SUSPECT ARRESTED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 366, 7 March 1932, Page 1

SUSPECT ARRESTED.

Lindbergh Names Crooks as Go-betweens. NURSEMAID’S LOVER HELD. United Press Assn.—By Electric * Telegraph—Copyright. NEW YORK, March 6. It is indicated that Colonel and Mrs Lindbergh have at last been in communication with the kidnappers of their child. In a third dramatic appeal, early this morning, the parents named two men, labelled as under-world characters by the newspapers, to act as gobetweens in negotiating the release of the child.

“ If the kidnappers are unwilling to deal direct," said the letter, “ we fully authorise Salvy Spitals and Irving Bitz to act as go-betweens. We wiil also follow any other method suggested by the kidnappers that we can be sure it will bring the return of our child." Spitals and Bitz arc known to the New York police as friends of Jack Diamond. It caused a surprise to learn that these men were suggested as intermediaries by the kidnappers in their communication with the Lindberghs, and were declared acceptable by the latter in their reply. Newspaper files show that Salvatore Spitals, known in the underworld as a beer baron, figured in the investigation of the shooting of Jack “ Legs ” Diamond in New York, in 1930, also last December, in the Albany, but he was not arrested. He had been arrested in New York, in 1928, for homicide, but was discharged. Bitz was convicted in 1926 on a narcotic-selling charge. He served a year in prison at Atlanta.

A message from Trenton, New Jersey, states that Mr John Toohey, secretary to the Governor, Mr Harry Moore, said to-dav that he had been informed bv the State Attorney of Connecticut, Mr Alcorn, that a man named Harry Johnson, a friend of the Lindbergh’s nursemaid, had been placed under arrest at Hartford, Connecticut. “ We’ve got his car, and a milk bottle was found in the car," Mr Alcorn said. A Hartford message states that after Harry Johnson was taken into custody, a special delivery letter and a postcard, both addressed to the Lindberghs, were found in the Hartford Post Office. The letter, unopened, was sent to Mrs Lindbergh at Hopewell. The postcard, which was addressed to Charles Lindbergh, said: “The baby is still safe. Get things quiet." Henry Johnson, of Englewood, New Jersey, is a seaman employed as a summer deck hand on a yacht belonging to Mr Thomas Lamont, a partner of the late Dwight Morrow.

Officials hurried to Hartford to start questioning Johnson, who is reputedly the sweetheart of Betty Wood, the child’s nurse, who was the last person to see him before the kidnapping. He admitted that he had telephoned her the day before the kidnapping.