An Aviator King’s Ransom 01:08:34

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Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold, very cold. This is Buried Bones. ♪♪

Hey, Paul. Hey, Kate. How's it going? It's going well. It's hectic. Oh, yeah. This is holiday season. It's hectic. Are you not hectic, too? You know, I get a little hectic. It's more of the scramble, the last-minute Christmas gifts, you know. But for the most part, no. You know, I just kind of keep doing what I do.

So in my head, I'm picturing you venturing out with a large axe into the woods, just you and Cora, and chopping down your own tree. Is that like a lumberjack? Is that true? Or do you just go to like Randall's and pick up a tree? Yeah.

No, you know, I have a, it's a reasonably nice artificial tree that is pre-lit. That is what is so important. I hate putting lights on and off trees. Oh, you're such a buzzkill. I love that part. It's my favorite part. I know.

Oh, it's miserable. My job is to put the tree up and the rest of the family puts the ornaments on. Okay. And then they have to prod me into putting lights on the house. And so I'll do that. Well, I have a holiday gift for you that I don't know if you know. We are off for the next two weeks for the holidays for a kind of deserved, I guess. This is so much fun. I'm not sure I need a break. I was like, what? I don't need a break. Make him show up. I don't know if this is a gift. I don't know if this is a gift.

So with the holiday season here, I would be remiss if I didn't remind all of our listeners, Paul and I both have books out. Mine is All That Is Wicked, which is all about the criminal mind and how we ended up where we are today. And Paul's is called Unmasked. And his is a memoir, of course, about his unbelievable career as a forensic investigator. So if you want the hardback copy, they're out.

if you can't live without our voices and want to spend the holidays listening to us even more than we both read our own audio books. And we thank you for the support. So this will be our last show for just a few weeks, and then we will be back with a vengeance or just back one way or the other in a couple of weeks. So we're going to leave this on our two-week break with a doozy of a case. And I know it's a case you've heard about before, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case.

But I think a lot of people just know that this happened. They don't know the ins and outs of it, and they don't know the controversy around what ends up happening at the end. So I'm super excited to fill you in on this. Yeah, you know, that pretty much describes me. I'm aware of the case, vague recollection of some of the details, but do not recall it at all. Well, let's go ahead and get started, and let's set the scene. ♪

So let me tell you the time period we're talking about, 1932, New Jersey. So still in the middle of the Depression. The two main characters are Charles and Ann Lindbergh, and they're from a very wealthy family. He is a handsome, world-renowned aviator. By the age of 25, he had become famous for making the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris on May 20th, 1927. And I know most people have seen those photos or heard about it. It's a

pretty incredible feat. So he was just this icon for people, and he lived on a beautiful estate with his beautiful wife and had this wonderful life. Yeah, and that's what I vaguely remember about Lindbergh was the aviation side of him, almost like a superstar, you know, back in the day, accomplishing something that no other human had ever accomplished before. And the rugged good looks, I can't emphasize that enough, that this was somebody who was very high-profile and

So all of this is unexpected and very, very tragic. So in the evening of March 1st, 1932, we have Charles Lindbergh's little boy who was 20 months old at the time, and his name was Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. And he had a cold. And I'm sure you remember your children at that age having a cold. I can't think of anything more miserable for them and for me.

as a parent to have a 20-month-old having a cold and sneezing and crying and all that. And he was very under the weather. Right, and keeping you up all night. You know, they're just miserable. They don't know how to take care of themselves. It's so hard to try to make them more comfortable. So I could only imagine what it was like in that house.

He's lucky enough to have a nurse. Her name was Betty Gall, and she's trying in the nursery to make him feel better. So she rubs a medicine on his chest to try to clear up the congestion while Charles and Anne, his parents, are downstairs relaxing. It's a quiet evening. It's cold outside. And now, finally, Charles Jr. has fallen asleep. So everything is at peace.

Just to set the scene, because this is going to be important, and I'm going to have to show you some photos in a little bit. They are on a 400-acre estate in...

in New Jersey, in the Sourland Mountains of New Jersey. And the home is only accessible by a dirt road. This is a very private, exclusive estate. So breaching this estate, you really have to feel pretty confident about who you're targeting and what your plan is, don't you think? Anytime I go to a crime scene, part of assessing that scene is the location. And it's the ingress and egress of the offender.

You know, how did the offender, like in this case, how is the offender even aware of the location? But also, how would the offender get into the scene to minimize risk of being seen as well as leave the scene again without exposing him or themselves to higher risk?

And that's part of why it's so critical to actually visit the physical locations. You know, as a cold case investigator, any case that I really start digging into, I make it a priority, even if it's 40 years later, go out to the crime scene because it's so informative.

And when we talk about accessibility, you're going to be very thankful that this is 1932, where there were photographers on the police force or independent photographers with the media who took a lot of photos so that you're able to assess more. I try to do a nice mix of...

time periods where photographs are available to us mixed with, of course, the 1800s and the 1700s, which are a little bit more challenging. But I know how much you appreciate photos, so I'm offering you photos for this case. Yay. Yay, photos. Okay, so back to the story. We're on a rural estate and very, very private. And the people in the house at the time are Charles and Ann, the parents, and then Betty, Gal, who is the nurse.

So around 10 o'clock, Betty is assuming that Charles, the little boy, is asleep. She goes to check on him and she finds that he's gone. He's vanished from the nursery. She looks everywhere, looks in the crib, looks underneath, closet, things where there's just no way he had been able to sneak to. But she was out of her mind trying to figure out what happened.

She screams down to Charles and Anne, who are clueless. They're stunned. They have no idea what happened. They've been downstairs the entire time, and they don't understand how the baby had just disappeared. Charles said, I went upstairs to the child's nursery, opened the door, and immediately noticed a lifted-up window, and there's a strange-looking envelope laying on the sill. Okay, so they were awake this entire time? They were. They were downstairs, just probably having a glass of wine, just spending time together,

This is a huge house, and I'm going to show you a photo in a minute. It's a big house. Okay. So the nursery and the downstairs seem like you have to traverse a couple of flights of stairs to get to them. Yeah, and there's no baby monitors back during this timeframe. Nope.

No. So it's a problem. He was noticing a envelope laying on the windowsill. He did not stop to look at this envelope just yet because he's trying to stop whomever took his baby from leaving the property. Because remember, this is a huge amount, 400 acres, and the house is very far set back. So he's thinking, I still have a chance to stop this person. He said, I looked at the crib. It was empty. I ran downstairs. I grabbed my rifle and I went out into the night.

If I were a cynical person and I were a police officer hearing this, that this rich, wealthy man says somebody scaled the house to get to the top floor and broke into the house and took a baby for who knows what reason, I would suspect the parents. Wouldn't you suspect the parents straight away?

As ruthless as it may seem, very early on, when you do have missing kids, you know, that are the result of foul play, you always have to consider the parents. You know, you take a look at the statistics. Who's the number one killer of kids?

It's the parents. So very early on, you know, here you have this odd scenario. I mean, this junior, this little toddler is taken out of the house, out of this window, off the second floor. Yep. You know, that's shocking to me. And the parents are awake. So you go, okay, this, something's not adding up here.

If I were an initial responder or an early investigator on this case, now you separate the parents, you separate out the nurse, you get statements from all of them, and you start looking for inconsistencies. And then there is an exhaustive search of that house and of the property.

for the boy. So before we get to the letter, which is a very interesting clue, let's talk about the forensics that they've gathered from the nursery. No fingerprints that they can find. So obviously, whoever did this was probably wearing gloves. Or they find only fingerprints of the parents. And so the parents have done it. Of course, there are fingerprints of the parents.

muddy footprints all throughout the nursery, which we could potentially use later. Is that right? We've talked about footprints. What would be helpful to a 2023, 2022 detective when you find footprints? Because it's a little squishy as far as forensics go. Is that right? Well, you know, the shoe prints, I'm assuming these aren't bare feet, but these are actual shoe prints. We've got sole patterns that are present. Yep.

At least the shoe prints provide movement patterns depending on how many have been left behind. But somebody with mud on the bottom of their soles was stepping in that location. So it helps reconstruct movement, which also can help

Guy, let's say a CSI, asked where to focus the energies to get evidence to identify who this person is. Of course, you get some rough ideas about the size of the shoe. And if there are tread patterns on the bottom of the shoe, you get some information related to possibly the make and model of the shoe. So they have significance.

I would imagine in mud in this nursery, the quality of these shoe prints are likely very poor, not like comparison quality if you get the suspect's shoes. Yeah, he's moving fast. He snatches the kid and then out the window.

One of the things that I remember with this case that echoes in my head is I have a friend who's a forensic pathologist, and he always says that his job much of the time is to exclude, not include, if possible. He can oftentimes say, this didn't happen, but many times he can't say, well, this definitely happened.

So I was thinking, well, we could tell the shoe size, but also if I were a skeptical Paul Holes, I would say, what's to stop the guy from wearing a shoe size that's three times bigger than his so that he could be potentially excluded if he were a suspect later down the road based on his shoe size? What do you think about that? That is a primary tenant of forensic science, is that you're always trying to eliminate, exclude people.

It's only when you fail to do that, then you say the characteristics of this evidence are included within whatever parameters are important to the discipline.

So, your friend is absolutely correct. When it comes to these shoe prints, you pay attention to all the information you can get from them, but you also have to be aware of the variables. You know, does the size truly indicate the true size that the offender is wearing, or did the offender choose to wear something that would throw off the investigators? So, let's talk about the latter because I get to show you a photo, and that's one of my favorite things to do.

So the ladder is, they've determined, is homemade. It does not belong to the Lindberghs, according to Charles. Of course, if he's the killer or if he's the person who set this whole thing up, then of course he's going to lie and say this doesn't belong to us. But it looks like a homemade ladder.

And presumably, this is what the kidnapper used to enter the nursery and snatch young Charles. So let me show you a photo of it. And it's leaning up against the house for context. And you can see, you know, just how far this person had to climb. Oh, wow. This is a tall ladder, homemade ladder. I mean...

Very narrow. Very narrow. Very unstable. This looks like the perfect height to get into the window. I wonder, is this homemade because he couldn't find a ladder that would give him the height to...

to access this top window, or do you think he was trying to cover his tracks by not buying something commercially, or is a ladder this size even available? You know, back in the day, I would have no idea what could be purchased. The ladder does appear to be homemade, but, you know, reasonably well-constructed. I'm looking at the two men standing at the base of this ladder and assuming, let's say, they're roughly six feet tall. Yeah. You know, just eyeballing it, this ladder looks like it's almost 18 feet tall.

There's so much to digest here in terms of the offender's planning. Part of what the offender is, he's got to have knowledge about, number one, where the baby is asleep in the house. So either he's been at this location or somehow has been told where this location is. Also has knowledge about the height of this window and that this window is something that he would be able to get into. But think about this.

The offender has to get to this isolated house across this property with this ladder in tow. Is he driving a vehicle up to the house?

I don't know. I don't think this is a ladder that has rungs or any sort of hinges that he could maybe, but it doesn't look to me like this is a ladder that he can bend and unbend. Yeah. It doesn't look like it's a folding ladder. Right. But also what strikes me is how narrow it is. You know, I'm a kind of a scared of heights type of guy, you know, and I've gotten pretty high up on ladders, you know, and even with very stable ladders, I get uncomfortable. Yeah, me too. This ladder...

Imagine how much it would shake side to side because it's so narrow at its base. He's able to climb up this ladder, get into this window, and then get out of this window while holding a 20-month-old kid. And, you know, is this kid squirming? Did he incapacitate the kid right away? Yep.

But now he's holding this mass, what, 25 pounds, 30 pounds, I'm not sure. But now he has to hold this, get back on this very unsteady ladder and get down while not alerting the occupants inside. This tells me this offender has some physical capabilities that probably are above maybe the average person.

How would you incapacitate a child who's probably been crying all night long? Maybe the nurse gave him something. She just said she rubbed something on his chest, but, you know, they would have given whiskey. There's a host of things. Cocaine. But, boy, you're taking a big chance with his parents at home on the first floor.

You're coming up, maybe he planned, is this a full moon? And if you look at the trees, Paul, what I noticed is this seems like a house that's stuck in the middle of an empty space. There aren't trees right next to the house. So he's exposed walking up. I mean, surely he didn't do this on a full moon night. He's exposed here. Yeah, it's such a bizarre set of circumstances, you know, and on one hand, I have some suspicions about, you know, is there an insider component involved?

to this abduction. It's pretty ballsy for him to do this. And unfortunately, I think I asked you two or three questions at the same time. As far as incapacitating the little boy before getting him on a ladder and carrying him down when he's been sick,

I wonder what, if he would have killed him, but if you're doing this for ransom, he wouldn't have. So I just wonder what would have happened to stop this kid from screaming as he's being carried down by a stranger in the cold when he already hasn't felt well. Well, that's where assessing what's going on inside that nursery, you know, the movement patterns of the offender. Is it looking like the offender is

spending time over by where the boy was asleep. I mean, it's possible the offender just strangled this boy, killed him right away, and now takes the body with him and leaves the letter. The parents don't know the boy's been killed. And so if this is a ransom situation, they're not planning on ever giving the boy back alive. They're just looking to get the money. I agree.

Here's a detail I didn't tell you. The ladder was broken. So it seems pretty clear that when he took Charles Jr. and he started to go down the ladder, his janky homemade ladder did not hold him up or he was moving so fast he broke it. So the way it looked to the detectives was that he, if it's a he, fell.

with the baby. Oh. Down probably, you know, one story. I don't know how far. It looked like the whole thing was sort of split in two. Well, is this, you know, the photo that you're showing me, is this the actual ladder or is this a replica where they are now reconstructing how they think this offender got into the house?

They said it was damaged, and I think that they just put it back up so you could show the height. They don't have anybody standing on it, so... Yeah, because right now, I can't tell that this ladder is damaged. So it appears that that would be consistent with what they would have attempted to do. It's just, okay, we've got this broken ladder. Let's show what this ladder, when it was...

how it was constructed, how it would have been used in order to carry out this abduction. So now we have Charles and the investigators are looking at the envelope that was left behind on the nursery's windowsill. It's the best evidence they have at this point.

So this is what the letter says. Dear sir, exclamation point, have $50,000 ready, R-E-D-Y, $25,000 in $20 bills, $15,000 in $10 bills, and $10,000 in $5 bills. After two to four days, we will inform you where, which is W-E-R-E, to deliver the money with no E. A lot of misspellings. We warn you for making any,

ding public for notifying the police. The child is in good care, which we think is good care. Indication for all letters are signature and three holes. I'm not quite sure what that means, but let me show you that photo real quick of the letter. This is the letter. You can barely read it. And I decipher 19th century and 18th century writing all the time. And this

It was a little bit of a challenge for me. So the police are confounded. Yeah, I'm looking at this letter. You know, of course, spelling and grammatical errors are apparent, but also the shakiness of the writing. This looks to me like somebody is using their offhand to write this letter. Hmm.

Take a look at the first 50,000 and you see the three zeros that are almost squared off. This is how if I were to try to write with my, I'm right-handed. If I try to write with my left hand, that's what it looks like. Because you're overemphasizing, right? You're trying to make that circle. And you're just not practiced. This looks like this really is the, you know, this being written in the offhand. I'd be interested to see what a bona fide document examiner would conclude about this.

So what is interesting is the amount of mistakes that are made. And they seem to appreciate this letter. They are now alarmed. It's a good piece of evidence, but they're now alarmed because this is demanding money in weird increments. But it's clearly a ransom note. And you can imagine that Charles and Ann, on the one hand, are terrified. On the other hand, are relieved because it seems like with money, which of course they have,

they are going to be able to get back their son. One of the things that they don't want to hear about because they want to just figure out where Charles Jr. is, but that the police are saying is they think that the misspellings like Goethe instead of Goode, the writer might be European or more specifically European.

German. This is 32. It wouldn't be that surprising for them to think that. They also think these are some legitimate German words mixed in here. I don't know. I don't speak German, but they are leaning towards this being a legitimate letter written by an quote-unquote honest writer, not somebody who's trying to deceive them,

who is from a European country, and that's why they're not composing this correctly. I don't think I have an opinion on that. Maybe the spelling and grammatical issues and some of the words being used, you know, from that time period would suggest that.

Part of what I'm going over inside my head is the location of where this envelope and letter was found on the windowsill. Yeah. It would make more sense that that would be placed right where the little boy was sleeping, where he should have been, because then it would be very obvious that it'd be found. If it's on the windowsill, was the window left open? Is it possible this envelope could have blown out? It just seems like an odd location. Don't know what to make of that. It's just an observation right now.

Okay, let me move on to mistakes because we know there are going to be mistakes made in this investigation. The footprints, which you and I think could be moderately valuable, nothing too groundbreaking most likely, doesn't really matter because the police didn't protect the scene and a gazillion people trampled through and ruined all of the muddy footprints. The ones that were at the bottom of the ladder, the ones that were inside the house at the time, there were tire tracks

that Lindbergh says didn't belong to his car, ruined. Totally ruined by all the people who came, all of the responders, all of the gawkers, their neighbors. So they had zero control over this crime scene when it happened. So they had some missed opportunities. Again, are we really thinking tire tracks and footprints and boot prints are going to break this case? No, not necessarily break the case, but it could be valuable evidence, both from

Being associative. If you do get a suspect, you get the suspect's vehicle, you get suspect's shoes, and if there was sufficient quality at the crime scene with the impressions and the prints left behind, you know, you could show that, yes, the suspect's shoes and the suspect's vehicle could have

made what was left at the crime scene, or you eliminate. You always try to exclude like we just talk about. But also, it's that reconstructive stuff that is often overlooked. You know, those tire impressions, that would be informative to me in terms of assessing how is this offender getting to the scene so close with this ladder? How is the offender driving off

Is it realistic for the offender to have been able to do that while the kid's parents and nurse are inside the house without the vehicle being heard or seen? So that's just all part of what I would hope if they had preserved that evidence to be able to get out of that crime scene. But they didn't preserve it. And so all that information is gone. It's gone. We don't know very much about this at all.

So, Charles Lindbergh decides to bring in an intermediary because he doesn't trust the police to negotiate with these kidnappers or kidnapper, whomever it is. So, let me look at the note and try to decipher it one more time. So, he's demanding $50,000. Okay.

And after a couple of days, we're going to let you know where to deliver the money. Do not say anything to the public. Don't notify the police. Your kid is just fine. And we're going to make a clean exchange. And that's that. What happens in kidnapping cases? I know as a government, we've been in this for a long time.

We typically don't negotiate with hostages, but what happens when it's a private citizen who's been kidnapped? Well, you know, the private citizen like Charles Lindbergh, of course, can start pursuing his own means in terms of trying to recover his child. However, once he's reported this abduction to law enforcement, you now have a crime that has taken place. Law enforcement is beholden.

to investigate this crime and would be advising Charles Lindbergh, you know, do not interfere with our investigation. But they can't stop him from deciding, I'm going to hire somebody that I trust who I think has the necessary skill sets to maximize my ability to get my child back.

Well, the intermediary is an interesting story. So what ends up happening is there is a man named Dr. John Condon who decides he would like to negotiate with the kidnappers himself. And he publishes, outside of Charles Lindbergh contacting anyone, he pays for the publication of a letter in a newspaper that says...

I would like to act as an intermediary. And when it's published, someone claiming to be the kidnapper actually reaches out to him. Dr. Condon reaches out to Lindbergh and says, listen, I had made this public, so I am willing to help. What do you want me to do? And Lindbergh says, let's do it. Whatever it takes to get my 20-month-old baby back, I'll do it. This seems like a terrible idea to me.

you know, of course it's like, well, is this person who's contacting through the newspaper, is this truly the abductor?

We know you have a lot of these people out here that will insert themselves into these crimes and really confuse the investigation. So in some ways, Condon is almost like one of these online sleuths today that decide they're going to take the investigation into their own hands and then things get messy. You know, back in 1932, the abductors are saying that they will communicate where to deliver the money. How are they planning on doing that thing?

through the telephone, through the mail system, delivering another envelope in the middle of the night to his house. I think it's through the mail system because ultimately what ends up happening is that there are finally instructions that come through, presumably through the mail system. There's a letter and it instructs Dr. Condon with no police, of course,

to meet at New York's Woodlawn Cemetery with this $50,000 payment, which, by the by, is more than a million dollars in today's money. So this is a serious ransom demand. So they say, go there and you will meet a man named Cemetery John, which is, of all the monikers I've heard, is one of the more creative and sort of nonsensical ones.

What do you think about this guy who's not related to the Lindberghs showing up at a cemetery with $50,000 to meet someone named Cemetery John? This seems haphazard at best. Oh, it very much is. And we're meeting Cemetery John at the cemetery in order to exchange what today would be a million dollars for

That's sketchy. So many things could go wrong here for the Lindbergh family. I mean, Condon could just abscond with this $50,000. Condon could be killed. Well, the $50,000 is taken off of him. He's just straight up robbed.

and there's no return of the child. This is really kind of a uncontrolled exchange and it is a bad, bad situation all the way around. And what's interesting is this is happening one month after Lindbergh has been kidnapped. This little boy has been kidnapped.

And the kidnappers have been trying to ramp up the attention from the Lindberghs to convince them that this boy is still alive. They sent a jumper, which is his little clothing, to them. So a package is delivered with a jumper in it. And the nurse finds one of his little thumb sucker things at the front entrance.

of the property in a way where she would obviously be able to find it. So they are not taunting, I guess, but they're just sort of trying to send proof of life over this course of time. They don't seem to be very good at this, but they are about to get the equivalent of more than a million dollars for this child. I'm going to call it a pacifier. You know, the thumb sucker thing, that's actually found at the house.

You know what? I had to look this up. It's actually called a thumb guard. Okay. And it's a little thing that goes, this is definitely not something I think that's been used recently. It's a little device that goes over your thumb to stop the thumb sucking. Okay. And it's found at the entrance of the Lindbergh property. Oh, okay. So the person who's delivering it isn't going up to the house, but is just driving by and is able to just place this right there. Okay. And it's the same one that Charlie was wearing that night. The little boy was wearing that night.

So Dr. Condon meets Cemetery John. The exchange is made. It's paid in gold certificates, which have serial numbers on them. I mean, again, not the smartest kidnapper.

Dr. Condon was, after the exchange, he was given instructions by Cemetery John, who had a German accent, by the way. Cemetery John, who gave him written instructions on where to find little Charlie Lindbergh. So this was not, here's your kid, I'll take the money. This was, I'll take the money, and let me give you instructions on where to go to find him.

And I suppose the family was so desperate that they were willing to do anything. But they also knew that they would track him using the serial numbers on these gold certificates. Okay, so they had recorded. The family's not working with law enforcement, but they were smart enough to record the serial numbers on the gold certificates.

And then they contact law enforcement who says, okay, we have no other clues, so we're going to do the best we can. It's the detective's idea to give the gold certificates and not just cash, something that in 1932 they're going to be able to track. But the kidnapper, if it's Cemetery John at all, the kidnapper is not smart enough to realize that this can be tracked. He is smart enough to take more than a million dollars in today's money and take off and give these instructions. So the final instructions are,

Charlie can be found between Horseneck Beach and Gay Head near Elizabeth Island on a boat called Nellie. Do these ever work out? Do these sorts of exchanges, is it rare that they work out in history? I'm trying to think in my jurisdiction of a case like, you know, in which there was a ransom letter and a child taken. Yeah.

This is something that is, we just don't experience frequently at all. So in terms of, you know, me putting some sort of, well, does it actually work out? You know, it's like, it's something you see, you know, in TV plots and movie plots. Yep. But it's a rare type of craziness.

The specificity of the location to where the boy is going to be found is interesting because that suggests that, you know, the offender definitely has at least been to that location enough to be able to describe it. Yeah. So, of course, you need to go to that location and see if the boy's there. And he wasn't. Of course not. Experience the glamour and danger of the Roaring Twenties from the palm of your hand in

In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s

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So they are free and clear with $50,000, and the Lindberghs don't have their child. This now becomes huge news because the Lindberghs have nothing to lose at this point. It's all over the media. The police are now under tremendous pressure. And Dr. Condon does a sketch with a police artist that I'll show you in a little bit once we get a suspect. Yeah.

So the kidnappers in the wind, we never see Cemetery John. And this has become a source of frustration for the police because they're under tremendous pressure because one of the most famous people now in the world has a missing child. And it's now been about two months when a truck driver makes a really, really sad discovery on May 12th.

which is about two months after he was kidnapped. This truck driver pulls over and ventures onto about 45 feet from his vehicle to relieve himself.

And that's where he sees the body of this little boy. And it's in very, very, very bad shape. It's decomposing, of course, because it's been two months. Assuming that he was killed immediately or not immediately, it's decomposing. It's in an advanced state of decomposition for sure. So this is what the injuries are. His head had been crushed.

and there's a hole in his skull. And what they think is that the coroner says that he later concluded that the baby suffered from deadly blunt force trauma. And this is what's interesting. The coroner says that it's speculated he died shortly after the kidnapping, and he thinks that it's possible with these injuries that the little boy died when the kidnapper fell breaking the ladder. Cracked skull. What do you think about that? All right.

Are these injuries, are they exposed wounds? You know, you've got blunt force trauma to the head. Was the scalp lacerated? Now I'm showing you the photo, which we are not going to show on social media. So it looks like there's still flesh. I mean, it's not exposed skull, but it's really hard to tell. Yeah, you know, there appears to be some damage to the right side of the baby's head. Yeah.

I can't tell though if that was like an injury or it's just a weird artifact going on there. Let's say this ladder broke while the abductor is trying to escape with this boy and drops this boy, which would be a natural response, right? Yeah. And now you could see the boy's head impacting the ground or a component of the ladder and possibly receiving blunt force and potentially fatal injuries there.

The pathologist isn't off base under that scenario,

But if these head wounds were open wounds at that time, I would expect that there would have been some blood present at that scene to indicate that that happened. And so that's where I would be wanting to know more about the autopsy results on this body to determine whether or not this was, if you want to call it an accidental death, and then the body was discarded shortly thereafter, but the ransom ploy was still in play.

Or did they choose to kill the baby at some point after the abduction by inflicting blows to the baby's head? Well, we can say confidently it didn't happen in the crib because there's no blood anywhere. Right. And...

My question is, what the coroner said was there was a hole in his skull. Is that something that could really happen just from falling for, I don't know if that's 100 feet? I don't even know how tall that would be. Does that seem right, a hole in the skull? We're only talking from a second floor window, maximum height. So, I mean, we're talking less than 20 feet that the fall could have been, and it was likely less.

Most certainly, if the head impacts a narrow enough object, it could be a rod on the ground, a rock on the ground that's got a certain configuration, you could get a hole that penetrates into the skull from a fall. That I don't question. It's just if something like that were to occur, then now you do have that open head injury and head injuries like that bleed, except

excessively. So there would be evidence of that type of wound at the scene. I agree. I, right now, with the information provided, it's possible that the baby had been strangled up in the crib and then taken down the ladder, received some injuries as a result of the fall.

But this hole in the skull sounds like the offenders at some point after getting the kid into a vehicle, they made sure this kid was dead. Yeah. You know, I was thinking smothering because there's blankets back then. They didn't understand that you shouldn't pile a bunch of blankets in a crib. I figured he just smothered the kid and that does two things, kills the child and also, of course, stops the crying.

I agree with you. I think there would have been blood everywhere. And I think even if he had gotten Charles Jr. away from the scene, presuming it's a man, this is someone who probably has not dealt with children. And if you have an upset kid with a cold, this is not going to go well. So I would love to say that this happened during a fall and somebody wouldn't be such a terrible person to do this. But it sounds like this was something that was absolutely intentional to me.

The hole in the skull really suggests that the abductor or an associate just decided that the kid was no longer needed. They had accomplished what was needed to do, which was to put the fear in the Lindbergh family so that the family was willing to provide money in exchange for their son.

But trying to care for this child over the course of several months, you know, that's a lot of work. And they probably didn't want to deal with that. So I would not be surprised if with the planning going into this case, the intent was to kill the kid early on and dispose of the body, but keep the ruse and the ploy going on the ransom.

Well, one note is that Charlie's body was found five miles, just five miles from his parents' property. So do you think that this happened almost immediately in the car or, you know, the smothering happened? But if there's smothering, that wouldn't really account for why would you then bash somebody's head in if we're taking out the possibility that falling off a ladder would cause this.

I don't know. I'm confused about where he died and when, but I just know he ended up five miles from his parents' house, badly decomposed two months later. Yeah, you know, and looking at the photo and looking at the decomposition, this is entirely possible that this body has been out there. What time of year is this? This is in May is when they find it, but he went missing March 1st. And this is New Jersey, so it's cold still. It's cold.

Yeah, it's, you know, the state of the body is consistent to my experience of one that could have been out there from the night that this child was abducted. And I think one thing we have talked about in the past, they really had to lean heavily on marks or something that would make an individual mark or something unique about a person and able to, when you're able to identify someone who is this badly decomposed.

And they used the clothing that was nearby. The family identified that this was Charlie's clothing. And he had a oddity. He had a deformed foot. And it sounds like this is— I'm not looking too closely at this picture because it's really disturbing. But you can see that the foot is deformed there. I see that. Yeah. I don't think there's any question. This most certainly is Charles Jr. The question is, is when was Charles Jr. killed? Yeah.

And how was Charles Jr. killed? And what happens next? Because now you're missing out on more than a million dollars of today's money, and your child is dead, and there is a murderer running around. Right. So the police now start looking even more closely. They had been, but they're now really looking closely to the forensic evidence.

And they look at the sketch, and we'll talk about the sketch in a little bit once we get a good suspect going here. But they look at a couple of other things that I thought were interesting, especially for 1932. You know, I go into these stories, and I'm always surprised at how innovative they had to be. It wasn't as haphazard as you might think.

in the 1920s and the 1930s and even in the 1800s on how they would solve some of these cases. So they took a look first at the ladder. And the ladder was interesting. There was somebody from the U.S. Forest Service who looked at the ladder and did some pretty incredible forensic research on the wood. He contacted 1,600 lumber mills. I'm not sure if I'm that

committed to find this wood that this homemade ladder was made of. Wow. What kind of wood was it? It was supplemented with repurposed wood, like paneling or flooring from a home business. Sounded unique. And it was only available from a very specific lumber yard in the Bronx.

New York. Oh, yes. That's the type of thing. When you get this form of evidence, you're always looking to see, is it super rare? Because now it provides investigative information. Most of the time, I've done this type of tracking, not specifically on wood, but I'll have items that have been left at the scene or let's say a tire impression.

And it's like, okay, is this coming back to a limited number of people who would own something like this? And if it does, then it's golden. So,

So this is significant to me in terms of the rarity of the wood, and it's being tracked back to a particular lumber mill. But now you're still many steps removed from, well, who used the wood to build this ladder? Yeah, exactly. And they're going to continue to piece the profile of this person together. So they are laser-focused on the gold certificates.

because remember the gold certificates, they wrote down the serial numbers, they're able to track them. I don't know much about tracking money now. I'm sure you're going to tell me in a second. But tracking then meant the bank would alert the police if someone deposited these gold certificates and the gold certificate serial numbers matched the serial numbers from the kidnapper. And that happened. So,

somebody used a gas station and used the gold certificates to pay for gas. And the gas station cashier remembered, and he was alerted, you know, and then talked to the bank. And the bank looked and cross-referenced and found out that the person who had paid for gas at this gas station would be somebody who was a suspect. And the serial numbers matched. So this is somebody who was at least given a gold certificate from the kidnapper.

Yeah, and this shows that due to the high profile of this case, you know, now you had a member of the public who is aware that, okay, the gold certificate is something I need to be paying attention to. And I would imagine, and tell me if I'm wrong, if you know, that it'd be relatively rare for a customer to pay for gas back in the day with a gold certificate. So this would really stand out to that merchant.

Not only did it stand out, it alarmed the cashier enough to write down his license plate number. Oh, now we're in business. Isn't this the kind of guy we like? This is the kind of guy we like. We love this kind of witness who is suspicious.

And they come back with a name. His name is Bruno Richard Hauptmann. He is German. He is also a carpenter. Okay. With access to that lumber yard in the Bronx. Okay. So, circumstantially, there appears to be some movement that he could be involved. Yep. Yep.

So first thing they do, of course, is talk to him two years later. I mean, this family has been tortured for this long, two years later. Yeah. At this point, they've lived with the knowledge that their son was killed. Yeah. Because son's body was found, what, two months after? Yeah. Yeah. So basically, almost two years, you know, they now know, okay, we're not going to get our son back. We're

We're not going to get our $50,000 back, but we want to know who did this. Yep.

So they compare the sketch that the intermediary had met Cemetery John, quote unquote. Let me show you the sketch and let me show you a photo of this suspect of ours, which is Bruno Richard Hauptman. So there's the sketch on the left and then there's his mugshot on the right. And they made this sketch shortly after the exchange of the money? Correct. Wow. Okay, so this is one of the best photos.

in terms of similarities to the suspect that I've seen. I'm shocked at how good this sketch is. There's, of course, differences, but in terms of facial proportions, features...

It's really close. I'm pleasantly surprised at the quality of this sketch. So big props to the sketch artist from 1932. Yeah. No, I think it's an excellent likeness of Hauptman. Again, circumstantial-ish. You know, he could say, I had nothing to do with this. This sort of looks like me. How much do we rely on sketches? Are they reliable in any way? Or is it just one more little tiny piece of circumstantial evidence that you can add into the pile? Yeah.

From my perspective, sketches, composites, they are there to provide investigative leads.

I do not consider them evidence. It's not something that I personally feel should be presented in front of a jury. To me, it's to provide enough information to go, okay, this person at least falls within the ballpark of this sketch. Yeah. You have to build a case around the sketch or based off of the lead the sketch provides, and you don't use the sketch to make the case.

I will say that they really didn't need the sketch because they found a lot of information. So they go and, of course, descend on his house. They find nearly $14,000 in the garage, which is an incredible amount of money, which is about $300,000 today. It's in cash. It's not the gold certificates.

Okay. So I don't know if he converted those. They weren't able to track those particular serial numbers. Maybe he went to a bank far away who hadn't been alerted. The police claimed that they found Dr. Condon's telephone number and the address written down on the doorframe of a closet inside Bruno's residence.

So just connecting Cemetery John to Bruno to Dr. Condon, which they're assuming Cemetery John, of course, is the same as Bruno. Strong evidence? I mean, they find the contact, the intermediary. You know, you end up stacking evidence, whether it's circumstantial, physical evidence, as you build a case. So right now, they are solidifying an aspect of the case.

He matches the composite of Cemetery John. He has information about Condon inside his house. He also has large amounts of cash that I'm presuming he doesn't have the income from his job or anything else that would support him having that type of cash. So this is now associating him in terms of being Cemetery John. But you need to move from that to is he the person that...

built and climbed up that ladder and abducted Charles Jr. Yeah. So they continue to try to do that. They match the flooring found in Bruno's house to the flooring that was sold at the Bronx lumber mill to the flooring that the homemade ladder was made of. More circumstantial evidence, he's not the only person who could have bought that flooring and used it to build a ladder, right? Now, I'm immediately going to, does he have...

Let's say pieces of wood that the wood from the ladder could have been cut from. Is there the possibility of doing a physical match? That is what I would be keying in on.

Sort of. So here's another piece of circumstantial evidence that still doesn't make things look good for Bruno. They find tools and nails that are responsible for certain markings on the ladder, they believe. So certain nails that were used, maybe they're specialized nails from the ladder that was found at the site. And he has also worked at this particular lumber yard. So that makes it a little bit more suspect, I'm assuming. Yeah.

Yes. The circumstances of his access to the wood that was used in the ladder is stacking up on top of him as being okay. So he's potentially involved as an accessory in terms of the money exchange as well as building the ladder in order to access the windowsill. Still need to kind of build a case. Is he the person that climbed up that ladder and went inside the Lindbergh house and stole Charles Jr.?

Handwriting. So this is the ransom note. And remember, it was misspelled. The dollar signs were at the end of the money, not at the beginning. So it would say $50,000 with a dollar sign at the end. Once they've arrested him and they begin to put him on trial, he denies the whole thing, of course. We have these experts who say we've compared his handwriting from letters that he's written. That's very similar, but not similar.

similar in the way that I think this is bunk similar the loops and stuff that could change based on what medicine you're on or how much alcohol you've been drinking it's similar as in the letter from the kidnapper and from Bruno both of these people hyphenated New York which is unusual and

And they also both put the dollar sign at the end of the list of numbers, which is also unusual. So they're looking at similarities in style, not similarities in loops and stuff. Sure. That's good information. I would want to know, did they find...

or were they even looking for indented writing? You know, like you have on a notepad and you write the ransom letter and then the piece of paper underneath it with oblique lighting, or even just, you know, you could take a pencil and shade and actually visualize that. That's what I would want.

I'd want to show, oh, here's the source of the paper that was used for the ransom letter. And we actually have a copy of the ransom letter in a form of indented writing indicating it was written on top of this other piece of paper that's found inside the suspect's house.

I don't know if they checked for that, but they didn't report finding it. That would have been a nice little smoking gun for them. Absolutely. But so far we've got, you know, the battle of the experts. There's only one expert who says, eh, I don't know, this handwriting fits that handwriting. But there are eight for the state who say, yes, it does.

So this is a massive trial. It's a huge sensation. My forensic scientist from American Sherlock was called to take a look. He didn't have a real opinion. He came in very early when there was little information. All the who's who of anyone came to this trial. There were 60,000 people.

crowding around the courthouse in Flemington, New Jersey in 1934 to see this trial. It was a huge trial. I mean, I had remembered reading about it just from historical newspapers. Yeah, you know, you think in 1995 with OJ Simpson, they were calling that, you know, the trial of the century. There wasn't 60,000 people, you know, outside of the courthouse in Los Angeles. You know, that's shocking to me that this is occurring back in the 1930s at that level.

Oh, yeah. So now we're going to get to Bruno's point of view, which I think is pretty interesting. He is saying that the police intimidated him. There is even accusations of police brutality. He gave writing samples is how they ended up coming up with stuff. They said, write this sentence. And he did it. But Bruno says the police made me do it in that style specifically. So he is saying he was forced to.

in one of the biggest pieces of evidence against him to make it... Paul's going crazy. You guys can't tell. His facial expressions are off the chart. He has something to say about this idea. Well, when handwriting exemplars are obtained from suspects, of course, you're collecting samples that they have just done during their normal life that have nothing to do with the case.

But then you are asking the person to write basically what was written. You want to see how the person would write that. So you could dictate to the person, okay, write this. It's part of the process to see how they would form those sentences. So,

This is where I think I would agree that both things are probably happening. I wouldn't put it past law enforcement from the 1930s to be heavy-handed with such a suspect. On the other hand, I could also see where his perspective is as well.

They told me to write that way because that's what the document examiners want to see. They don't want to just see random stuff. They also want to see how the person writes with what was present in the evidence. So this is where that would have to be teased out a little bit more for me to get a better sense. And it just may be part of this adversarial process where, you know, the defense is putting one spin on what actually happened and the prosecution is putting another spin on what actually happened.

Yeah, and we don't know how they requested the exemplars from him. And you're right, what the process is like. We do know that he's blaming someone else. He says, I did not do this. He said, I will tell you what happened, though. At my house, I had a friend named Isidore Fish. Fish was German. And when Fish said, I'm going on a trip to Germany, can I leave something with you? Bruno said, sure. It was a box.

And he put it in his closet for safekeeping until fish was going to come back. There was a leaky pipe. And when Bruno looked at the box, which was now at this point ruined, he found a lot of money inside. And he did not know what came from the money.

He did not know whether his friend was going to come back. So he did what a lot of people would do, which is he started to spend it. There was some cash and there were some gold certificates in there. And it was a huge amount of money for a man who was a carpenter and didn't have a lot of money. So this is what he said happened. He said, I have no idea if he kidnapped and killed this kid. I know I didn't. And now there's a friend in Germany who you all need to track down, not me. Yeah.

This is a man who ultimately was a real person and he died in Germany and was there. They were friends. So all of that matches up. We don't know if Isidore actually did leave a box of money, but he was dead by the time all of this happened. So there was no questioning him. So there was no questioning Bruno's story because it was all very feasible.

And this is where now I'm kind of going back to the composite of Cemetery John. I'd want to know how similar Isidore looked to that composite. Do we have any photographs of Isidore? I do have a photo of Isidore. There's Isidore at the bottom. What do you think? Not far off. They look alike. Damn it. I know. Bruno and Isidore look alike.

Okay. And then, of course, what we don't have is the physical size of Cemetery John. Do we have any information along those lines? Was Cemetery John six foot five and Isidore is five six? Or are they just within the ballpark of each other? If it gets the ballpark, it seems more consistent with Bruno, according to Condon. But who knows? I will tell you this. There's enough information.

reasonable doubt to convince people even today that there's a possibility Bruno did not do this. It did not convince the jury, though, because he was found guilty and

And he was given a death sentence. And so he died in 1936 in the electric chair. Oh, wow. Okay. He proclaimed his innocence the whole time. And what's interesting about this case is it's still sort of enduring because there are a lot of theories about what happened. There are theories that, of course, Bruno was railroaded for whatever reason and that Isidore is the real killer. There are theories that that was not actually Charlie Lindbergh.

that we see the dead body, that he actually was alive and well, and I suppose technically could still be alive right now. There are also reports of more than 100 people who have said they are the real kidnappers. You executed the wrong person.

over the years, hundreds of people have said that. So this is a mystery that has just been explosive in the 80, 90 years that it's been around. So that's one of the reasons why I wanted to get your take on it is, you know, how did this baby die? What were the intentions of the kidnapper? And it sounds like Bruno is our most likely suspect here, to me. Yeah, but it needs to be firmed up. You know, there's no question that the offender had to

prior knowledge of where this baby was going to be on the second floor, built a ladder, had skills enough to build a ladder, had the time during that night to get out there. Now assessing Bruno versus Isidore, we know Bruno's a carpenter and he, you know, had worked at the lumber yard where that wood came from. But Isidore is at Bruno's house at times and possibly could have used wood that was inside Bruno's house in order to construct a ladder.

Is Isidore a carpenter? Which one of them had any knowledge? Maybe one of them worked at the Lindbergh house for a job prior to the abduction and so devised a plan. Is there a way to show a connection between one or the other

Or did they operate together? Right. And it sounds like what I had read about Isidore was that he was kind of a sickly person. He decided that even though he was a relatively young man, well, he was a young man. He was in his 20s when all of this happened. He was about 26.

And he had an illness, I don't know what illness, and he decided he wanted to go back in the winter of 1933. He returns to Germany where he's from a year and a half or so after the kidnapping. It is very possible they worked together. It is very possible that Isidore did this on his own. Someone who's sickly, I'm not sure, is going to scale a building. And he died shortly after, so he died at age 28 in Germany. Okay.

I mean, in theory, it works. And now I think there's enough reasonable doubt to at least send Bruno to prison for life, but not a capital case, I would assume. I lean more towards Bruno in this as the primary. Me too. Do we have any idea if any of these items of physical evidence still exist today? Oh, gosh, Paul. I know. That's a tough question. Are you really going to loop us into the Charles Lindbergh case?

I think probably in museums, yes. And I can check, we can make this an ongoing thing and I can check and see. Well, you know, and part of trying to answer this question from a historical perspective, because everybody's dead now, you know, so it's not like there's anybody's going to be held accountable.

But you think about the ladder and the offender building that ladder and how much physical contact possibly even cut themselves during building the ladder. What's the possibility of recovering the DNA from that ladder and then comparing it directly to Bruno or Isidore? I think there's different possibilities. The clothing from Charles Jr., which looked, I mean...

It looked like that was in bad shape, but is there any offender DNA on there that could be recovered? I'm just kind of spinning on how today, you know, we could answer this question. And it seems like it might be worthwhile for somebody to roll up their sleeves and dig into it.

Well, even for Isidore's sake, if he's not someone who was involved with this because he died and then all of a sudden his name is being brought up. You and I did a case a while back called the Coyote Flat. I know you remember that. Jack Ryan, who is a Native American who was accused of killing a couple in the 1920s. And he was posthumously exonerated by the state of California.

I think about 50 years after this happened, it matters. So I'm not saying I'm taking on the Charles Lindbergh kidnapping case with you. I am saying, though, that I am not opposed to taking a look at these cases, some of these cases, again, because

If I have learned anything from Tenfold More Wicked or my books, anything that I do is that when things happen in your family, they matter in your family. And how you view your history, your relatives, your ancestors, it all shapes who you are. So that trauma in DNA, I think, is a real thing. So we'll have offline discussions about the Lindberghs. I'm down. I'll figure it out. Yeah.

Well, it's not so far in the past from my perspective that there potentially could be work done to get an answer. And I have this saying, you never know until you look. And so people may dismiss, there's no way there's going to be DNA from the offender on evidence. And you go, hold on, there's a possibility. Has it really been looked at in that perspective? Yeah.

Well, thank you for taking a look at this case. Children being hurt and killed is terrible for me, but I think that this is an important enough case, and I knew we'd get a lot of insight from you, so I'm really happy to be able to talk about it. Again, you did an excellent job portraying the facts. I think now, you know, I have more questions on the case than answers. You know, it's a fascinating case for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

So to the listeners, have wonderful holidays. Paul and I will be thinking about you the whole time, we promise, for the next two weeks. And won't we? Paul with your whiskey, you're going to have eggnog with whiskey, I bet. No. No, no eggnog. No eggnog with whiskey. No, just straight bourbon. That's what I'll be doing. And I'll have club soda. Have a wonderful winter and we'll see you all in the new year. Happy New Year, everybody. ♪

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashen and Kate Winkler-Dawson. Our mixing engineer is Ryo Baum. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogle. Our art

work is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod. Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.