The Lindbergh Baby Case page 3

Following their instructions, Dr. Condon proceeded down a dark street which ran through a part of St. Raymond's Cemetery. Passing a thick hedge, he heard a movement on the other side and a voice asked, "Have you got the money?"

There followed an argument about the amount that had to be paid. Condon said that the man, who spoke like a Scandinavian, and seemed very nervous, agreed rather easily to accept a smaller amount than £14,000, in fact, the sum originally mentioned - £10,000. He hurried back to Col. Lindbergh, who was waiting in a car with the money, and they took the extra £4,000 out of the box of notes, which Condon then took to the cemetery. As he handed over the money he was informed that the child would be found on the yacht Nellie lying off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

The kidnappers had got their money, and in return had given the name of a fictitious vessel. The next few days were spent by America's most famous son in his aeroplane searching for this non-existent yacht. It was only when it became apparent that he had been fooled in an utterly heartless manner that the police were informed.

Had Col. Lindbergh waited a few more weeks he would have been spared this act of duplicity and his £10,000 as well. For on May 12, ten weeks after the kidnapping, there came the greatest shock of all. The body of the little boy was found dead, apparently murdered on the night of his abduction. Had the parents but known it, the dead body of their little son was lying at a spot visible from their home. It was across the valley in ground owned by a religious institution. A negro lorry driver, who had stopped by accident near the spot, had strolled into the woods and seen what he thought was a child's foot projecting slightly from the soil. It was the piece of news that the police had been awaiting - and fearing! They raced to the spot and saw the missing child lying in a depression, face down, and partly covered with dead leaves and wind-blown debris. He had died from a fractured skull. But whether he had been dropped in the panic haste down the ladder and killed, or whether, frightened by his cries, the kidnappers struck him on the head and then buried him, will perhaps never be known.

Betty Gow identified the body, which was then in an advanced state of decomposition. Dr. Van Ingen, who attended the baby at birth, and who had examined him ten days before the abduction, was called in to confirm the identification. A garment found on the body was also recognised as belonging to the missing child.

If America was stunned by the news of the audacious abduction, the subsequent revelation that the missing child was dead, probably murdered, brought a howl of anger from every home. The Mayor of New York was giving an address on the radio when he interrupted his speech to announce solemnly:

"It has already been stated that the baby has been found. It is now given me to announce, and with my statement goes the feelings of the deepest sympathy of this city, that the child was found dead.

"I am determined that the police of this city must make such an effort as never before to find this criminal. It is a pledge that I make at this time that the 18,000 police of this city will not be off duty any day, but will be on duty from now on making every effort to run down what I consider to be the most miserable criminal and scoundrel in the annals of criminology."

At the same time President Hoover was ordering all secret service agencies to make the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby a live and never-to-be-forgotten case until justice had been achieved.

When the dead body of his child was discovered Lindbergh was away on another of his fruitless searches. During the time that he was negotiating through Dr. Condon he had paid no attention to the claim of John Curtis, the boatbuilder, to be in touch with the kidnappers. The men he was communicating with had stated that they were not in touch with any one else. But when he realised that these men had double-crossed him he turned to Curtis, who was still emphatic that he was in touch with the men who had possession of the child. When the baby was discovered dead the police took Curtis and gave him such a thorough examination that he presently provided America with another shock. He openly confessed that his claim to have been in touch with the kidnappers was false from beginning to end. He had deceived Dr. Peacock and Rear-Admiral Burrage as well as Colonel Lindbergh, his excuse being that he had hoped to sell his story to the newspapers and to the motion pictures.

Through Curtis' representations Col. Lindbergh had been led into the most fantastic adventures. He had gone cruising in stormy seas, searching for a boat on which, Curtis declared, the child was being held. Curtis was arrested, tried and fined £200, but given a suspended sentence.

About this time other repercussions of the Lindbergh case came to a sudden head through the merciless questioning by the police of Violet Sharpe, a maid in the home of the Morrows, who committed suicide. This almost led to an international incident, for the girl was English, and it was protested that without any reason she had been hounded to desperation.

It was in August, five months after the kidnapping, that another son was born to Mrs. Lindbergh; and he was christened John Morrow. But he was not allowed to live at Hopewell, now, ironically enough, turned over to a child welfare association. Next year the Lindberghs, with their new child, went on a long cruise to Europe, Africa and South America.

In Sept., 1934, over two years after the tragedy, when the sharpness of the affair had worn off, universal interest in the case was yet again revived. One of the kidnappers- - probably the ringleader - was arrested! From then onwards until the spring of 1936, the name of Hauptmann became a word of daily recurrence in the world's Press, and in almost every home.

A chance remark made by him to a garage attendant in Lexington Avenue, New York, had led to his arrest. He had driven up in a saloon car and refilled with petrol, his bill coming to 98 cents, which he paid with a ten-dollar gold certificate. The attendant had remarked that since this particular issue of currency had been stopped there were very few about.

"Oh, no!" said Hauptmann. "I've got a hundred of them at home."

Neither Hauptmann nor the attendant knew that the issue of this item of currency had been stopped for the very purpose of discovering the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby.

When the certificate went through the bank it was passed to the police and recognised to be one of those which L)r. Condon had handed to the kidnapper in the cemetery over two years ago. Fortunately the attendant had carried out police instructions regarding any one handing in these notes: he had taken the number of his car.

Suspecting that at last they had their quarry within sight, the police took the most careful precautions. They kept watch on his house in the Bronx, but took care not to arrest him there. One morning they followed his car and arrested him in the street. After a gruelling examination they announced that they had caught the kidnapper! They had no doubt about it. This claim was confirmed, when after diligent search, they found under a floorboard in his house about £2,500, all that remained of the ransom money.

Hauptmann told conflicting stories about himself. But it was discovered that he, a Saxon, who had served two terms of imprisonment in Germany for theft, had escaped prison and come to New York, where he had worked as an odd-job man. Shortly after the ransom money had been paid, he had given up work, but had still lived - very quietly, his neighbours said - with his wife and child in the Bronx. He told the police that he had been making a living by speculating on Wall Street. He explained that the money found in his house was the property of a man named Fische who had died two years ago in Germany.

But the police called the taxicab man who had delivered the note to Dr. Condon's house, and he identified Hauptmann as the man who had given him a dollar to deliver it. Dr. Condon too picked him out of a line of twenty men, but could only be partly sure that he was the man with whom he had negotiated in the churchyard.

Hauptmann was of medium height, medium build, clean shaven, with dark-brown hair and blue-grey eyes. His wife stoutly affirmed her belief in her husband: "Even if the whole world is against him, I know that he did not do such a thing."

Never before had a trial in America caused so great a stir. Hauptmann was extradited to New Jersey, where Dr. Condon now identified him as the man who had received the ransom. Col. Lindbergh affirmed that his voice was that of the man he had heard in the cemetery calling to Dr. Condon in a German accent. Several guards declared that they had seen him near the Lindbergh home while the house was being built. The handwriting experts identified his writing to be the same as that of the ransom notes. Mrs. Lindbergh identified the sleeping-suit, and Federal agents the currency bills found in Hauptmann's house. Experts produced by the Federal Police declared that the wood used in the ladder was taken from the attic at Hauptmann's home and from a lumber yard where the prisoner was a customer. A chisel found at Hopewell was proved to be of the same type as the rest of Hauptmann's tools, from which set the chisel was missing. Nevertheless Hauptmann gave alibis for himself on the night of the crime, and several friends and his wife testified in support of them.

The jury, composed of eight men and four women, found him guilty, and refused a recommendation to mercy.

The trial was full of sensations. Hauptmann was vigorously defended, and reports of the case filled pages of the newspapers. His attorney, not content with his efforts in the court, took the extreme step of broadcasting addresses to the country, declaring the innocence of Hauptmann.

Though he was sentenced to die in the electric chair on March 18th, 1935, the execution was delayed for various reasons until the following spring.

When Hauptmann entered the death chamber his face was more yellow than white. Glancing hurriedly round the room, he caught sight of the electric chair and almost raced towards it. He seized the arms and sat down hurriedly, at the same time making a feeble attempt to smile.

The guards now placed the mask over his face and, at 8.44 a.m., the current was turned on. Three and a half minutes later, after an examination of the body, the doctors pronounced Hauptmann to be dead.

Thus ended the Great Lindbergh Tragedy.

Yet one more sensation has to be recorded: the sudden departure for England of Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh and child. The decision had apparently been taken because the Lindberghs could no longer endure the blaze of publicity in which they lived, nor the receipt of threatening letters concerning their second child, from numerous unbalanced correspondents.

England welcomed the Lindberghs, offering them and their child a place of safety.