The Crime Book

180

A

round 10pm on a rainy

evening on 1 March 1932,

nanny Betty Gow peeked

into Charlie Lindbergh’s nursery,

where he had been sleeping since

dinner. She had dressed him in a

flannel sleeveless nightshirt and a

pink sleeping suit and laid him

down in his crib. Two hours earlier,

she had checked on the boy and

found him asleep. Now, however, the

20-month-old was gone.

Gow rushed downstairs to

inform his parents – pioneering

aviator Charles Lindbergh and his

wife, Anne. They ran upstairs and

discovered an open window and a

ransom note up by the windowsill.

In broken English, written in blue

ink, the note demanded $50,000

(£730,000 today) in exchange for

the baby’s safe return.

Panic overtook the Lindbergh

home. Family members and staff

frantically searched the grounds of

the Hopewell, New Jersey, mansion

for the toddler, unwittingly

trampling over evidence in the

process. They found no sign of little

Charlie. A groundskeeper phoned

the Hopewell police who, within 30

minutes, had put up roadblocks and

THE LINDBERGH BABY KIDNAPPING

The kidnap of the celebrity pilot’s

baby sparked international outrage.

Sensational headlines and magazine

covers about the story were published

all over the world.

checkpoints across the area. Police

also notified local hospitals that a

toddler was missing.

Kidnapping confirmed

Police called to the scene soon

determined that the kidnapper

had used a homemade, three-piece

extension ladder – broken and left

lying 23 metres (75 ft) away from

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Hopewell, New Jersey, US

THEME

Child abduction

BEFORE

July 1874 Fou r-yea r-old

Charles Ross becomes the first

known American child to be

kidnapped for ransom.

AFTER

July 1960 Eight-year-old

Graham Thorne is abducted

for ransom after his parents

win Australia’s Opera House

Lottery. His body is discovered

two months later.

May 1982 Nina Gallwitz,

eight, is freed by her captors

after 149 days, when her

parents pay the ransom of

1,500,000 Deutschmarks

(about £960,000 today).

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181

See also: The Kidnapping of John Paul Getty III 186–89 ■ The Chowchilla Kidnapping 190–95

■ The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt 324–25

KIDNAPPING AND EXTORTION

the house – to climb up and in

through the second-floor window.

Some rungs had snapped, which

suggested that the ladder might

have broken when the kidnapper

descended with the baby.

The police also found tyre tracks

and a chisel, and traces of mud on

the nursery floor. Most importantly,

they found two sets of footprints on

the wet ground beneath the nursery

window, which led away from the

house in a southeasterly direction

towards the tyre tracks of the

getaway car.

However, they did not take

plaster casts of the footprints, nor

did they measure the sets of

footprints – which would have

given them the opportunity to

compare the prints with those of

possible suspects. Newspapers

reported that officers ignored

protocol in their haste to find the

baby and catch his abductor.

No usable fingerprints were

found on the ransom notes, the crib,

or the ladder, causing investigators

to believe the crime scene had been

wiped clean.

By 10:30 that night, radio news

bulletins about the kidnapping hit

the airwaves and the world learned

about the abduction. Over the next

three days, a law-enforcement team

of FBI agents and police officers from

New Jersey and New York found no

new clues.

On 5 March, a second letter

arrived demanding $70,000 (£1

million today). The note also told

the Lindberghs not to involve the

police. In a third note, the kidnapper

gave the Lindberghs instructions

for dropping off the money.

Negotiations begin

Dr John Condon, a 72-year-old

retired educator, read about the

kidnapping in a local paper. He

wrote a letter to the editor, offering

to act as an intermediary between

the kidnapper and the Lindbergh

family. Upon seeing the letter, the

kidnapper wrote to Condon and

agreed. They met in a cemetery

and the kidnapper returned the

pink sleeping suit as proof the boy

was safe.

The Lindberghs were then told,

through Condon, when and where

to leave the money. After the

kidnapper received the money, he

would leave their baby on a boat

named The Nelly, anchored near

Martha’s Vineyard off the coast

of Massachusetts – between

Horseneck beach and Gay Head

near Elizabeth Island. The

Lindberghs agreed to pay the

ransom in order to get their son

back safe and sound.

Under cover of night, Dr Condon

made the drop of $50,000 (£730,000),

which Condon had negotiated down

from the second request. Lindbergh

waited in the car. The cemetery

was dark and they could barely see

the kidnapper, but his German-

accented voice came across loud

and clear. The man identified

himself only as “John”, and left

with the Lindberghs’ money.

However, he did not hold up his

end of the bargain: after an

exhaustive search, during which

Lindbergh repeatedly flew over the

sea, the boat and child were

nowhere to be found.

Investigators continued to look

for the boy, but had no luck. When

Charlie was finally found, on

12 May 1932, it was by chance –

a truck driver stopping for a break

found a small body covered in

leaves in a wooded area near the

hamlet of Mount Rose, about 3 km

(2 miles) from the Lindberghs’

Hopewell estate.

Buried in a shallow grave,

the body had already begun to

decompose. Charlie Lindbergh, it

seemed, had been dead since the

very night he was taken. ❯❯

Anne Morrow Lindbergh holds

Charlie shortly after his birth in June

1930. Six months earlier, the pregnant
      Anne became the first woman to earn
      a first-class glider’s licence.

We warn you not to make

anything public or

notify the police.

The child is in good care.

First ransom note

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