The Haunting Circumstances Around The Infamous Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping

The 1932 kidnapping and death of the then almost-two-year-old Charles "Charlie" Lindbergh was the stuff of tragic melodrama. The case of what happened to the Lindbergh baby drew worldwide attention. After all, aviator Charles Lindbergh, Sr. was the most famous man in the world, having been the first person to fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic. Everyone loved handsome and daring "Lucky Lindy," and the world rejoiced when he married the lovely Anne Morrow and produced the adorably blond and chubby "Baby Lindy." But on a cold March night in 1932, the child was mysteriously taken from his crib. Within just a few hours, the Hopewell, New Jersey crime scene was hopelessly contaminated, muddying the evidence forever, and further clouding the strange circumstances discovered by case investigators.

Eventually, a German immigrant named Bruno Richard Hauptmann was tried and convicted of Baby Lindy's kidnapping and murder. He was executed for his alleged crimes on April 3, 1936. However, due to the mysterious circumstances of the kidnapping, the many legitimate suspects in the case, and doubts surrounding Hauptmann's guilt, we may never know what really happened to little Charles Jr. We can all keep guessing, though, pulling together the random and eerie fragments of the strange circumstances surrounding the Linbergh baby's disappearance.

One of the more eerie Lindbergh baby circumstances concerns the fate of Lindbergh household servants. Police suspected that what happened to the Lindbergh baby was an inside job. Until the sole official suspect, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, was arrested, authorities rigorously and repeatedly questioned members of the Lindbergh household staff.

Chief among these was Violet Sharp, a woman who was in the employ of Anne Lindbergh's parents as a house maid. Since Anne, Charles, and their baby were not only frequent visitors to the Morrow home, but were also actually living there while their new home was built, Sharp was regularly pressed into the service of caring for the Lindbergh baby. Indeed, Sharp was one of only a very few who knew that the family would remain at the new home prior to the baby's disappearance. And this is why she was at the top of the police suspect list.

Sharp was called in for questioning twice, and neither was a pleasant experience. Aside from the fact that she was initially a candidate for suspicion, the New Jersey State Police were under enormous pressure to solve the crime and return the child. This was Lucky Lindy's baby, and the entire world was watching. The department's reputation was on the line. Under the circumstances, their questioning could be brutal.

Sharp did not help her case by lying to the police about her whereabouts on the night in question. And when the baby's remains were discovered and she was questioned again, she became agitated and very upset. Soon the police called her in yet again for questioning. But she was found dead, having taken cyanide.

The Lindbergh's butler, Oliver Whateley, who was one of the five people present the night of the kidnapping, was also repeatedly questioned by the police. He died, very suddenly, of peritonitis, the following year.

Another side of Charles Lindbergh's personality and interests that remained hidden during his halcyon years of aviation heroism had to do with his enthusiasm for eugenics - or, the use of biology and breeding to produce a purportedly "superior" human race. Clearly, Lindbergh considered himself in possession of just such superlative genes. He was even an early supporter of Adolph Hitler's eugenics program. Later in life, Lindbergh pursued German women with the express purpose of uniting his own genes with those of a similar background. He fathered several children this way, along with the family he had with his wife, Anne.

So, how does his interest in eugenics connect with Lindbergh's possible involvement in his first son's disappearance? Some supporting evidence is found in the baby's medical records. At 20 months, little Charlie had trouble standing on his own, and some of his toes overlapped. Such was the worry over his health and possible diagnosis of rickets, that the little boy was given large, daily doses of Vitamin D and napped under a sun lamp. To his father's mind, such conditions pointed to inferior genetics.

Additionally, Anne Lindbergh's sister, Elisabeth Morrow, suffered from mental illness for much of her life. While Lindbergh was aware of Elisabeth's condition, and it may have served as another strike against the genetics of the woman he had chosen to have a family with, Elisabeth herself is still considered a suspect in what happened to the Lindbergh baby.

Author Noel Behn cites evidence that Elisabeth was resentful of her sister's marriage to the famed aviator and had once hidden baby Charlie in a "trash closet." There was apparently enough concern over Elisabeth's treatment of the baby that the parents forbade her to have any contact with their son. This presented a challenge because the Lindbergh family was living at the Morrow home while their house was being built. Indeed, little Charles was born at his maternal grandparents' home in 1930. So, Elisabeth had ample opportunity, at least initially, to make mischief and express her resentment towards her sister and the child.

Focus on the homemade ladder used in the kidnapping began the night of the Lindbergh baby's disappearance. Though crudely made, it was quickly evident that its creator possessed carpentry and mechanical skills since the ladder was designed to expand as needed and retract into an easily carried compact piece. First checked for finger prints, then compared with the scuffs on the window sill outside the nursery, the wood used to construct the ladder was an important clue for authorities. A Forest Service expert named Arthur Koehler was summoned to inspect the materials. 

Koehler disassembled the ladder and inspected each piece of wood, every chisel mark and nail hole. He concluded that several distinct types of wood had been sourced to build the ladder, including one wood that was designed for use in indoor construction. He traveled to wood factories and processing centers to make comparisons, as well as comparing wood sources at the homes of the Lindberghs, their family, and friends. Koehler's meticulous efforts would prove useful later on in the case.

When Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested due to his possession of numbered bank notes from the ransom, Koehler had a new source to compare with his findings. High in Hauptmann's home attic he discovered a plank of wood that was a perfect match to a plank used to construct the kidnapper's ladder. Not all experts agree that this was evidence of Hauptmann's guilt, claiming that the wood in question was purposefully planted in the attic to implicate Hauptmann.

Though they seem more a torture device than a training tool to the eyes and minds of people today, thumb guards were commonly used in the early twentieth century to discourage young children from sucking their thumbs. Young Charlie Lindbergh was among those children who were put to bed each night with metal guards placed over their thumbs. The guards were attached to strong string or metal chains, which were secured to a crib rail, one on each side. Placed thusly, a child could move about, to a point, but was physically unable to bring either thumb to the mouth.

Most accounts about the evening of March 1, 1932 make no mention of Charlie's thumb guards. But it was not insignificant when, nearly one month later, his nanny, Betty Gow, discovered a thumb guard exactly like Charlie's, crushed in the driveway leading away from the Lindbergh home. The discovery location was somewhat problematic for Lindbergh and the police, as their investigation already concluded that footprints in the grass and mud, along with pieces of the ladder, marked the kidnapper's path - on foot - in precisely the opposite direction from the location of the thumb guard. Questions concerning the contradictory evidence were never addressed and remains one of the more strange aspects of the Lindbergh baby disappearance.

At the time of his son's kidnapping, Charles Lindbergh was considered the most famous man in the world, the premier aviator and a hero to people around the globe. It is not a stretch to say that the general public considered him above reproach. His friends and family also respected him, but they were privy to other aspects of his personality that were not so positive.

For example, Lindbergh enjoyed playing practical jokes. Sometimes these took the form of gentle teasing, but often his jokes bore a tinge of cruelty, unnecessarily frightening the recipient. Chief among his targets was his wife, Anne. The equally famous female aviator, Amelia Earhart, personally witnessed and was offended when she saw Lindbergh publicly trickle water all over his wife's silk dress, knowing it would be ruined.

When baby Charlie was discovered missing from his crib late on the windy evening of March 1, 1932, the baby's nanny, Betty Gow, was the first to approach Lindbergh and ask if he had taken the baby. According to her handwritten statement, Gow claimed she suspected Lindbergh of yet another of his practical jokes, since she knew he had taken the baby and hidden him before.

Authors Gregory Ahlgren and Stephen Monier discovered further details in their research. Apparently, Lindbergh had hidden the child in a closet only two months previous to his March 1 disappearance. Once the baby was hidden, he sent his wife and the household into a panic by telling them the boy had been kidnapped.

Very early in the investigation, Charles Lindbergh encouraged communication between himself, the police, and the kidnappers. A series of handwritten letters and messages published in newspapers were the result, with the kidnapper demanding $50,000 in cash for the safe return of the child.

The author of the letters remains disputed to this day, since the man eventually arrested, tried, and convicted of the crime was fluent in German, but the letters suggest the writer might have been a non-German posing as a German. 

During the first weeks of communication between the parties, Lindbergh and the police demanded a token of proof that the kidnapper indeed had the child. When the seventh letter arrived, the sleeper Charlie was wearing the night of his disappearance came with it. It appeared freshly laundered, which gave rise to more eerie suspicion, but the Lindberghs identified the sleeper as belonging to their missing son.

Other items of Charlie's clothing were found on May 12, 1932, when his decomposing little body was accidentally discovered in a ditch a mere four miles from his home. He was found still wearing his white undershirt, by then heavily stained.

Initially, the New Jersey State Police believed the kidnapping had to be an inside job. For example, how would the kidnapper know the exact location of the baby's room? The Lindbergh's home was new; parts of it were still under construction when the kidnapping occurred. The family had not even officially moved in, at that point spending only weekends there.

But the kidnapping happened on a Tuesday evening. Who else but someone on the inside would know that the family remained after the weekend due to the baby's bad cold? According to Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the only people who knew the change in plans were her own parents and one of her parents' house maids who often cared for the baby. The only other people who knew the family's whereabouts that evening were little Charlie's nanny and the Lindbergh butler, who were in the house.

Further, State Police immediately noted that the baby's nursery had been wiped clean of fingerprints, even those that should have been present, including those of the baby and his parents. As the case evolved over the next few days, police and other investigators determined that Charles Lindbergh was maintaining control of the investigation and may have ordered the cleaning of the crime scene. 

In addition to being a skilled and innovative aviator in her own right, Anne Morrow Lindbergh also authored a number of memoirs associated with aviation, family life, and the lives of women in the 20th century. In the 1930s, she published two volumes dealing with the pioneering aviation experiences she shared with her husband. Written around the same time, but not published until decades later, was a memoir and letter collection titled Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead.  

Included in that volume were the author's heart-wrenching thoughts on the kidnapping and loss of her first child. Six months pregnant on the evening Charlie disappeared, the terror and pain she expresses is palpable. In the memoir, she writes poignantly of the moment investigators discovered the baby's body and how some of his blonde curls "and fluff" remained. She did not record any suspicions of who had taken her son, but wrote achingly of her fear that she would forget the details of his face and how it felt when she held him in her arms.

Anne and Charles Lindbergh went on to have five more children together, though they did not remain in the house where they lost their first born. Several years after the tragedy, concerned over the media frenzy that still enveloped them, the family relocated to Europe for a time.

Americans living today have likely heard of the famous Gulf War General Norman "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf.  But there was an earlier, also famous Norman Schwarzkopf, and he was the father of the Army General. He made his name and claim to fame during the Lindbergh kidnapping trial, at the time styled as the "Trial of the Century."

Norman, Sr. was the first superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, and thus played a large role in the investigation, arrest, and subsequent trial of illegal immigrant, Bruno Richard Hauptmann.

The police superintendent expressed concern over the handling of the investigation. Lindbergh wanted to work with the state police, but was not interested in help from the Federal or even local level. Additionally, Schwarzkopf claimed that Lindbergh was difficult to work with, wanting to control the entire case and act on his own. The lack of cooperation only further muddied an already corrupted crime scene and investigation.

Kidnapping was not at all uncommon during the Great Depression. Both children and adults of famous, wealthy families were spirited away by those hoping for a big ransom pay off. Generally, kidnapping was the act of those involved with organized crime. Handled in a swift, professional manner, victims were kept safe and returned safely when the ransom was paid. Among the many strange Lindbergh baby disappearance facts was that this, the most famous kidnapping case of all, ended so tragically.

Little Charles Lindbergh, Jr. was the most famous baby in the world. His father was known to be a millionaire many times over in an age when precious few could make such a claim. Even his mother was an heiress, her family settling millions on her at the time of her marriage. Everyone knew about the Lindbergh baby. He and his parents were superstars. 

So when the child went missing, one of the first suggestions Lindbergh made to the police was to consider contacting famed gangster Al Capone and ask for his advice. Capone, at the time imprisoned for tax evasion, offered his full assistance, but on one condition: his release from prison. Since the courts and law enforcement were not about to let that happen, the Lindbergh case had to continue on without Capone's sage advice.