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150 pages

English

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After it was announced that the twenty month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was abducted, the entire world grieved for their loss. Seventy-two days later, the body was found in the woods next to a roadway, a short distance from Lindbergh's house.
In 1927, Lindbergh was the first to fly the Atlantic. By 1932, he was perhaps the most famous man alive. A great hero, he was allowed to be the chief architect of the investigation into his son's kidnapping. In this capacity, the first thing he did was to have the body cremated without an autopsy.
Was this done on purpose? Or, was it done for emotional reasons? The authors, Gregory Ahlgren and Stephen Monier delve into the story like no other investigator has done in the annals of this famous-infamous kidnapping.

Sujets

Vie de famille

Soutien psychologique et conseils familiaux

True Crime

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Publié par	eBookIt.com
Date de parution	21 février 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780828322768
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0700€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

CRIME OF THE CENTURY

The Lindbergh
Kidnapping Hoax

by
Gregory Ahlgren
&
Stephen Monier

Copyright 2011 Gregory Ahlgren and Stephen Monier,

Published in eBook format by Branden Books
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com

ISBN-13: 978-0-8283-2276-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Branden Books.

BRANDEN BOOKS
A division of Branden Publishing Company, Inc
PO Box 812158 Wellesely, MA 02482

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank all of those whose help, input and suggestions contributed to this project. A special thanks goes to Bill Lefebvre, Debbie Lajoie, Sheri Kelloway-Martin, Sue LeBel, Denise Roberge and Michael Theodosopoulos.

PREFACE

Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh was one of the central figures of the American twentieth century. His solo flight from New York to Paris in May of 1927 did more than rivet the attention of the world.
Technologically, it granted aviation a respect previously absent. Historically, it altered America's geopolitical view. Never again could Americans feel safe behind an ocean which could be crossed by one man, alone, in 33 1/2 hours.
Lindbergh himself was transformed from a social misfit into America's greatest living hero. It mattered little that he was not the best pilot, nor that had he failed, others would have succeeded shortly thereafter. He had done it, and he would forever be "The Lone Eagle."
Accompanying his rise in social prominence was his rise in political stature. As the "Lone Eagle," Lindbergh was able to prevail in a clash with Franklin Roosevelt over issues concerning the federal regulation of airlines, and even for a time, over American foreign policy.
When in 1929, he married the young Anne Morrow, daughter of Ambassador Dwight Morrow, the press and the public treated the couple as the Europeans might royalty. They were hounded by paparazzi.
The 1932 disappearance of their infant son shocked and outraged the nation. When the child's body was discovered, other parents actually wrote to the Lindberghs offering their own children as substitutes.
Beyond the glitz and the grief, however, a darker side of Lindbergh was never exposed. His beliefs on racial superiority were not generally known by the adoring public. The cruel behaviors he often directed at those close to him were given scant attention.
More than two years after the child's death Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and convicted of the murder. In 1935, shortly before Hauptmann's scheduled execution, the New Jersey governor announced that several troubling aspects of the case compelled him to reopen the investigation. Lindbergh secretly slipped away to Europe with his family.
There he became openly proNazi, often visiting Germany and even accepting an aviation award from Hermann Goering.
Upon his return to America in 1939 Lindbergh became politically outspoken. As the de facto leader of the America First Movement, he advocated total neutrality in World War II. He was openly proGerman and proNazi, and in his speeches, made no effort to mask his strong anti Semitism.
Recognizing the threat posed by a Nazi dominated Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt emerged as the leader of the internationalist forces; Lindbergh the spokesman for isolationism. Although his popularity declined, Lindbergh's position came close to prevailing. That it did not, was attributable to military developments beyond his control.
In the postwar euphoria, Lindbergh's antebellum stance was swept from the nation's consciousness. What remained were the twin images of "Lucky Lindy," crossing the Atlantic alone and brave, and, to a lesser extent, the tragedy of the loss of his first child. This book explores his role in that tragedy.
CHAPTER I

It is still the most spectacular kidnapping and murder case ever investigated. The disappearance of the 20 month old son of Colonel Charles and Anne Lindbergh from the nursery of their Hopewell, New Jersey home in the early evening of March 1, 1932 shocked the nation and the world. Later that evening Colonel Lindbergh claimed to find a ransom note on a nursery window sill, where Anne and other household staff had previously seen nothing. The note was assumed to be genuine, and the case was then, and has forever after, been treated as a kidnapping.
Colonel Lindbergh himself was allowed to head up the ensuing investigation. He specifically invited the kidnappers to negotiate with him, and a myriad of ransom demands dutifully arrived from various groups claiming to have the child, or the contacts to negotiate his safe return. The police chased after them all.
On May 12 of that year the badly decomposed body of the child was found less than three miles from the Colonel's home and the case was officially elevated to a murder. Two and onehalf years later, an itinerant German carpenter named Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested, convicted and eventually executed for the crime. Public opinion was nearly unanimous in its belief in Hauptmann's guilt. However, doubt grew with the passage of time and the uncovering of further information. A legitimate school of thought has now developed that Hauptmann was innocent, a mere scapegoat for an embarrassed police force which had no real leads two years after the crime.
But that is not to say there were no suspects. When Betty Gow, the 27 year old Scottish nursemaid discovered the empty crib, her immediate thought was that Colonel Lindbergh, himself, had done it. Anne Lindbergh, upon entering the nursery, independently shared the same suspicion. Despite his image as an American Hero, Charles Lindbergh had a history of directing very cruel behaviors at anyone he perceived as a threat or whom he otherwise sought to control. Although his supporters have referred to this as his penchant for "practical jokes" there was nothing either practical or joking about them.
Just two months earlier he had hidden the baby in a closet and then dramatically announced that the child had been kidnapped. The whole household had been thrown into an uproar while a panic stricken Anne feared the worst. Lindbergh had allowed the ruse to continue for some 20 minutes before roaring heartily and admitting it was all a hoax.
And so, as Betty Gow and Anne Lindbergh stared at the empty crib shortly after 10:00 p.m. on March 1, 1932, they both inwardly suspected that the Colonel was again responsible. Yet that initial suspicion by both the mother and the nurse was the total extent of any investigation ever conducted into Charles Lindbergh's responsibility for this act. He claimed to have found the note, everyone believed the hero, and for 60 years his role in the disappearance and death of his child has gone unexplored.
But that says as much about Charles Lindbergh as it does about our own criminal justice system of 60 years ago. His public image did not accurately reflect the real character of the man the press reverently called "The Lone Eagle."
In many ways Charles Lindbergh's choice of 500 acres straddling the town lines of East Amwell and Hopewell, New Jersey as the site of his future home, was a direct reflection of his own personality. Situated on a hill it was isolated, remote and aloof from its surroundings. It was located in an almost unreachable spot on Featherbed Lane, a seldom used dirt road that left Lindbergh with his nearest neighbor a half mile away. During heavy rains the road would routinely wash out and become impassable.
Lindbergh had spotted the area from the air and it suited him perfectly. Before the post second World War boom in the American suburbs, when most of the population still worked and lived in major cities, Hopewell remained a desolate town in the middle of the depression riddled Sourland Mountains of Hunterdon County. It was agricultural, a mix of woodlands and hilly pastures dotted with ramshackle farms that could have as easily been situated in the Appalachians of Kentucky or West Virginia.
Yet the town was also close enough to New York City that Lindbergh could drive there with all that it offered: his job as a consultant with TransContinental Air Transport (later Transworld Airlines), his upper echelon social acquaintances in whose world he moved so easily, an intruding yet adoring public that never let him go, and the journalists and photographers who seemed to hound and record his every step since his epic flight.
The site was about one hour's drive from Next Day Hill , the Englewood, New Jersey country estate of wealthy Dwight and Elizabeth Cutter Morrow, Lindbergh's inlaws. Dwight Morrow had risen from an obscure law practice in Pittsburgh to become a partner of J.P. Morgan. He served as United States Ambassador to Mexico, and was often mentioned as a possible Republican nominee for president.
Shortly after purchasing the tract in September of 1930 Lindbergh began to personally supervise construction of his house. Personal supervision and direction dominated all of Charles Lindbergh's projects and his social stature prevented anyone from challenging him. To complete this project he and his wife Anne rented a farmhouse in nearby Mount Rose.
By November the Lindberghs and their five month old son Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. had moved into the Mount Rose house with an English couple, Oliver and Elsie Whately, as butler and cook, and with a Miss Cummings as a nurse for the child.
Although located in the Town of Mount Rose, the rented farmhouse was just four miles from the Lindbergh tract and just a two hour train ride from New York City. Lindbergh commuted to the city on a regular basis.
The new house in Hopewell was a rambling two story whitewashed fieldstone structure built in the French Manor tradition. Set back from the dirt r