman was considering a second reprieve of Hauptmann's death sentence, but was actively seeking advice concerning the legality of his right as governor to do so.

On March 30, 1936, Hauptmann's second and final appeal asking for clemency from the New Jersey Board of Pardons was denied.  Hoffman later announced that this decision would be the final legal action in the case, and that he would not grant another reprieve.  Nonetheless, there was a postponement when the Mercer County grand jury, investigating the confession and arrest of Trenton attorney, Paul Wendel, requested a delay from Warden Mark Kimberling.  This final stay ended when the Mercer County Prosecutor informed Kimberling that the Grand Jury had adjourned after voting to discontinue its investigation without charging Wendel.

Execution

Hauptmann turned down a large offer from a Hearst newspaper for a confession and refused a last-minute offer to commute his sentence from the death penalty to life-without-parole in exchange for a confession. He was electrocuted on April 3, 1936, just over four years after the kidnapping.

Following Hauptmann's death, some reporters and independent investigators came up with numerous questions regarding the way the investigation was run and the fairness of the trial. Questions were raised concerning issues ranging from witness tampering to the planting of evidence. Twice during the 1980s, Anna Hauptmann sued the state of New Jersey for the unjust execution of her husband. Both times the suits were dismissed on unknown grounds. She continued fighting to clear his name until her death at age 95 in 1994.

Alternative theories

A number of books have asserted Hauptmann's innocence, generally highlighting inadequate police work at the crime scene, Lindbergh's interference in the investigation, the ineffectiveness of Hauptmann's counsel, and weaknesses in the witnesses and physical evidence. Ludovic Kennedy, in particular, questioned much of the evidence, such as the origin of the ladder and the testimony of many of the witnesses.

According to author Lloyd Gardner, a fingerprint expert, Dr. Erastus Mead Hudson applied the then-rare silver nitrate fingerprint process to the ladder, and did not find Hauptmann's fingerprints, even in places that the maker of the ladder must have touched. According to Gardner, officials refused to consider this expert's findings, and the ladder was then washed of all fingerprints.

Jim Fisher, a former FBI agent and professor at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania] has written two books, The Lindbergh Case (1987) and The Ghosts of Hopewell (1999), addressing what he calls a "revision movement" regarding the case.  He summarizes:

Today, the Lindbergh phenomena [sic] are a giant hoax perpetrated by people who are taking advantage of an uninformed and cynical public. Notwithstanding all of the books, TV programs, and legal suits, Hauptmann is as guilty today as he was in 1932 when he kidnapped and killed the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindbergh.

Another book, Hauptmann's Ladder: A step-by-step analysis of the Lindbergh kidnapping by Richard T. Cahill Jr., concludes that Hauptmann was guilty but questions whether he should have been executed.

According to John Reisinger in Master Detective, New Jersey detective Ellis Parker conducted an independent investigation in 1936 and obtained a signed confession from former Trenton attorney Paul Wendel, creating a sensation and resulting in a temporary stay of execution for Hauptmann. The case against Wendel collapsed, however, when he insisted his confession had been coerced.

Several people have suggested that Charles Lindbergh was responsible for the kidnapping. In 2010, Jim Bahm's Beneath the Winter Sycamores implied that the baby was physically disabled and Lindbergh arranged the kidnapping as a way of secretly moving the baby to be raised in Germany.

One theory is Lindbergh accidentally killed his son in a prank gone wrong. In Crime of the Century: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax, criminal defense attorney Gregory Ahlgren posits Lindbergh climbed a ladder and brought his son out of a window, but dropped the child, killing him, so hid the body in the woods, then covered up the crime by blaming Hauptmann.

Robert Zorn's 2012 book Cemetery John proposes that Hauptmann was part of a conspiracy with two other German-born men, John and Walter Knoll. Zorn's father, economist Eugene Zorn believed that as a teenager he had witnessed the conspiracy being discussed.

In popular culture

Record label of "Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr." by Bob Ferguson

In novels

1934: Agatha Christie was inspired by circumstances of the case when she described the kidnapping of baby girl Daisy Armstrong in her Hercule Poirot novel Murder on the Orient Express.

1971: Thomas Tryon's novel The Other is set in 1935, where the kidnapping is a much-discussed recent event that leads to a similar crime.

1981: The kidnapping and its aftermath served as the inspiration for Maurice Sendak's book Outside Over There.   In the 2009 documentary Tell Them Anything You Want, Sendak says that he has been obsessed with the case of the Lindbergh baby since he was a youth.

1993: The novel Along Came a Spider by James Patterson begins with a fictional account of the Lindbergh kidnapping.

2004: The novel The Plot Against America by Philip Roth includes the Lindbergh kidnapping as a plot point for this alternative history of antisemitism preceding and then worsening during a Lindbergh presidential administration.

2007: The novel Blaze by Stephen King (under his pseudonym Richard Bachman) is loosely based on the Lindbergh kidnapping.

2007: A Talent to Deceive by William Norris is a journalistic investigation of who really kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.

2013: The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin is a work of historical fiction told from the perspective of Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

2016: Cold Morning: An Edna Ferber Mystery by Ed Ifkovic is a murder mystery centered around the trial.

In film and television

1976: In the television movie The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, Anthony Hopkins played the role of Bruno Hauptmann, while Cliff DeYoung played Charles Lindbergh and Sian Barbara Allen played Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

1991: In the film Ernest Goes to Camp, the titular character of Ernest, played by Jim Varney claims to have taken the Lindbergh baby.

1995: In The Simpsons episode "Mother Simpson", Abe Simpson claims to be the Lindbergh baby.

1996: The Lindbergh kidnapping was the subject of a 1996 Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated TV movie titled Crime of the Century. Bruno Hauptmann was played by Stephen Rea and his wife Anna by Isabella Rossellini.

1999: In the Family Guy episode "Brian in Love", when Lois says it is time for Stewie to start potty training, Peter says, "You know what happened to the Lindbergh baby." This leads to a cutaway of Charles Jr. potty training and accidentally flushing himself down the toilet, much to the dismay of Charles and his wife, where they make the kidnapping up. Mrs. Lindbergh then says, "What about Amelia? She saw the whole thing," where it is revealed Amelia Earhart also witnessed it before Charles says, "You leave her to me," implying he was the cause of her disappearance.

1999: In the Dilbert series episode "The Little People", Catbert when calling Dilbert into his office has him sign a confession claiming responsibility for, among other things, kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Dilbert refuses adamantly, although Catbert forged his signature and then publicly broadcast Dilbert's "signing" of the confession.

 2009: In the American Dad episode "Weiner of Our Discontent" Stan and Roger encounter a man living out of a storage unit adjacent to Roger's 'fortress of solitude' unit, who asks them, "Excuse me, gentlemen, if I just found out I'm the Lindbergh baby, who do I tell?"

2010: In Fringe when Peter returns to the alternate universe from where he was kidnapped, his disappearance is said to have made international news. In response, Peter says "So I'm the Lindberg Baby?" only to discover that no such kidnapping occurred in that universe.

2011: The Clint Eastwood-directed film J. Edgar includes reference to the Lindbergh kidnapping. Josh Lucas plays Charles Lindbergh, Damon Herriman was cast as Bruno Hauptmann and Stephen Root was cast as Arthur Koehler, an expert on wood who testified at the trial.

2013: On July 31 the PBS program Nova aired "Who Killed Lindbergh's Baby?", an investigation conducted by the former FBI forensics expert, John Douglas. Douglas explored the incident and trial of Hauptmann, and then investigated various theories about who else was likely to have been an accomplice.

2016: In another episode of American Dad, "Fight and Flight" Stan tries to help Steve do a video project on Charles Lindbergh, which include several fictitious versions of events including the kidnapping.

2018: In an episode of Saturday Night Live, Kate McKinnon's character "Debette Goldry" said she was the babysitter of the baby, and she lost him when she had to go to an audition.

2018: In the Netflix comedy special, John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City, Mulaney states jokingly, “If the Lindbergh baby had steel-toed boots, he’d still be alive today”

In music

May 1932: Just one day after the Lindbergh baby was discovered murdered, the prolific country recording artist Bob Miller (under the pseudonym Bob Ferguson) recorded two songs for Columbia on May 13, 1932, commemorating the event. The songs were released on Columbia 15759-D with the titles "Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr." and "There's a New Star Up in Heaven (Baby Lindy Is Up There)".

In theatre

The musical Baby Case dramatizes the events of the Lindbergh trial and the media circus that surrounded it.

William Cameron's full-length play, Violet Sharp, is based on the story of the young British maid working at the home of Anne Lindbergh's mother. Sharp's contradictory testimony about her whereabouts on the night of the crime raised the suspicions of the police investigators and of the public, though after she killed herself, it was found her alibi was indeed true and there was talk the police were being heavy-handed with their tactics.

In video games

Thimbleweed Park contains a character that confesses to the kidnapping.