LINDBERGH BABY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18633, 18 February 1935, Page 10

LINDBERGH BABY

STORY OF THE CRIME

KIDNAPPING AND AFTER

HOW ACCUSED .WAS TRACED

The. conviction of Bruno Hauptmann for the murder of the Lindbergh, baby is one of the final chapters in one ot the most sensational crimes yet recorded in the United States. On the night of Tuesday, March 1, 1932, Colonel Charles Lindbergh’s infant son disappeared. For months the American newspapers and those overseas published voluminous accounts of the crime. At one time there were believed to be 100,000 persons directly or indirectly co-operating iu the investigation. However, it was only by accident that, 72 days after the kidnnp'ping, the body of the baby was discovered by a negro among some trees a few miles from the Lindbergh home. The person responsible for the murder was still at large. Public indignation was raised to an even higher pitch by the knowledge that a large suin' of money —more than £IO,OOO —laid been extorted without result.

The Lindbergh home had been recently built near Hopewell, New Jersey. The house is situated near woods and is approached bv one dirt road. The child’s bedroom was one floor from the ground and directly above • Colonel Lindbergh’s study. At 7.30 p.m., Betty Gow, the nurse, put the child in his cot. She proceeded to the kitchen, out of hearing from the bedroom. She revisited the bedroom at 8.30 p.m. and saw that tile baby was all right. She returned again at 10 p.m. and the cot was empty. Colonel and Airs. Lindbergh had spent the evening at home and they were at once infonficd and. the alarm was spread. The kidnapper had left a letter bearing a curious cipher consisting of intersecting and colored circles, with perforations with in the intersection. The letter read : “Dear sir.—Have 59,000 dollars refl.v, 25.000 ■ dollars in 20 dollar bills. 15,000 dollars in 10 dollar bills and 10,000 in 5 dollar bills. After 24 clays we will inform you were to deliver the mony. We warn you for making anything public nr for notify the police. The scliild is in gule care. Identification for our letters are signature.” Outside the window was found a bidder, specially constructed iu three pieces. The footprints' of two persons one. a man and the other a. hoy, a woman or a man with a small fool—were traced around Ihe house and into the woods. The, assumption was that lio motor ear bad approached the house by the. dirt road. The child had been carried to a ear at sonic distance. The woods were combed. Every shack in the district, was searched, but without appreciable result,

DR. CONDON BUYS FALSE INFORMATION. For 10 weeks the fate of the child was not known to the authorities. The chief anxiety was, not to capture the kidnappers, but to receiver the baby, ■end to that everything, else, even the

larger interests of justice, were subordinated. After various notorious “gangsters,” including Al Capone, had offered assistance, a strangle character entered the case. He was Dr. John F. Condon, a retired educator,' who undertook to make contact with the abductors, and on March 8 he inserted advertisements in the newspapers signed “Jafsie.” Within a few days he received a.note bearing cypher, and after mysterious negotiations the money was. handed over to the kidnappers, who said the child would be found on a certain yaclit, It was learned, however, that the yacht did not exist. The serial numbers of the ransom bill were published in the press and sent, to the banks, and- a watch was begun —a watch in which thousands of eyes took-part—for the bills to reappear. That watch was deadly, as the denouement in September, 1934, showed.

NET OF JUSTICE IS SPREAD. The banks watched, tirelessly’ for the ransom bills to appear in circulation. When they appeared the newspapers suppressed the news of their discovery lest the criminals should be made cautious. Maine of the bills appeared, most of I hem in and about the northern end of Manhattan. Unknown to the criminals and the, public, justice was narrowing the, netSomewhere near the centre of an arch studded with pins on a Government map the culprit was disposing of his longhidden ransom money.

That area became so well defined that it was possible to warn shopkeepers, tradesmen and filling-station attendants within it lo be on the alert for bills of a certain sort. It was that system of watching that (nipped the first suspect iu possession of ransom funds. A circumstance which greatly aided the investigators was that, the ransom money was in gold certificates, which were withdrawn from circulation'on May 1, 1933. as part of the Government’s gold policy. Thus the certificates .which appeared after that date betaine more and more conspicuous, and the search for (lie man who was passing the money became easier.

TRANSACTION THAT LED TO ARREST.

It was possible for tradesmen in the district under observation lo be on their guard. They were asked to write on any suspected bill some legend that would help to trace if hack Ip them. Several bill so marked turned up and the in-

vestigatovs began at last to get accurate 1 first-hand descriptions of the man they | wanted. ; One day a bank teller discovered one of the ransom notes with a motor car license number scribbled on it. A black sedan had been driven up to a petrol station. Its owner had handed over a gold certificate from the Lindbergh money. Walter Lyle, of the petrol station. had written the license number 'on the bill. It was only hours before ; the prey was helpless in the net, i It is known how swiftly the law desI vended, and how the garage of Haupt- | malm's home in Bronx yielded the re--1 mainder of the ransom money. The trial of Hauptmann was begun at Flemington, NeW Jersey, on January 2.