Post Mortem | Lindbergh

0:09In March 1932, the whole world was captivated and terrified by the kidnapping of 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh Jr., the baby son of the famed aviator.

0:22Joe Nocera:And there's a chance that somebody might notice one of the posters who'd recognize little Charles Lindbergh and so furnish a valuable clue. He was mysteriously taken from his nursery on the second floor of the family's home in New Jersey while his parents were downstairs. Meanwhile, the child is still gone and the parents are suffering tortures that only fathers and mothers can suffer. Little Lindy's disappearance, along with the discovery of his body, the arrest and prosecution of Bruno Hauptmann, was the original true crime story of the modern media age, yielding countless theories about what really happened to the baby of the most famous man in America.

1:07I'm CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod, and welcome to a special episode of the 48 Hours podcast. I'm joined today by Free Press senior editor and writer, Jonas Serra, who's out with a new six-part podcast series about the kidnapping called the Lindbergh Conspiracies. And we welcome in, Jonas Serra. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Great for you to be here. 94 years since this kidnapping. So much news has developed and unfolded since then. So why this? Why does the Lindbergh kidnapping still claim so much interest?

1:47Joe Nocera:Um, because it's a 94-year-old mystery that many people feel has never been solved. I think there's two other aspects to it, though. One is, it's the original true crime story. I mean, it really is. And we're a culture that's obsessed with true crime now. Now, and secondly, I think it gives a snapshot of a different America. A more innocent country, where a man like Charles Lindbergh could be almost godlike in the admiration Americans had for him, which doesn't really exist anymore. Lindbergh was the first person to prove that flight could be more than daredevils or war machines. Lucky Lindy, the first man to fly alone across the Atlantic.

2:43Joe Nocera:It was an American hero kind of thing. It was like only an American could have done this. But in terms of Lindbergh as this enormous world hero, he's also a deeply flawed man. He was a believer in eugenics, as many upper class white people were at the time, Which is the sort of selective breeding to promote traits. Yes. And he made trips to Germany before the war, and they gave him some medal at one point. And he became part of the America First movement, which was an effort to persuade the country not to go to war. He was also, he also was shown to be during this period of his life, anti-Semitic.

3:32All right, so take us to March 1st, 1932. By Hopewell, New Jersey. What happens?

3:39Joe Nocera:Well, it was a Tuesday night. The Lindberghs were never at Hopewell, which was really their weekend retreat on a Tuesday night. Charles Lindbergh was married to Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who was an heiress and very wealthy. They spent a lot of their time in Englewood. Dwight Morrow, her father, who was a financier and a diplomat, lived in Englewood. They would spend the week in Englewood, and then they would hope well for the weekend. But the baby had a cold, and Anne was feeling pretty run down, too. So nursemaid Betty Gow, she puts the baby to bed. At 10 o 'clock, Betty Gow goes upstairs, opens the door, looks into the baby's bedroom.

4:18Joe Nocera:He's gone. Anne would later write, At first, I thought maybe Charles was playing a prank. Believe it or not, believe it or not, he had once before hid the baby for 20 minutes from Anne and Betty as a prank. He did weird things. It was bizarre. Yeah. But that's the first thought. Maybe he's playing a prank. Right. Maybe he's playing a prank. So they go downstairs, Betty and Anne, and they say, Charles, the baby's missing. And he runs up the stairs, and even before he gets in the room, he says, they've kidnapped our baby. Now, here's another little quirky thing. When Anne and Betty were in the room, They did not see an envelope.

5:03Joe Nocera:When Charles gets in the room, now maybe it was there and they just didn't notice it, because then they were panicked. Charles gets in the room and he sees an envelope, which is obviously the ransom note. So he takes the ransom note and he says, don't open it, we're gonna let the police do that. He takes a gun and takes a rifle, he runs outside, can't find anything. He sees a ladder that has been dragged 60 or 75 feet away.

5:35And then they call the police. So, quick question about the ransom note, because I know there was some reporting. Not only didn't they see the ransom note, but then they found it on the windowsill. Is that right? Yes, that's right. Windows open, ransom notes on the sill. Windy night. Windy night.

5:53Joe Nocera:Yeah. I mean... So you've just stumbled on, you've just hit upon the first of many, many, many oddities. Mm. Strange things that happen that don't add up. And this is part of the reason the case so fixates people, because once you start to dig in, it's like, oh, my God, that happened. Oh, my God, that happened. Oh, my God, that happened. I'll tell you the next one. They could find no fingerprints anywhere in the room. Anywhere. on the walls, on the drawers, on the bed. No fingerprints. So what kind of evidence was there? The ransom note, obviously. Okay, so there was the ransom note. There were footprints at the base of the window.

6:44Joe Nocera:Okay. That's going to be helpful. It would be if somebody took a mold, but nobody did. because the two cops that came were local cops. By the time the state police showed up, the grounds had been trampled to death by journalists. Somebody had leaked the fact that the Lindbergh baby had been kidnapped, and journalists just swarmed all over the place. Now, the New Jersey state police at that point, run by, and this is a sort of famous last name in American history, Schwarzkopf. Famous first name, too. Norman Schwarzkopf. Father of Storm and Norman. It turns out he worships the ground Charles Lindbergh walks on.

7:28Joe Nocera:So not only does he not investigate the possibility that the parents could be involved, he lets Lindbergh manage the investigation of his own child. So you have one of the people involved as the parent of this victim, dictating to all the investigators what they can and can't do. You mentioned the note, the ransom note. Whether it's legit or not, what does it say? In very broken English, it says, give us$50 ,000 and you'll get your baby back. Broken English. Well, it was clearly written by somebody who did not speak, um, for whom English was not their first language. So it had misspellings and not just vocabulary problems, but, um, grammar problems.

8:24But then, ah, Lindbergh then went on to make a series

8:28Joe Nocera:of idiotic decisions. Well, take me through them, though, in terms of the decisions he made that you might be critical of. Well, um, the first decision he made was to give the ransom note, or a version of it, you know, to a couple of mobsters because the mob thought... Because we needed another element to make it even weirder. Yeah. So, because the mob was known to kidnap people once in a while, although, as one of our experts on the podcast says, you know, this was such... He said, if the mob had done it, it would be a professional kidnapping. This was clearly not a professional kidnapping. But once the ransom note was out there, anybody could copy it.

9:14Joe Nocera:It also had a little red mark, and then future ransom notes also had the little red mark. Sure. Well, then the whole thing's compromised at that point. Yeah, right. So, they could have been anybody. Extortionists, mobsters. Let me ask you about Dr. John Condon. Jaffsy, as he was known. Jaffsy, yeah. How does he get involved? So, uh... Who is he? he writes a letter to his local paper, the Bronx Home News. And he basically says, he's a very pompous, full of himself, 70 plus year guy. And he basically says, I'm going to add$1 ,000 to the ransom money that I will contribute for myself. And the kidnappers put a note in the Bronx Home News saying basically, huh, get in touch with us.

10:10Joe Nocera:But what happens is because the kidnappers give Jaffsy a letter to give to Lindbergh, Lindbergh reads the letter and says, okay, you obviously have some contact with these guys or this guy. So you're going to be my intermediary. So Lindbergh's all in with Jaffsy. So Lindbergh comes all in with Jafsi. That's exactly what happens. And they end up, or Jafsi at least, ends up having meetings with these guys? Well, with somebody. He has two meetings in two different cemeteries. Jafsi's conducting all of his business in cemeteries. Yes, that's right. In the first meeting, supposedly, and by the way, I should just say for the record, Jaffsy is a major bullshitter.

11:00Joe Nocera:But he's the only person that you have who's on record. So you have to, at some point, assume he's not completely making it up. So he has his first meeting with the kidnapper. They have a long discussion. Jaffsy says, you've got to prove to me that you have the baby. You have to send me the baby's nightgown that he had the night he was kidnapped. Then the night gone to the Lindberghs. So that happens. So then Jaffsy meets again at a second cemetery in the Bronx. And this time Lindbergh goes with him, but Lindbergh stays in a car. And Jaffsy has the ransom money in a box. How much? 50 ,000. As he's going to meet the kidnapper, the kidnapper, extortion, whoever he was, the guy says, hey, doctor.

11:55Joe Nocera:And even though Lindbergh is sort of around the corner in a car, Lindbergh claims to have heard that and also claims that it was in a German accent. He takes the 50 ,000, he disappears. Now, wait a minute. This claim was intriguing to you. Well, we tried to replicate it. I sat in a car in the same position that Lindbergh was in, and Poppy, my producer, was at the cemetery, and we couldn't get in, so you have to stand outside. So she was actually closer than Jaffsy would have been. And so she yells out, hey, doctor, and I couldn't hear a thing. Even with the no traffic. So it essentially undercuts this part of Lindbergh's story.

12:42that he heard somebody with a German accent. Say, hey, doctor. From the cemetery. Right. So all of this is unfolding. I'm sure folks are looking for little Lindy's either the baby alive or sadly a body. And eventually a body is found. A body is found six weeks later. Where?

13:04Joe Nocera:In the woods, about four miles from the house in Hopewell. And the only reason it was found is because a truck driver had to take a leak and walked into the woods and saw this partially decomposed body. And the coroner basically concluded that he had died from blunt force trauma.

13:41Let's talk about Bruno Richard Houten. Right. So one of the great three-name notorious people in American history, John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Bruno Richard Houten. Yeah. Who is he?

13:55Joe Nocera:He is a itinerant carpenter, an immigrant who's been in the U.S. for about a decade. The first time he came, um, illegally, he got caught and sent back. The second time, he managed to sneak through. Um, but this is no Boy Scout. This is somebody who has a record. No, he's - He's been - He was jailed in Germany. He didn't have a record in the US. Um, he-he seemed to be making an honest living. Uh, his wife worked at a bakery. She made an honest living. They had a child. Um, they rented a house in the Bronx, needless to say. Uh, yeah. Rented a house in the Bronx. Back to the Bronx. Yeah, that was, uh...

14:36Why did he very quickly become the sole suspect?

14:41Joe Nocera:Well, because he had ransom money on him. There was a certain kind of money called gold certificates that was about to go out of circulation. The Treasury Department knew this, and so they insisted that a whole bunch of the ransom money be made in gold certificates, knowing that if somebody tried to pass it off... It would be a tell. It would be a tell. So two years later, Hauptman goes to a gas station, gives the gas station attendant a bill and a gold certificate. And the attendant writes down the plate number on the gold certificate. That is traced? That is traced to Hauptman. They go into his house and they do a search and they find$14 ,000 worth of the$50 ,000 ransom.

15:33Joe Nocera:So that's a smoking gun. Well, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't. Depends on who you ask. Hauptman had a friend and business partner named Isidore Fish. He says, Isidore Fish gave him this box and said, please store this for me. I'm going to go to Germany right now. So he takes it home, he puts it up. Is it our fish does go to Germany, and then is it our fish dies of tuberculosis. At which point, Hauptmann says, okay, he's dead now. I'm going to take a look at what's in here. Oh, wow, there's money in here. I'm going to take it. Were there any other suspects who were ever seriously considered as having taken part in the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr.?

16:13No.

16:14Joe Nocera:Here's the thing. Up until the moment they caught Hauptmann, they had always assumed it was more than one person. because for the logically because how are you going to pull all of that off if you don't have more than one person right but once they got hopman it was like we're done you know it's it's interesting to hear you say this joe about the idea because because what the the prosecution's case essentially relied on was that bruno richard helpman acting alone drove from the bronx on a random night with no idea or he really should have had no capacity to have any confidence about it that the baby was going to be there the window was going to be open and how did he know which window led to the baby's room how did he know that was the only window in the house that could that could not be locked shut so could could hopman have been involved as part of a gang or something?

17:12Joe Nocera:Absolutely. Absolutely. But could he have done it by himself? I just find that implausible. And yet, Bruno Richard Hauptmann is tried, and it is the trial of the century. Right. So don't forget, this was called the crime of the century, and once the trial happened, it was the trial of the century. Now, I want to ask you something. Yeah. So rumor has it that you had your relatives, your ancestors lived. So growing up, My grandfather and grandmother lived in Flemington, New Jersey. And for years, in the 1930s, they had Axelrod's Pharmacy on Main Street across from the Hunterton County Courthouse.

17:54My grandfather had a lunch counter. And I can remember as a kid him telling me stories of Damon Runyon coming in. Walter Winchell would set up shop in my grandfather's pharmacy, Axelrod's Pharmacy on Main Street, commandeer the phone, and Winchell was really establishing himself for the first time as he became this monster media figure. Right. But he put himself on the map with his reporting from the Houtman trial. Right.

18:21Joe Nocera:Someone else from Flemington, who was a source for us, he said, you know, it's a town of 3 ,000 people. And the first week of the trial, there were 50 ,000 people there. He said the cars were backed up for like 10 miles. So, inside the courtroom, what was going on that shaped and influenced the proceedings? Because if I understand you correctly, there is no way Bruno Richard Hauptmann had a fair trial. That is correct. By today's standards, it was an absolute travesty. And the fact of the matter is, even by the standards of the 1930s, it was an unfair trial. How so? Well, to start with, let's just take something simple like handwriting.

19:12Joe Nocera:So obviously, the prosecution is going to have handwriting experts who are going to say that the handwriting is the same as Hauptman's. But Hauptman says, when the police got him in the room, they said, okay, they didn't just say write some stuff. They said, look at this note. And they showed him the ransom note. we want you to write this exactly the same way that this that this ransom note is exactly the same way same spelling same you know you know curvatures try to copy it try to copy it then he gets in the trial and they say well well look look it's the same it's the same um didn't he have a lawyer oh he had a terrible lawyer we had a lawyer on our show who said he became a lawyer because when he read about the Lindbergh trial and he was like 14 years old, he said, you know, I could have done better than this.

20:05Joe Nocera:But having said that, it wasn't just a defense. It was also the prosecution. The handwriting analysis is just one example. I understand there was something critically important about the latter. Yes. Well, that is in dispute to this day. What was it? Well, the prosecution said, as definitive proof that Hauptman did it, that a piece of wood from his attic had been cut out and made part of the ladder. Okay. It is a handmade ladder. It was not a ladder you go into Home Depot and buy. You've seen the ladder? Oh, yeah. It's at the New Jersey State Police Museum. Yeah. Anybody can see it. You can see it.

20:49It's a really interesting ladder.

20:52Joe Nocera:I know that's to sound weird. It's an unusual ladder. But this became a big, important piece of evidence for the jury to... Right. And this is some of the stuff that I just find so unbelievable. The attic had been looked at, you know, a dozen times by investigators after Hauptmann was arrested. the home that the haupmans were living in was taken over by a police lieutenant who moved in he was living in the house in the house yes and he's the one who comes to them and says hey look at this hole in the attic so um let me give you the denouement as they say please David Wilentz, the prosecutor, gets up and he's going through his closing statement and he says, and then Houtman took an instrument and he hit the baby over the head and crushed his skull.

21:58Joe Nocera:Now, there had not been one word of testimony to this effect. The testimony had always been, well, the baby must have fallen and cracked his head on the ground. To bring up a new allegation in a closing argument, that is, like, against every rule in the book. Yet neither the defense attorney nor the judge said, Hang on here. You know, we can't allow this. Did Hauptman take the stand himself? He did. Did he help himself? Yeah, not really. He kind of got chewed up. They caught him in a lie about the gold certificates. His lack of language skills hurt him badly. His lawyer hurt him badly. His lawyer was being paid for by Hearst, the Hearst newspaper chain.

22:56Joe Nocera:I mean, not quite much. Which had a vested interest in wanting a salacious trial, which they certainly got. Did he? Wow. I've never heard that before. Did the defense lawyer write for Hearst? No, they were paying Anna Houtman for her, quote, unquote, exclusive story. So in the least surprising verdict imaginable, Bruno Richard Houtman is found guilty. That's right. And this is 35, correct. He is executed in 1936. The Lindberghs as a couple, does this whole thing just engenders some sympathy for them, I would imagine. Yeah, for sure. But they take off. Well, yeah, they take off for England for a while because, you know, um, they want to get away from the press, basically.

23:49Joe Nocera:They'd like to be a little more anonymous. It's, I mean, Charles Lindbergh hated the press. He'd been dealing with it since his, since he flew to Paris. In fact, we have a clip from Anne Lindbergh talking to Morley Safer in a 60 Minutes interview. He really couldn't bear invasions on his privacy. Now there, I think, there was something irrational. He had an irrational feeling about the news, about newsmen. He felt they intruded on him. I don't think he was quite rational. He had reasons not to be. I mean, we were terribly pursued, and at the time of the baby's kidnapping, the newsmen, some of them, behaved.

24:34absolutely terribly. Broke into the morgue and took pictures of the baby, and he never forgave him. You hear Ann Lindbergh describe how much Charles Lindbergh hated the media. What is it? Where does that leave you?

24:50Joe Nocera:I have some sympathy for him, to be honest. I mean, you know, so it's one thing to be, you know, chased by the media because you did something amazing, you know, and, uh... But there's another thing to be chased by the media because your kid was kidnapped and killed. But it's only after this that he becomes a less sympathetic figure. Very, very true. Very true. As Hitler begins invading Poland and other countries in Europe, and he is the leading spokesman for the America First movement. Did it cost Lindbergh in terms of popularity? It sure did. What a complicated math. Totally. The complications don't end there either.