LINDBERGH BABY.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 10826, 24 March 1932, Page 2

LINDBERGH BABY.

\L. CAPONE IN’ SPOTLIGHT. New York, March 10 Frojn his cell in Cook County gaol, Chicago, where he has been incarcerated for four months waiting for the hearing of his appeal against his sentence, of 11 years imprisonment for evading income tax. “Scarface A 1 Capone pleads with the police to let him out to find Baby Lindbergh. “Scarface” made his proposal after being visited in prison by Mr Arthur Brisbane, editorial writer for the Hearst newspapers, who talked long and earnestly concerning the chances of getting the babyi back. “I probably could do more than anyone alive in attaining this result because I know the right people.’ said Capone. “Certainly I can’t do anything while lam behind bars. I’m willing to post a £500,000 .cash bond to appear again when the Government calls.” . ,

There has been a perfect deluge of rumours that the baby was in this or that part of the country or had been found here or was secreted somewhere else. Emerging from all appeared the fact that Colonel Lindbergh and his wife seem freed’ from the tense strain of the host week.

This is taken to confirm stories that they have made contact with the abductors, and feel reasonably assured that the baby is alive and well. The general impression to-night is that the kidnappers are holding off and making their moves only with the greatest skill and care, and are fortifying their position in order to demand a ransom of anything up to £IOO,OOO. American police officials journeyed all the way to Vancouver to interview Mrs Jack Vanderweg concerning her acquaintances with Betty Gow, the Lindbergh baby’s nurse, and her sailor sweetheart, Johnson, who is still held by the Hartford police. The police also surprise Mrs Vanderweg by asking her if she were acquainted with a certain Fred Short. She knew him, as a bookmaker, In Sydney (N.S.W.), and met him some months ago in a Vancouver post office, but the police would not say what connection, if any, this had with the case.

Frederick Dudley Short, agent, and Randwick flat bookmaker, said to-day that he had never been in Vancouver in his life, and had not been out of Australia since 1910. He had never known a Mrs Vanderweg. As a flat bookmaker he only bet in 2s and 5s amounts, but it would be possible for anyone to have kept betting tickets bearing his name and taken them to America. He made an exhaustive search through his betting and business records, but failed to find any mention of the name, Vanderweg.

BROTHER CAN OCCUPY CELL WHILE OUT. New York, March 11. When Arthur Brisbane, star writer for Hearst’s newspa.per chain visited Al. Capone in gaol, the bootleg king’s first words were not “How are you,” hut “Any news of the baby?” Capone is so anxious to get out and show what he can do to solve the Lindbergh mystery that he is willing that his own younger brother should occupy his cell in his absence. Further, he will undertake that, while he is out he will not leave the side of Thoma-s Callahan, head of the U.S. Secret Service, the* Federal body that, after State judiciary and police had failed to end Capone’s career, stepped in and collected the evidence that sent him to gaol for ten years. The chase for the baby has developed a new technique amongst news hunters. Three hundred pressmen are covering the story, representing papers' everywhere from Stockholm to Sydney, but the nearest most of the ever get is the village of Hopewell, where the one fair-sized hotel is doing a roaring business. Naturally, neither Lindbergh nor his Press agent, nor.even the police can talk personally to each of these 300 correspondents and reply to every question these clever young men and younger women can think of, so early in the case the reporters adopted the plan of submitting written queries.

This speedily developed into a ques tionaire of amazing proportions.

Collectively the “news hawks” ask a great number of embarrassing questions, some of them extremely personal ranging all the way from, “Why didn't Lindy’s house dog bark that night and raise the alarm?” to “Why haven’t bloodhounds been used and what’s the exact date on which Mrs Lindbergh is expecting her next baby?”

The result was continual quarrels between the police and reporters, and to-day this culminated in an announcement that no more questionnaires would be tolerated. Hereafter the superintendent of police will hold open conferences, twice daily, and telf the newspapers what he thinks they should know. He does not undertake to answer questions. Spitale’s Movements.

Spitale’s activities are again cans' ing' commen.

His New Lork attorney, Abraham Kesselman, has announced that the gangster will leave shortly for the west, on a tap “that looks pretty good,” and Isiah Leebove. who claims to be Spitale’s attorney in Detroit, has declared that the baby is safe, but that the ransom will be higher than 50,000 dollars (£10,000). Spitale, interviewed during an adjournment in his liquor smuggling trial, declined to comment.