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339 13 On March 1, 1932, the son of Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was kidnapped from the couple’s new home in Hopewell, New Jersey. Although the couple paid $50,000 in ransom money, the baby was not returned. Ten weeks after the child was taken, his body was found in the woods about two miles from the Lindberghs’ house. Two and a half years later, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested in the Bronx. Charged with the crime, he was tried in Flemington in 1935 and executed in Trenton a year later. The kidnapping, trial, and execution all created a sensation in what was called “the crime of the century.” In the years since, the case has produced a stream of books and articles , a play, and several made-for-television films, looking at the case from varied perspectives and arriving at widely different conclusions. In the selection that follows, Jim Fisher describes the last part of the trial, giving a clear sense of the drama in the courtroom. At the end of his book, he concludes that Hauptmann was guilty, while other possibilities suggested by other authors are noted below. When you read this chapter, think about why some cases become famous, and what made this one important. At issue also is whether Hauptmann received a fair trial, his guilt or innocence (which is a separate matter), and if the death penalty was excessive. Today no one can be executed in New Jersey. A series of twentieth-century cases have been called the “crime of the century”: Leopold and Loeb (1924), Sacco and Vanzetti (1921), Scottsboro (1931), Hiss (1949), Rosenbergs (1951), and O. J. Simpson (1994), along with others. Alan Dershowitz has noted these are usually cases “about which only unreasonable zealots are absolutely certain.” In all, the verdicts left at least some people unsatisfied as they raised issues about the use of evidence and the fairness of the American judicial system. In most, the accused denied guilt. The cases also reflected the issues and concerns of their times, including fear of radicalism, immigrants , blacks, or traitors in our midst. All drew international media interest, some because of the celebrity status of those involved. The Lindbergh case clearly shares some of these attributes. Historians have 340 / Jim Fisher been interested in this, and other famous trials, for the insight they provide into America’s past. In the 1920s airplanes were still relatively new, small, and fragile devices flown by daredevil pilots. When Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis solo to Paris, he became the first person to fly across the Atlantic nonstop; he immediately became an international hero. The media dogged his footsteps. Then he married Anne Morrow, daughter of a wealthy New York banker from Englewood who was minister to Mexico. Lindbergh taught her how to fly, and their joint escapades were newsworthy. It is not surprising that the kidnapping of their first child created a sensation. It occurred during the Great Depression when jobs and money were scarce, organized crime on the rise, and the number of kidnappings increasing. As a result the case played out in a circus atmosphere —from the numerous reporters who showed up the morning after the event and trampled the ground around the house, to the large crowds that descended on the small town where the trial was held. In addition, in what later proved to be hoaxes, several individuals proclaimed their willingness to help, sending Lindbergh and others off on several wild goose chases. For all who followed the case, it was a wild ride. Bruno Richard Hauptmann served in the German army in World War I, had a difficult time during the economic turmoil that followed the war in Germany, and spent time in jail for burglary. He escaped, landed illegally in the United States where he went to work as a carpenter, married, and had a child. He was arrested after paying for gasoline using a $20 bill whose serial number was on the list of ransom money. The police later found more money, some $14,600, hidden in his garage. He claimed that it had been given to him by his friend Isidor Fisch, for safekeeping while Fisch returned to Germany. Fisch died soon afterward , and Hauptmann maintained he used the money in lieu of what he was owed for a joint business venture. He also insisted that for the past few years he had supported his family on earnings from...

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