Chapter 5: The Lone Eagle Mourns His Eaglet

On March 1, 1932, The Lindberghs’ world was turned upside down when Charles Jr. was kidnapped from his room around 9 P.M. at their home outside Hopewell, New Jersey.  As Charles describes in Autobiography of Values:

“I had been sitting in the parlor with my wife.  Outside, the wind blew and the night was black.  Our house was long, with two stories, enclosed by walls of whitewashed stone and gray slate roof… I went upstairs to the child’s nursery, opened the door, and immediately noticed a lifted window.  A strange-looking envelope lay on the sill.  I looked at the crib.  It was empty.  I ran downstairs, grabbed my rifle, and went out into the night… Under the lifted window I saw a ladder, and saw that it was broken… I realized there was no use going into the woods or trying to follow along roads.  The night was too dark and stormy to see or hear anything.” (p. 139)   

            After being unable to locate the potential kidnapper, Lindbergh re-entered his home and called the local police, who referred the case to the New Jersey Police.  The New Jersey Police went to work right away searching vehicles and questioning neighbors.  At the same time, Lindbergh states in his memoir that he reached out to his bankers at J.P. Morgan & Co to arrange for the requested ransom money of $50,000 prepared.  The bank prepared the ransom with gold notes with the intention of being able to eventually track down the kidnapper when the notes were used.  It was arranged for Lindbergh to take an intermediary, Dr. John Condon, a professor from the Bronx, to a cemetery for the exchange (shouldn’t this have been a red flag that Charles Jr. was likely already dead?)  While Condon was able to deliver the ransom, Charles Jr was not returned, although the contact who met with Condon assured him the child was still alive (I personally don’t believe so).  Lindbergh even admitted in his memoir he fell for a hoax when a friend heard from someone in Virginia that a gang had Charles Jr., and that he traveled down to find out there was no such gang. (countless hoaxes and frauds were connected to the case; this is expected to happen when you have the level of fame Lindbergh had at the time) While he was away, Charles Jr.’s remains were discovered in the woods approximately four and a half miles from the Lindbergh home on May 12. 1932, almost six weeks after Charles Jr.’s kidnapping.  The coroner ruled the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.  The Lindberghs would soon leave their home in New Jersey, never to return, and moved back into Anne’s parents’ home Next Day Hill.  The Lindberghs did experience some happiness amid their grief on August 16, 1932 when their second son Jon was born.

            The New Jersey Police in conjunction with the New York City Police and the FBI would spend the next two and a half years investigating the case until police caught a break in August and September 1934 when the FBI was able to track 16 certificates, which centered around Harlem and Yorkville, New York.  On September 15, a gas station attendant had received a $10 certificate from an individual who had paid with similar gold certificates in the time span the certificates had been traced by the FBI; the attendant took the certificate to the Corn Exchange Bank & Trust Company, which resulted in the assistant manager of the bank contacting the FBI’s New York City Bureau Office.  The attendant even took note of the individual’s car’s license number to assist the FBI in the individual’s capture.  On September 19, 1934, police arrested German carpenter Bruno Hauptmann and charged him with kidnapping, first-degree murder, and extortion. 

Lindbergh on the witness stand at Hauptmann's trial

Hauptmann’s trial began January 3, 1935 in Flemington, New Jersey.  Prosecutors would pin the kidnapping and murder on Hauptmann with circumstantial evidence, including tool marks on the ladder, the wood used to construct the ladder matching the wood found to match the floor in his attic, Dr. Condon’s address and phone number written on a door frame in a closet, and ransom note handwriting matching Hauptmann’s own (FBI website)  Lindbergh himself states he attended the trial every day, and had become fearful for his own safety as well as the safety of his family that he “…carried a Colt thirty-eight-caliber revolver… under my coat wherever I went.  We kept our second son under armed guard whenever he was out of the house.” (Lindbergh, 142) While I’m sure these adjustments were not ideal, they were necessary and likely taken out of slight paranoia, although I don’t believe this would have happened again as the entire world saw the trauma unfold, and another kidnapping attempt would be anticipated.  On February 13, 1935, the jury headed into deliberations and returned to convict Hauptmann of first-degree murder; the jury recommended death.  Hauptmann attempted to appeal his conviction, however the verdict was upheld by both the New Jersey Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.  Even with a thirty-day reprieve, Hauptmann was re-sentenced to death and after his petition for clemency was denied was finally electrocuted on April 3, 1936.

            Psychologically, there is so much to unpack with this case.  Lindbergh does not discuss the kidnapping and murder or trial much in his memoir, which one can safely deduce that this trauma still affected him decades later.  Imagine knowing the whole world is watching while police attempt to find your son, then following as the kidnapper sends excessive (I’m calling them excessive) ransom notes for what he/she felt was due to return your son, only to find him over a month after his kidnapping dead, thrown away like a piece of trash.  The world then grieves the loss of Charles Jr., which I can imagine made Lindbergh angry, as the world would likely never understand what it is like to lose a child in that fashion, but to lose your first-born namesake son.  On top of all that, your wife is pregnant with your second child, and considering at that time pregnant women were deemed to be in “delicate condition”, he would have had to carry the burden of the trauma on himself to take the stress off Anne.  Because psychotherapy was still taboo to undertake at the time, it is unlikely he would have chosen to seek treatment, and given his methodical nature I cannot imagine he would have found just talking about the experience to provide any relief.  Lindbergh also chose to attend Hauptmann’s trial, thereby allowing himself to relive the trauma, but it is likely he attended due to his (possibly biased) belief that Hauptmann committed the crime and wanted to see justice prevail.

            Ironically enough, before Hauptmann’s execution, Lindbergh deemed it unsafe for his family to remain in the United States, and made the decision for them to leave the country for England in December 1935.  This decision stemmed from his lack of desire to deal with the media in the aftermath of the trauma he experienced, and hope the family would gain a fresh start away from the tragedy.