AviationGeeks.com - Charles Lindbergh´s baby Kidnapping

The police was immediately called to the scene. The police found footsteps in a flowerbed and ladder over a bush in the garden, which suggested a kidnapping. That was confirmed when Charles found a letter written in poor English, demanding $50,000. In the letter he was warned from talking to the police, but it was too late.

In his desperation, Charles Lindbergh contacted persons well connected in the underground and even Al Capone, who was locked up at the time, offered to have his guys find the baby and return it in return for a release from the prison. That was declined. President Hoover promised that everything would be done to find Charles Augustus Jr.

More letters turned up in the days following the kidnapping with specific instruction of how to get the baby back. The letters were all mailed in New York. A New York teacher, John F. Condon, got involved and offered $1,000 for anyone that could provide information which would result in capture of the kidnappers. Condon managed to establish a contact with the kidnapper and met him at a cemetery in New York, with the approval of Charles Lindbergh. Condon asked the kidnapper to send the Lindbergh’s some kind of confirmation that the toddler was alive. He sent his pajamas.

It was agreed to meet at the cemetery on April 2^nd, a month after the kidnapping, were the kidnapper would be paid. Lindbergh did not involve the police in the exchange. At the cemetery, the kidnapper took the money and informed Condon and Lindbergh that the baby was in the boat, Nelly, at Martha’s Vineyard. When Condon and Lindbergh arrived at Martha’s Vineyard, there was no boat by the name of Nelly. They had been fooled.

About a month later, on May 12^th, 1932, the body of Charles Augustus Jr. was found in a bush close to the Lindbergh’s home. Autopsy determined that the cause of death was a blow to the head.

Nothing new came up the investigation for the next few months but the police kept emphasizing on the case. The investigation focused on inspecting large amounts of money with a rare gold marking on it, which was the same type that Lindbergh had paid to the kidnapper. This hadn’t returned any result until a gas station manager wrote down a license plate number of a suspicious customer and gave to the police. That customer was the German immigrant, Bruno Richard Hauptmann.

The police searched the home of Hauptmann and found several items that connected him to the case such as part of the ransom and Condon’s phone number. Hauptmann was sentenced to death for kidnapping, extortion and murder at this day, 1935. He always denied having any part in the kidnapping.