ALLEGED MURDER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22000, 5 January 1935, Page 9

ALLEGED MURDER

LINDBERGH BABY CASE OPENING OF THE EVIDENCE # NEW YORK. Tan. 8 Although little evidence which has not hitherto been disclosed has been given at the trial of Bruno Hauptmann on the charge of murdering the infant son of Colonel and Mrs, C. A. Lindbergh in March, 1931, an extraordinary atmosphere of tragic expectancy has hung over the proceedings at Flemington, New Jersey, from the very ningThe selection of the jury was quickly completed to-day, and the AttorneyGeneral, Mr. Wilentz, began his opening address to the jury, in which ha described the crime as follows: — " Hauptmann built the ladder by means of which he entered the house and stole the child. Then he went out of the window and down the ladder, which broke. " In the commission of that burglary the child was instantaneously killed. " A few miles from the Lindbergh home accused scooped a shallow grave and dropped the little body into it," The Prosecutor declared that Hauptmann consistently declined to show the baby to the "go-between," who pleaded that the mother would be reassured to learn that the baby was well. Hauptmann insisted that the money should be given to him immediately, or he would demand 100,000 dollars. Mrs. Lindbergh described in detail the last hours she had spent with the child. Colonel Lindbergh said that while he was sitting reading in the library on the night of the kidnapping he heard a noise which might have been caused by the falling of a ladder, "if a ladder was outside."