Biographies of Key Figures
Charles Lindbergh, Jr.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. was born to famed aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh on June 22, 1930. He was a blonde, curly-haired child whom the press nicknamed the "Eaglet."
On the evening of March 1, 1932, between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., he was abducted from his crib in a second-floor nursery of the Lindbergh estate in New Jorsey. On May 12, 1932, his body was found in a wooded area about four miles from his home.
Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of the kidnapping and murder on February 14, 1935. He died in the elctric chair on April 3, 1936.
After the verdict, the Lindberghs were the targets of the tabloid press, and also received death threats and hate mail. To escape, they moved to Europe with their four-year-old second son, Jon.
The crime resulted in the enactment of the "Lindbergh Law," which made kidnapping a federal offense.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann
Bruno Richard Hauptmann (November 26, 1899 - April 3, 1936) was a German criminal who was convicted and executed for the abduction and murder of the 20-month-old son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The Lindbergh kidnapping became known as "The Crime of the Century."
Hauptmann was born in Kamenz in the German Empire, the youngest of five children. He had three brothers and a sister. At age 11, he joined the Boy Scouts (Pfadfinderbund). Hauptmann attended public school (Realschule), but quit at the age of 14. He then worked during the day while attending trade school (Gewerbeschule) at night, studying carpentry for the first year, then switching to machine building (Maschinenschlosser) for the next two years.
In 1917, Hauptmann's father died. The same year, Hauptmann learned his brother Herman had been killed fighting in France in World War I. Not long after that, he was informed that his brother Max was now dead too, having fallen in Russia. Shortly thereafter, Hauptmann was conscripted and assigned to the artillery.
Upon receiving his orders, he was sent to Bautzen, but was transferred to the 103rd Infantry Replacement Regiment upon his arrival. In 1918, Hauptmann was assigned to the 12th Machine Gun Company at Königsbrück. Hauptmann would claim that he was deployed to Western France with the 177th Regiment of Machine Gunners in either August or September 1918 then fought in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel. Hauptmann would also say he was gassed in either September or October 1918. He also claimed that while his position was being shelled, he was hit in the helmet with a piece of metal. According to him, this knocked him out for hours, and he was left for dead. When he came to, he crawled back to safety and was back to the machine guns that evening. After the war, Hauptmann and a friend robbed two women wheeling baby carriages they were using to transport food on the road between Wiesa and Nebelschütz. The friend wielded Hauptmann's army pistol during the commission of this crime. Hauptmann's other charges include burglarizing a mayor's house (using a ladder). Released after three years in prison, he was arrested three months later on suspicion of further burglaries.
Hauptmann illegally entered the U.S. by stowing away on a liner. Landing in New York in September 1923, the 24-year-old Hauptmann was taken in by a member of the established German community and worked as a carpenter. He married a German waitress in 1925 and became a father eight years later.
Hauptmann was slim and of medium height, but broad shouldered. His eyes were described as being small and deep-set.
Lindbergh believed Hauptmann must have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of his son. He remarked that Hauptmann was magnificently built but had eyes like a wild boar.
The kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr. occurred on the evening of March 1, 1932. A man was believed to have climbed up a ladder that was placed under the bedroom window of the child's room and quietly snatched the infant by wrapping him in a blanket. A note demanding a ransom of $50,000 was left on the radiator that formed a windowsill for the room. The ransom was delivered, but the infant was not returned.
A corpse identified as the boy's was found on May 12, 1932, in the woods 4 miles (6.4 km) from the Lindbergh home. The cause of death was listed as a blow to the head. It has never been determined whether the head injury was accidental or deliberate; some have theorized that the fatal injury occurred accidentally during the abduction. During the opening to the jury in the trial, New Jersey Attorney General David Wilentz claimed the child died by a fall from the ladder. However during the state's summation, Wilentz would claim the child was killed in the nursery after having been hit in the head with the chisel found at the scene. This material variance in theory as to both the location and cause of death by the state was one of the major points included in Hauptmann's appeal process.
On September 17, 1934, a $10 gold certificate that was part of the ransom was given to a gas station attendant as payment. Gold certificates were rapidly being withdrawn from circulation; to see one was unusual and, in this case, attracted attention. The attendant wrote down the license plate number of the car and gave it to the police. The New York license plate belonged to a dark blue Dodge sedan owned by Hauptmann. After successfully tracing the plate to Hauptmann, he was placed under surveillance by a team consisting of members of the New York Police Department, New Jersey State Police, and the FBI.
On the morning of September 19, 1934, the team followed Hauptmann as he left his apartment on Needham Avenue and East 222nd Street in the Bronx, but were quickly noticed. As a result, Hauptmann attempted to get away by ignoring red lights and traveling at high speed. As the chase continued, Hauptmann was accidentally boxed in by a municipal sprinkler truck between 178th Street and East Tremont Avenue. Hauptmann was placed in handcuffs.
The trial attracted widespread media attention and was dubbed the "Trial of the Century." Hauptmann was also named "The Most Hated Man in the World." The trial was held in Flemington, New Jersey, and ran from January 2 to February 13, 1935.
Evidence produced against Hauptmann included $14,590 of the ransom money that was found in his garage and testimony alleging handwriting and spelling similarities to that found on the ransom notes. Also presented was the handmade ladder used in the kidnapping. Wood expert Arthur Koehler would testify at the trial that Rail 16 matched a part of a board from Hauptmann's attic floor which had a missing piece.
On February 14, 1935, Hauptmann was convicted and immediately sentenced to death by Judge Trenchard who set the date for the week of March 18, 1935. An appeal was argued on June 20, 1935. Supplemental briefs were filed on July 15, and the appeal was denied on October 9, 1935.
On March 30, 1936, Hauptmann's second and final application asking for clemency from the New Jersey Board of Pardons was denied. On April 3, 1936 at 8:47 p.m., Hauptmann was executed in "Old Sparky", the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison. Hauptmann's last meal consisted of coffee, milk, celery, olives, salmon salad, corn fritters, sliced cheese, fruit salad, and cake. Although he had shouted out several times during the trial that witnesses were "lying," reporters present at the execution reported that Hauptmann went to the electric chair without saying a word.
The kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. resulted in the enactment of the "Lindbergh Law," which made kidnapping a federal offense.
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 4, 1902. He died on August 26, 1974, in Maui County, Hawaii.
Lindbergh won the hearts of people around the world when on May 20, 1927, he became the first solo aviator to fly non-stop directly from New York to Paris, flying from Roosevelt Field in New York City in the Spirit of St. Louis.
Lindbergh spent most of his childhood in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C. He was the third child of Swedish immigrant Charles August Lindbergh (1859-1924), and only child of his second wife, Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh (1876-1954), of Detroit. The Lindberghs separated in 1909.
From an early age Charles Lindbergh had exhibited an interest in the mechanics of motorized transportation including his family's Saxon Six automobile, and later his Excelsior motorbike. By the time he started college as a mechanical engineering student, he had also become fascinated with flying even though he "had never been close enough to a plane to touch it." After quitting college in February 1922, Lindbergh enrolled as a student at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation's flying school two months later and flew for the first time in his life on April 9, 1922, when he took to the air as a passenger in a two-seat Lincoln Standard "Tourabout" biplane trainer piloted by Otto Timm.
In May 1923 at Souther Field in Americus, Georgia. Lindbergh took off for Montgomery, Alabama, on his first solo cross country flight. He went on to spend much of the rest of 1923 engaged in virtually nonstop barnstorming under the name of "Daredevil Lindbergh". Unlike the previous year, however, this time Lindbergh did so in his "own ship," and as a pilot.
After his famed solo flight over the Atlantic, Lindbergh visited all 48 states, and, at the request of US Ambassador Dwight Morrow, he visited Mexico. There, he met Anne Morrow, the ambassador's daughter. They were soon married, and on June 22, 1930, their first child, Charles III, was born,
After a verdict was rendered against Bruno Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of Charles, Jr., the Lindberghs were the targets of the tabloid press, and also received death threats and hate mail. To escape, they moved to Europe with their four-year-old second son, Jon.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Anne Morrow Lindbergh (née Anne Spencer Morrow; June 22, 1906 - February 7, 2001) was an American author, aviator, and the spouse of fellow aviator Charles Lindbergh. She was an acclaimed author whose books and articles spanned the genres of poetry to non-fiction, touching upon topics as diverse as youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and contentment, as well as the role of women in the 20th century. Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea stands as a seminal work in feminist literature.
Anne Spencer Morrow was born on June 22, 1906 in Englewood, New Jersey. Her father was Dwight W. Morrow, a partner in J. P. Morgan & Co., who became United States Ambassador to Mexico and United States Senator from New Jersey. Her mother was Elizabeth Reeve Cutter Morrow, a poet and teacher, who was active in women's education, and served as acting president of her alma mater Smith College.
Anne was the second of four children; her siblings were Elisabeth Reeve, Dwight, Jr., and Constance. The children were raised in a household that fostered achievement. Every night, Anne's mother would read to her children for an hour. The children quickly learned to read and write, began reading to themselves, and writing poetry and diaries. Anne would later benefit from this routine, eventually publishing her later diaries to critical acclaim.
After graduating from The Chapin School in New York City in 1924, Anne attended Smith College, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1928. She received the Elizabeth Montagu Prize for her essay on women of the eighteenth century and Madame d'Houdetot, and the Mary Augusta Jordan Literary Prize for her fictional piece entitled "Lida Was Beautiful."
Anne and Charles Lindbergh met on December 21, 1927, in Mexico City. Dwight Morrow -- Lindbergh's financial adviser at J. P. Morgan and Co. -- invited Lindbergh to Mexico in order to advance good relations between that country and the United States. At the time, Anne Morrow was a shy 21-year-old senior at Smith College. Charles Lindbergh was a courageous aviator whose solo flight across the Atlantic made him a hero of mythic proportions and the most famous man in the world. But the sight of the boyish aviator, who was staying with the Morrows, tugged at Anne's heartstrings. She would later write in her diary:
He is taller than anyone else -- you see his head in a moving crowd and you notice his glance, where it turns, as though it were keener, clearer, and brighter than anyone else's, lit with a more intense fire . . . What could I say to this boy? Anything I might say would be trivial and superficial, like pink frosting flowers. I felt the whole world before this to be frivolous, superficial, ephemeral. Anne Morrow and Charles Lindbergh were married in a private ceremony on May 27, 1929, at the home of her parents in Englewood, New Jersey.
That year, Anne flew solo for the first time, and in 1930 became the first American woman to earn a first-class glider pilot's license. In the 1930s, Anne and Charles together explored and charted air routes between continents. The Lindberghs were the first to fly from Africa to South America, and explored polar air routes from North America to Asia and Europe.
The Lindberghs' first child, Charles Jr, was born on Anne's 24th birthday, June 22, 1930. He was abducted from his nursery on March 1, 1932, and his body was found on May 12, 1932 in a wooded area near the Lindbergh estate. Anne would subsequently go on to have other children: Jon Lindbergh, Land Lindbergh, Anne Lindbergh (d. 1993), Scott Lindbergh, and Reeve Lindbergh.
Dr. John F. Condon
At the time of the Lindbergh abduction, Dr. John Francis Condon was a 72 year-old semi-retired educator and resident of the Bronx -- a New York City borough he dubbed "the most beautiful . . . in the world."
Dr. Condon was educated at the College of the City of New York and Fordham University. He taught in New York City schools for over forty years and continued to lecture in his retirement. Dr. Condon was both patriotic and boisterous. A self-styled civic advocate, Dr. Condon frequently penned letters to the editor of the local newspaper, the Bronx Home News.
Claiming to be deeply troubled by the plight of the Lindberghs, Dr. Condon wrote an open letter to the kidnappers in which he offered to act as an intermediary. His letter was published in the Bronx Home News on March 8, 1932. The following evening, Dr. Condon received a letter from the kidnappers -- a letter authenticated by the same pattern of interlocking circles found on the ransom note left in the Lindbergh nursery. The Lindberghs subsequently authorized Dr. Condon to act as an intermediary. A series of communications between "Jafsie" -- a moniker for Dr. Condon derived from his initials: J. F. C. -- and "John" -- the self-professed identity of one of the kidnappers -- ensued. Jafsie met with John twice during the ransom negotiations: first to ascertain the welfare of the child; and later to deliver the ransom money. Both meetings took place in cemeteries.
Given his face-to-face contacts with the kidnapper, Condon was a key witness for the prosecution; he was the only one who could identify John. At trial he did so. In the Flemington, New Jersey courtroom, Condon unequivocally identified Bruno Richard Hauptmann as "John"-- the individual with whom he had met and to whom he had given the ransom money. Without Dr. Condon's testimony, the state's case against Hauptmann would have been greatly weakened. Some, as lead defense counsel Edward Reilly argued on cross examination, believed that Dr. Condon himself was involved in the kidnapping. In his later years, Dr. Condon authored a memoir of the affair titled simply: Jafsie Tells All.
Betty Gow
Bessie Mowat Gow, better known as Betty Gow, was a Scottish nurse hired by the Lindberghs to care for their infant son, Charles Lindbergh, Jr. She was 26 years old at the time of the abduction, and was the last person to see the baby alive.
At 8:00 p.m. on the 1st of March 1932, Gow put Charles Lindbergh Jr., then 20 months old, to bed in his crib. She wrapped the baby in a blanket and fastened it with two large pins to prevent him from moving during sleep. Around 9:30 p.m., Charles Lindbergh Sr., the baby's father, heard a noise that made him think that the slats from the full orange crate in the kitchen had broken off and fallen. However, at 10:00 p.m., Betty Gow returned to the baby's bedroom to discover that he was not in his crib. She asked Mrs. Lindbergh, who had just come out of her bath, if the baby was with her.
Not finding Charles Lindbergh Jr. with his mother, Gow came down to talk with Mr. Lindbergh, who was in the library just below the baby's room in the southeast corner of the house. Charles Lindbergh went immediately to the child's room to see for himself that the baby was gone. As he searched the room, he found a white envelope on the window sill above the radiator, but his son was not found in the house.
In early May, 1932, the body of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. was found in a wooded area called Mt. Rose near the Lindbergh estate.
During the fingerprint discovery process, not a single fingerprint was found in the room, none from Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh, none from the baby, and none from Betty Gow.
Gow came under suspicion for a time and was grilled by investigators for several days. No evidence could be found to link her to the crime. Traumatized by the events, she returned to Scotland after the trial.
The bulk of the information on this page was compiled by Wikipedia contributors and by law students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law