TO ELECTRIC CHAIR.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20540, 15 February 1935, Page 1

TO ELECTRIC CHAIR.

Hauptmann Guilty on Murder Charge. KILLED LINDBERGH CHILD. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. FLEMINGTON (N.J.), February 13. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of murder of the Lindbergh baby during its kidnapping. This means death in the electric chair. A jury of eight men and four women deliberated for more than eleven hours. They polled separately and all answered guilty of murder in the first degree. Judge Trenchard set the week starting on March 18 for the execution. The courtrodfn, which had been cleared of all spectators, leaving only officials, newspapermen, the prisoner and his wife, witnessed the strange spectacle of the breakdown of the iron will of Hauptmann. Although the prisoner stood up straight and listened to the verdict with a firm countenance, he was unable to maintain his pose when the State police led him towards his cell. He collapsed and had to be lifted to his cot, where he wept, moaned and muttered in German incoherently. His wife left the courtroom unassisted. Outside a mob cheered the jury wildly. After lunching on sandwiches the jurors retired to ponder over Hauptmann’s fate. Throughout the morning they had listened to the judge s charge. He directed that the jury could return one of three verdicts:— (1) Guilty as charged, which means death by the electric chair; (2) Guilty with a recommendation to mercy, carrying life imprisonment; (3) Acquittal. The judge intimated that the ladder was built by defendant; that the evidence of Dr Condon (“Jafsie”) was reliable, that there was no evidence to bolster the defence’s contention that Fisch left the kidflapping money with Hauptmann, and that Hauptmann wrote the ransom letters. After the jurors had been out for eight hours there was a rumour current that they had voted ten to two for guilty and later that the voting was eleven to one, but there was rro way of determining the truth of this. Late in the day the jury sent out for a magnifying glass to examine a closet panel from Hauptmann’s home on which Dr Condon’s address and telephone number were written. Mrs Hauptmann, a daily attendant at the trial, waited in a boardinghouse near the court for the tolling of the courthouse bell which signified that a verdict had been reached. Hauptmann himself lay in his cell, listless and showing little nervousness. LONG TRIAL ENDS. Callous Kidnapper Duped Colonel Lindbergh. Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s death sentence is the climax of a long trial and almost three years’ work by the police of the United States. It was in March. 1932, that the child of Colonel and Mrs Lindbergh was kidnapped from its home, and from then until the arrest of Hauptmann last year the police of the whole United States never ceased their efforts to solve the mystery of the crime. Hauptmann was arrested at his garage as the receiver of the ransom. In his possession was found 13,750 dollars (normally £2750) of the ransom of £IO,OOO which Colonel Lindbergh paid without getting his child back. The money was in ten and twenty dollar bills, and was part of the actual ransom paid. Hauptmann went to the United States from Germany as a stowaway twelve years ago. He is thirty-six years of age. The police established that Hauptmann was the writer of many notes in connection with the ransom demand to Dr John Condon, an old friend of Mrs Lindbergh’s family, who acted on behalf of Colonel Lindbergh in the negotiations with the kidnappers. Condon and a taxi-driver who accompanied him when he paid over the ransom money positively identified Hauptmann as the man who received the money in a cemetery one dark night, after he had established his identity by producing a garment belonging to the kidnapped child. Hauptmann’s arrest followed an allnight examination, during which he protested his innocence, as he has done throughout the trial. Colonel Lindbergh Tricked. When Dr Condon arranged the final meeting with the kidnappers’ agent, he and Colonel Lindbergh attended together. “ Here I am, Doc.,” called the same man who had met Dr Condor, previously, and who was Hauptmann. For their £IO,OOO Colonel Lindbergh and Dr Condon received an envelope containing the following instructions: “The boy is in the boat Nelly. Two persons are aboard. They are innocent. You will find the boat between Horseneck Beach and Gayhead, near Elizabeth Island.” Colonel Lindbergh jew to Gayhead, Massachusetts, and spent many weary days looking for a boat that probably never existed. Ilis child was found later, murdered, not far from the Lindbergh home. Baby Taken From Nursery. Charles Augustus Lindbergh, the nineteen-months-old son of Colonel Charles Lindbergh, was put to bed in the nursery of his parents’ mountain home near Hopewell, New Jersey, at 7.30 P-m. on March 1. 1932. At 10 am a scared nurse announced that he was gone—kidnapped. Before midnight hundreds of detectives and policemen were combing the countrj'side, and next day thirty aeroplanes were brought into the search.