LINDBERGH CASE

Taranaki Daily News, 30 November 1934, Page 10

LINDBERGH CASE

RANSOM MONEY FOUND ARREST OF HAUPTMANN. EXPERT EVIDENCE GIVEN. The mystery of the kidnapping and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh jun. is far from a complete solution, although the police have uncovered valuable evidence in connection with the 50,000 dollars ransom money that the famous aviator passed over in a vain effort to recover his child, says the Literary Digest. New York’s case of extortion against Bruno Richard Hauptmann—the thirty-five-year-old Bronx carpenter whose arrest on September 19 in New York reopened the Lindberg case, and in whose garage nearly 13,750 dollars of the ransom money was found hidden—was considered “complete” and iron-clad by District Attorney Samuel Foley of the Bronx. On September 25, detectives, ransacking the Hauptfnann home in the Bronx, found the telephone number and address of Dr. John F. Condon, “Jafsie,” the ransom intermediary, written on a cupboard panel in the nursery of Hauptmann’s ten-month-old son. The door bore ■- two serial numbers of ransom notes. Hauptmann admitted writing both inscriptions. He explained the address and telephone number by saying he had seen them in the newspaper and had written them down because he was “interested in the case.” Hauptmann was indicted for extortion by the Bronx Grand Jury on September 26 and was held in 100,000 dollars bail the following day. New Jersey, which continued its efforts to place Hauptmann in Or near Hopewell at the time of the kidnapping, planned to extradite the prisoner, but officials would not say whether it would be on kidnapping or murder charges. LINDBERGH’S VISIT. Colonel Lindbergh after flying East with his wife, testified briefly before the grand jury the day the indictmerit was handed up. The Colonel was heavily guarded, and observers said he clenched his fists as he narrated the tragic story of the ransom negotiations. He returned the next day and stood in a room full of detectives and police officers, observing Hauptmann from several angles. Because of a disguise, consisting of a cap and heavy glasses, Colonel Lindbergh kept his own identity from the prisoner. Mr. Foley would not say whether the Colonel identified Hauptmann or not, although Colonel Lindbergh was said to believe that two men were present, one to act as a “Idok-out,” the night the ransom money was passed in the lonely Bronx cemetery. The day the indictment was handed up, an additional 840 dollars in ransom bills was found in Hauptmann’s garage as well as a loaded .25 calibre Gentian pistol. The bills'were stuffed into five drilled compartments in a “two-by-four” which also contained the pistol. Substantiating previous testimony by a New York handwriting expert, Charles A. Appel, jun., of the Department of Justice, said it was "inconceivable that anyone But Hauptmann could have written the ransom notes.”

Mr. Foley’s office gave out a statement 6f Hauptmann’s . assets and of other financial facts concerned with the Lindbergh case. It included the information that Hauptmann has a credit balance of 886 dollars under his name with a brokerage house; a credit balance of 5017 dollars with the same firm under; his wife’s; name; a deposit in a joint savings bank-account with-his wife totalling 2578 dollars;, two mortgages on houses in - Brooklyn * amounting to ’ 7000 dollars. ; STOCK SPECULATION. . The statement further revealed that Hauptmann had lost 7000 dollars in stock-speculation. Although Hauptmann made several large cash deposits after tile date of the ransom payment, some of his - funds were on deposit before that date. • Detective Arthur Johnson of the New York Police Department questioned the mother and brother of Hauptmann in Dresden, Germany. Both denied that Hauptmann had sent home any large sums of money. Johnson was to proceed to Leipzig to check the background of the late Isidore Fisch, the man from whom Hauptmann said he unknowingly received the money found in the garage. James M. Fawcett, counsel for Hauptmann, said he intended to fight extradition proceedings on grounds of insufficient evidence. Hinting at a possible plea of insanity, Fawcett said the defence case was “strengthening daily.” Alienists for both sides were to examine the prisoner. Although the authorities considered New York’s case of extortion had been fairly well built up—at least they felt it implicated Hauptmann whether he was a “lone-wolf,” an accomplice, Or the “master-mind”—the New Jersey case did not move too satisfactorily. All indications were that the Bronx and New /Jersey investigations, closely co-ordinated, were momentarily delaying the machinery of bringing Hauptmann to trial until officials could strengthen their case, and if possible determine whether the - kidnapper had accomplices. The prisoner meanwhile continued to deny that he had anything to do with the ransom notes or the kidnapping. Through his attorney, Mr. Fawcett, Hauptmann declared' he never saw' Dr. Condon until the latter confronted him after his arrest. As Hauptmann’s trial neared, the authorities said that the fact that the writer of the ransom notes proved himself the actual kidnapper by sending the child’s sleeping garment to Dr. Condon, might prove to be extremely significant. The ransom notes, released for publication, were signed with a peculiar double, intertwined circle insignia. Experts have already insisted that Hauptmann wrote those notes.