Dr Condon’s telephone number and address were found scrawled on a door frame inside his closet. Wood in the ladder was said to match wood used as flooring in his attic. Charles Augustus Lindbergh and Bruno Richard Hauptmann who was sentenced to death by electric chair for the murder of the infant (Photos: Left, BIPS/Getty Images, right, Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Doubts over convictionĪccording to the prosecution’s case, tool marks on the ladder at the scene of the crime matched tools owned by Hauptmann. This friend was Isidor Fisch, who turned out to be a shady character, but he had died in Germany. Hauptmann claimed that a friend had given him the cash to hold and that he had no connection to the murder. Detectives searched his home and found $13,000 of the ransom money. He had a criminal record for robbery and had spent time in prison. It was tracked back to a German immigrant and carpenter, Bruno Hauptmann.
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A suspicious gas station attendant noted the car registration number of the man who gave it to him. The case went cold for more than two years until in September 1934, when a marked bill from the ransom money turned up. The child was killed by a blow to the head and had been dead for about two months. On 12 May, the infant’s body was accidentally found, partly buried, and badly decomposed, about four and a half miles southeast of the Lindbergh home. However, after an exhaustive search, there was no sign of either the boat or the child. When the cash was delivered, the kidnappers said baby Charles was on a boat called Nelly off the coast of Massachusetts. It wasn’t until 2 April that the kidnappers gave instructions for dropping off the money. The stranger agreed to provide a token of the child’s identity.įurther ransom notes were sent, upping the demand to $100,000 and a baby’s sleeping suit as proof was received by Dr Condon on March 16. Condon, communicated with the kidnappers through newspaper adverts, and he met a man who said his name was John and a “Scandinavian” sailor, part of a gang of three men and two women, in a cemetery in the Bronx. American aviator Charles Lindbergh pictured with his wife Anne (Photos: Left, Fox Photos/Getty Images, right, Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Ī third ransom note was sent, agreeing an intermediary between the Lindberghs and the kidnappers. Several crime figures – including Al Capone – spoke from prison, offering to help return the baby in exchange for money or for legal favours. Then, a second ransom note was sent, this time demanding $70,000. For three days, frantic searches were fruitless. There were no blood stains nor fingerprints. A ransom note, written in broken English, demanding $50,000 was left in the nursery.Ī ladder had been used to climb up to the second-floor window of their secluded house in Hopewell, New Jersey, and muddy footprints were left in the room. On 1 March 1932, Lindbergh, who gained celebrity status after becoming the first person to make a non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic, and his wife Anne discovered their 20-month-old baby Charles Junior had vanished. It’s a fascinating story of a murder that will sadly always remain a mystery.” Danny Curran, owner of Finders International, with Rebecca (Photo: Fiona Hanson) Ransom notes “ Finders International then had a dig into it too. “I was actually already aware of the story, having researched it myself for the last eight years,” said Rebecca. Was Violet involved in the kidnapping or did she know more than she let on? The latter became one of the early suspects, and died by suicide in suspicious circumstances, some say. Dubbed “the crime of the century”, it was one of the first high profile cases to receive intense media attention around the world.ĭerek’s mother, Emily, and aunt, Violet Sharpe, had gone to the US to work, and Violet had been employed as a maid at the home of Lindbergh’s mother-in-law. It’s also lead to the unearthing of the family’s links to the 1930s kidnapping and murder of the baby of world famous American aviator Charles Lindbergh.