Yeah Uh Huh Episode 25 - The Lindbergh Baby with JT Townsend

The 55th anniversary of the Bricca murders just passed last week,  and we thought it was an appropriate time to bring back local author ("Summer's Almost Gone") JT Townsend for a comprehensive discussion of another case.  Technically,  the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. in March of 1932 is not cold at all.  Bruno Hauptman paid for the crime with his life.  But in this episode JT unravels the case agains Hauptman and puts the blame directly on the shoulders of one man.  Be careful to meet your heroes!

JT Townsend's website

https://jttownsend.com

Take one of JT's Communiversity classes!

https://www.uc.edu/about/continuing-ed/communiversity/course-catalog/special-interest-history/jt-townsend-detective-series.html

JT Townsend on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/TrueCrimeDetective

Show Notes

House in Hopewell was in an extremely secluded, wooded area.

Tuesday, March 1, 1932

No finger prints. Was there inside help?

It was a weekend home. They usually stayed in Englewood with Anne’s family during the week, but Charlie had a cold and they did not want to trravel this particular week? Who might have known they would be in Hopewell on a week night?

Lindbergh was not the hero the press made him out to be.

Loved to pull cruel pranks on people. Almost killed another pilot during flight school by substituting water in his water pitcher with kerosene.

Nazi sympathizer during WW2, moved to Germany in 1936 and was celebrated by the Nazis.

“Cometary John” - Did he even exist?

13 ransom notes? Wow!

Was too much reverence for Lindberg’s status observed by the authorities?

Lindbergh concluded his son was kidnapped immediately upon hearing Charlie was missing from his crib. Did his peculiar reaction implicate him?

Lindbergh paid the ransom without demanding proof that his son was alive. Isn’t that odd?

A thin man with a ladder in the passenger side of his car was witnessed by the Lindberg house around the time of the abduction. Might this have been Lindberg himself?

The circumstantial evidence against Hauptman was strong. But there was evidence in something written on a wall in Hauptman’s garage connecting him to Dr. John Condon. What was written?

Were Hauptman and Lindberg working together? If so, why didn’t he implicate Lindbergh during the trial or afterwards?

Hauptmann was executed for the crime. His wife gave him an alibi and maintained his innocence to the grave.

Lindbergh was a proponent of Eugenics (racial purity).

May have donated his son to Dr. Correll, for eugenic studies. Was Charlie vivisected and left at the crime scene afterward?

Dr. John Condon - the name on the wall of Hauptman’s garage - the go between guy who also received ransom notes for the Lindberghs. A blow hard with a thirst for attention.

Hauptman found guilty in 1935, and sentenced to death.

John Douglas, whose book Mind hunter was translated into a Netflix series, did a profile of the case for an episode of Nova on PBS.

Douglas believed Hauptmann was guilty, but had accomplices.

Is John Knoll a name of interest?

Is John Knoll “Cemetary John”?

Did Charlie Jr. have rickets?

Violet Sharpe - A servant at Ann’s house- Why did she commit suicide?

Lindbergh’s status complicated the investigation. Noone wanted to contradict him.

“Lindberg Law” - Enacted the day after the kidnapping, made kidnapping a capital offense.

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