The Serial, Part Two: The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping
This blog post is the second out of three that explains Frank J. Wilson's efforts to fight crime by utilizing his intelligence in accounting and currency studies. Click here to read the first post of this series.
Homicide is always unfortunate, it's devastating when a child's involved. This post is about one of America's most famous homicide cases, the kidnapping of the Lindbergh Baby.
Famous aviator Charles Augustus Lindbergh and his wife realized at 10:00 p.m. on March 1, 1932, that their 20 month-old son, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was kidnapped from the nursery on the second floor of the Lindbergh home near Hopewell, New Jersey. After a search of the premises was made, a ransom note demanding $50,000 was found on the nursery window sill.
Over the course of 10 weeks, there were 13 ransom notes from the kidnapper. The ransom went from $50,000 up to $70,000. The kidnapper eventually threatened to increase the ransom up to $100,000 only to drop back down to the original ransom of $50,000 after realizing that the Lindbergh's and the police weren't playing his games.
It was on May 12, 1932, that the body of the kidnapped baby was accidentally found, partly buried, and badly decomposed. The body was discovered about four and a half miles southeast of the Lindbergh home. The head was crushed, there was a hole in the skull and some of the appendages were missing.
After many different police departments and city officials gathered to bring the Lindbergh family justice, Frank J. Wilson was called in for assistance.
Sources credit that is was Wilson's idea to track the serial numbers on the gold certificates used as ransom money. Some other sources credit Elmer Irey, Wilson's fellow investigator. Both men were in the same unit during the investigation so it's unclear which one truly came up with the idea.
Side note: The ransom money was only spendable for less than a year after the initial kidnapping. The gold certificates went out of circulation in 1933.
It took 2.5 years of investigating this case until officials arrested Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German carpenter. Hauptmann had been living in America for 11 years prior to being arrested.
The trial took five weeks that resulted in a death penalty. Over the course of months, there was an appeal, a 30-day reprieve, and a denial of a petition of clemency (mercy, forgiveness, pardon, etc) until April 3, 1936, at 8:47 p.m, Hauptmann was electrocuted.
Read more about the Lindbergh Kidnapping case