March 1, 1932: Charles Lindbergh Jr. Is Kidnapped

March 1, 1932: Charles Augustus Lindbergh III -- usually listed as "Charles Lindbergh Jr." -- is kidnapped from his home in East Amwell, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. (The location is usually listed as Hopewell, which is in Mercer County, because Hopewell was their mailing address.) His parents were Charles Lindbergh, the pilot who in 1927 became the 1st person to fly between the North American and European continents, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a poet.

The child was 20 months old. A ladder was found beneath the window of his bedroom. A ransom of $75,000 -- about $1.47 million in 2021 money -- was paid. It didn't matter: On May 12, a truck driver found the body in Hopewell (the actual town, about 4 miles south of the Lindbergh home).

Nobody had to ask the New York Daily News, "What baby?"

Journalist H.L. Mencken called it "the greatest story since Creation."

A skull fracture was determined to be the cause of death, and it was speculated that the kidnapper may have dropped the boy while trying to get out the window or back down the ladder.

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March 1, 1932 was a Tuesday. It was the off-season for baseball and football, and the NBA hadn't been founded yet. But there were 3 NHL games played on the day, none of them involving the New York Rangers:

* The New York Americans lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 7-6 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Montreal Maroons beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 1-0 at the Montreal Forum.

*

America, still adoring Lindbergh nearly 5 years after his great feat, went into shock and mourning. The media coverage, in this golden age of newspapers and the early days of radio, was as intense as the technology would allow. But with few leads, the story began to fade.

Until September 18, 1934. A bank teller noticed a $10 gold certificate with an identification showing that it was part of the ransom delivery. The bill was traced, and Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a 34-year-old German-born carpenter living in The Bronx, was arrested. 

On February 13, 1935, after a trial that was accompanied by a media circus that got it labeled "The Trial of the Century," Hauptmann was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of the boy. I would have done a "Scores On This Historic Day" post for that day. But it was the off-season for baseball and football, the NBA hadn't been founded yet, and when I looked up the NHL games played on the day, I discovered that there weren't any. So I couldn't do it.

Hauptmann was executed in the electric chair at the State Prison in Trenton on April 3, 1936. He maintained his innocence until the end. His widow, Anna, lived until 1994, still insisting that he was innocent. Many books have been written on the case, some reaching the conclusion that the guilty verdict was correct, some reaching the opposite conclusion.

Trying to escape what newspaper editor H.L. Mencken called "the biggest story since the Resurrection," the Lindberghs left America, and moved to Europe. While there Charles became enamored of Nazi Germany, especially their air force, the Luftwaffe, and accepted a medal from the Nazi government.

He returned to America, and warned against getting involved in World War II, declaring that it was the British and Jews around the world -- both with good reason to oppose the Nazis -- who wanted America in the war. Millions of Americans who once loved him now abandoned him, and he got the obscurity he had until 1927, and had craved since. He died in 1974.