Adeptus Ridiculous - LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING: CRIME OF THE CENTURY | Detective Ridiculous

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousOn March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (born June 22, 1930), the 20-month-old son of colonel Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States.Support the show

everybody to another episode of Detective Ridiculous, where we talk about the only thing more terrifying than Warhammer, real life. Before we get started, if you enjoy this podcast, you enjoy these special episodes, head on down to patreon.com slash adeptus Ridiculous to support us and the channel, as well as get great stuff like access to our special patron discord, bloopers if they happen, and our amazing HD posters that come out every month. this one and the most recent one for all of you Australians out there Ned Kelly himself become ungovernable available now both as part of the Patreon and if you want a physical

version head on over to orchidate dot com link in the description to snag yourself one as they are available now quack quack quack become ungovernable because of the duck yeah because the duck the big duck

the big duck Yeah, but that's not a big duck. That's a large man wearing plates of steel. That's true. I don't imagine when he came out of the shadows on that moon-lit night. He wasn't, you know, quack, quack, mother, and then, pshu-posh, psh, that probably not. You know, maybe he did. He might have.

He might have. Maybe he did. And you know what, if he did, that's just, you know, that's just. Even more based. That's just great, you know? That's just lovely. Like, there's almost nothing he could have said that would have made him any less of a badass. Indeed. Speaking of badassery, is there anything badass about today's episode or no?

There's bad stuff about today's episode for sure. So, strap yourselves in because today, we're going to be dealing with probably, one of the most infamous true crime stories in history. And this event, oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm saying, and I haven't heard of this, you think? Well, I don't know. Maybe you have. Maybe you haven't.

We'll find out. Because this event takes place all the way back in the 1930s. Still a timeless case that people are kind of picking apart and theorizing even to this day. So without further ado, today, we are going to be talking about the crime of the century, the Lindbergh kidnapping. Have you heard of it, Bricky? I have not heard of it. I'm, I didn't, I'm, no, no, I've never heard this. I thought the, the crime of the century was like the D.B. Cooper stuff, personally. No, that, well, I mean, D.B. Cooper was a big deal. This might have been, actually, this probably was a much more significant

crime that really the world was watching. Okay. Okay. So let's set the table a little bit in the 1930s. So Charles Lindberg at the time is basically this world renowned celebrity. Everyone in the world knows

and loves this man, Charles Lindberg. In May of 1927, in his plane, the spirit of St. Louis, he would be the first man to ever cross the Atlantic in a solo flight from New York to Paris. This flight would take him right around 33 and a half hours. I watched a documentary about it, and he literally had to customize his plane. Didn't have a radio, didn't have a parachute, he didn't have a co-pilot, solo flight, so he could carry as much fuel as possible in this single-engine monoplane. And this flight would turn Charles Lindbergh, like I said, into a worldwide phenomenon, worldwide hero. And there is this famous line that's always mentioned when people talk about

his flight. It's by a biographer named Scott Berg. And he states, people behaved as if Lindberg had walked over water, not flown over it. That's how big of a deal this was. First time ever. Wait, okay. I've heard of Charles Lindberg's like flight. That's a big deal. That's a huge deal. Yeah. That's an enormous deal. That I, that I do know of. Um, you don't know what happened after, huh? No, I assume he got rich and lived a lovely life. He did indeed get rich, because prior to this, he was, um, he was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Service. And after this flight, the president literally awards him the Medal of Honor and promotes him to Colonel.

Um, and because of this flight, like, you have to understand he, he, he's basically now seen as the perfect American hero. Like this dude is having songs written in his honor. People are flocking to any event he's at. And Shai posted that picture of the Spirit of St. Louis. I think that's in South London. Wall to wall people trying to get a look at the plane, trying to get a look at Charles.

That is my worst social anxiety right there. There's so many people. So many people. That's, oh yeah. And the newspapers, they cannot stop printing about whatever he's doing. You got a scoop on Charles Lindbergh, front page news. He went to visit Belgium after his flight, and it was reported there were well over a million people waiting for him. to arrive.

He could do no wrong. He was America's darling. And Charles Lindberg he's a pretty likable guy, you know? He's this sort of handsome, kind of soft-spoken. He was always little on the shy side.

So it's kind of easy to be like drawn to him and just like him. He's just a very down-to-earth person. He's a tall-ass dude, too. Yeah, well, that's 1930s. Everybody's tall, right? I think people are getting taller as time goes on, actually. Whatever.

Whatever. Whatever. Two U.S. presidents. Yeah. Coolidge in Roosevelt, I think, right? I got to be honest, in the first picture, I'm assuming that's him on the left. He looks like JFK.

Let me see. He just looks like JFK with his shoulders really tight. Isn't that actually JFK? He's not the guy. guy on the right, is he? That is JFK. And he's probably, that's just probably old him. Oh.

Oh, I didn't think he would, I assumed he didn't get old because we got problems occurring soon. Oh, oh, so, okay. No, I assume, sorry, I assumed that this is like right after the plane of everyone. Oh, okay, got you, got you got you. I was like, yeah, that looks like JFK because brother, that is JFK. Oh, you know, it's, you know, that's okay. It's fine. I've said way dumber things than that.

Don't worry about it. I assumed that this was like to congratulate him after the flight. Sure, sure. So the old guy on the right, yeah, whatever. All right, all right. But America is also naturally drawn to his family. And he would marry a woman named Ann Morrow in 1929. She was the daughter of Dwight Morrow, who was like, he was a big deal at J.B.

Morgan and he was kind of acting as like the financial advisor to Lindberg and he invites Lindberg down to Mexico and oh hey here's my daughter and they hit it off and they get married in 1929. And the fanfare surrounding these two is just one documentary was like you know they basically had the fanfare of the royal family like you know how everybody goes cuckoo bananas anytime the royal family does anything at all. Yep. They had that fanfare about them. Well, at least they did it for slang that they deserved.

Yeah. That's true. They actually did something other than be born into a monarchy. Yeah. So, you can imagine when they had their first child on June 22nd, 1930, the world was a buzz. Oh. The child named Charles Augustus Lindberg Jr. was so beloved by the world. Newspapers and tabloids couldn't stop writing these big, full-page articles about the couple and their newborn son, who was dubbed Little Lindy.

But despite all the fame and accolades that Charles Lindberg had amassed, like I said, he was kind of this shy and private. it sort of fellow that he didn't necessarily want to be in the headlines and he didn't want his family to be in the headlines. He didn't want reporters constantly hovering over him, his wife, and his son taking pictures and writing tabloids and he kind of just wanted to be left alone. So the family would move into this spacious 390 acre estate. Oh my God. I know. in Hopewell, New Jersey, where he hoped he could raise his family in peace.

And honestly, from all the pictures I've seen of this place, obviously, it is massive. But it's kind of out all by itself. Like there's nothing else around except nature and just this big mansion estate. But it should be noted that the Lindbergs were at the... When it was first being built, they only spent weekends there because the house still has big chunks of it that aren't finished. It's still under construction. So they couldn't like 100% fully move in. Anyway, so long story short, the Lindbergs are like the first family of America.

If there was a poster family that properly symbolized the United States of America at the time, it would have probably been Charles Lindberg and his family. They were global, global celebrities that basically represented the entire country. But on March 1st, 1932, the unthinkable would happen. At 10 p.m., while Little Lindy's parents were in the house,

while all their maids and their waitstaff and their dog, were in the house one of the nurses by the name of Betty Gow would discover that little Lindy was no longer in his crib after checking with the parents

no one knew where the child had gone they hadn't taken the child out they hadn't done anything with the child until Charles Lindbergg found a note on the windowsill a ransom note the ransom

The ransom note was in very broken English with really bad spelling. I don't know, Shy, can you transcribe exactly what it says in the chat? If you can't, I can't. I have it right here. But it says, dear sir, have $50,000 ready, $25,000 in $20 bills, $15,000 in $10,000 in $5 bills. After two to four days, we will inform you where to deliver the money. We warn you for making anything public or for notify the police the child, or notify the police, the child is in good care. Indications for all letters are signature and three holes.

With that last part referencing this really weird, kind of unique signature that you can see at the bottom of the note. there. Okay. I have theories already, but we can continue. But yeah, that's, that's, that's what the signature essentially looked like if it wasn't like photo. It's just really weird looking thing. I, I don't know where that comes from or why they chose that, but that's sort of like the unique signature. I don't know if they're just like, look, nobody else is going to know to copy this, and that's just what they decided to do. Okay. Anyway, Little Lindy had been kidnapped from the second-story of their estate at between like 8 to 10 p.m.

While the parents and all of their aides and assistance and maids and waitstaff were still in the house. According to the History Channel, another documentary I watched, because as you can imagine, there are tons of documentaries on this, it only took like 30 minutes for the police. to be alerted for the media to arrive, easy for me to say. And apparently, before the stroke of midnight, the entire country already knew that 20-month-old little Indy had been kidnapped for ransom.

And aside from the ransom note, the only real clues that were found were these kind of indistinguishable, muddy footprints and a custom-made two-section ladder. And even if the muddy footprints, footprints could have been identified, the mass gathering of police, media, and the general public kind of made them useless as evidence anyway. There were also no fingerprints or identifiable marks

left in the nursery. Actually, I think there might have been like a a smudged fingerprint on the ransom note, but what are you going to do about that? So authorities are like, well, he was probably wearing gloves. I think there was a scraping mark on the outside of the house where the kidnapper moved the ladder into position to climb to the second story window, but that's not really evidence you can use to find the kidnapper, so who cares. The thing about the ladder is that when they looked at it, they noticed that one of the legs had kind of a big split and crack in it.

So immediately they were like, whoa, maybe this thing got damaged when the dude was climbing up the ladder or climbing down from the ladder with the child in hand. But there was no blood on the ground or anything, so who knows? Now, in an almost unheard of manner, Lindberg actually takes over this investigation from the police. I thought that that was a, you're too, you're too important to this thing. There's too many emotions. You can't be a part of this.

Well, the thing is, he's the one that's going to the press. He's the one giving the orders. He's the one spearheading the investigation into his son's kidnapping because he has that much influence. He is that much of a world-renowned hero that he has enough sway to be like, no, I'm taking over. This is my investigation now. I'll call you when I need you and you'll do what I tell you. I was about to say he's not even a cop. No, he's not even a cop.

He's just a pilot. He's just this popular. At this point, it's like, I'm doing this and just no one says no? Yeah, basically, you just don't say no to Charles Lindberg. Oh, geez. And I think a lot of Charles Lindberg's state of mind comes from the fact that, like, this era of police didn't exactly have the highest, success rate when it came to finding kidnap victims. I mean, how

many times on Detective Ridiculous in these older cases have we been like, yeah, it was kind of police incompetence at the time that made things a mess? Like all of them. Yeah, like all of them. So, Lindbergh, who was

this methodical planner, he was methodical, figured like, you know what, I can do a better job than the police. And like I said, he just used his vast connections of with famous people, with politicians and all that. He used all of his sway to just take the case away from the police. And as you can imagine, the country is in absolute shock over such a horrible kidnapping,

especially of the nation's hero Charles Lindbergh, who would do such a thing. And as words spreads, it is very, very quickly dubbed. as the crime of the century. Of the century. Of the century. It almost felt like little Lindy was actually the son of the American people and that someone had the audacity to kidnap America's child. I'm so Warhammer Pills when you said I was like,

son of the emperor and it's like, oh, god damn it. Right. and like if you still don't understand just how much the Lindbergh family was loved by America Al Capone from his jail cell was like hey I'm more than willing to use my underground connections to help you find this kidnapper and bring them to justice that's so funny to think about on the condition that he was released from prison So he could actually do this. Neverbigh, he's full of shit.

Which he was not released. No, I would imagine not. Yeah. And he was actually quoted as saying that the kidnapping was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever seen. A few sources also claim that aside from Al Capone, Lindbergh was actually hiring mobsters and gangsters that wanted to actually help him find the person. responsible for the kidnapping. Lindbergh so beloved that even the criminal underbelly of America

wants to help him find his kidnapped child and bring the kidnapper to justice. What a kind soul. You let me out of prison, I'll help you. I swear I will, I swear I will. And that was kind of the state of America. Like everyone was on the lookout for this scumbent. that would not only stoop so low as to kidnap a child,

but to kidnap Little Lindy, how could you do it? So, in hopes of finding information, the New Jersey police would offer $25,000 for any information on the whereabouts of Little Lindy or the kidnapper. And Charles Lindbergh would add an additional $50,000 to that. God damn. That back then that, that's so much money.

Do you have the, do you have the equated for inflation amount? I do. So remember, this is the Great Depression times. Yeah, this is the 30s. That is $1.3 million. Holy shit. That is a lot of money to be throwing around in the Great Depression. Depression times. Also, if you do a little quick math, $50,000 plus $25,000 means they are now offering

more than what the kidnappers are ransoming the child for. The kidnappers only offered $50,000. Yeah, well, they don't trust working with kidnappers clearly. And if you're wondering, like, where's the FBI? Why aren't the FBI? doing anything. Well, at the time, kidnapping was considered a state crime. It wasn't a federal crime at the time, so there's no federal jurisdiction for the FBI to get involved unless they can determine that this kidnapper is crossing state lines. So Jay Edgar Hoover would contact the New Jersey police and be like, hey, you know, let us know what we can do. It's out of our jurisdiction, but if we have any resources that you need,

let us know we'll send some people down, but it's out of our jurisdiction. What a bizarre situation. I would have never kind of thought about that. I know, right? It's crazy to think that kidnapping was just, you know. Now, like I said, the problem with the money,

the police, and the Lindbergs offered up is that the kidnappers, they're obviously keeping track of the news, and they're like, wait a minute, this kid is worth how much? and so three days later, the Lindbergs would receive another ransom note that was very similar to the first one with the signature, the broken English, and all that. And this time, they demanded $70,000 instead of the original $50,000. And obviously, they're also getting notes saying that the baby is saved, they'll send instructions and all that.

but the important one is they're like, yeah, not 50,000, we want 70K. We basically want what you're offering, you know, to the general public. Bizarre that they actually, their little signature is actually in stamp form, too. Yeah, it's really weird. Yeah, and then they have to, like, individually, like, put holes in it, too, because those are actually holes in the paper. Those aren't, like, ink plots, the little circles in the middle of them. It's just so weird.

It's weird. It's such a weird... Anyway, so things are getting crazy. The nation is in a frenzy over the kidnapping, and there are some absolutely absurd reward monies being offered up, and it's crazy. And they're getting offers from everyone to try and help, like I said, Al Capone, mobsters, gangsters,

but they're also getting, like, fake leads. They're also getting, you know, yucksters that think they're being funny and, you know, giving them false leads and stuff like that. But there's this one guy, his name is John Condon, and he's like this well-known retired school principal from the Bronx. And he's like, look, kidnapper, I will offer to put a thousand dollars of my own money into the pot if you let me be sort of like the intermediary between. you and Lindberg. I'll be the guy that passes along all the news, any messages and letters.

I can kind of do that for you. And Lindberg, I can talk with them and make sure that, you know, little Lindy is okay and I can get you all the information you need. It'll be good to have me there to sort of, you know, bridge you two together. Is he also a huckster? Um, I, you know, I'm, I'm not really sure because, like, all I've heard about him is he's a school principal and a quote unquote Bronx personality. But I also saw a documentary that called him a bit of a blowhard. I mean, the thing he's doing is very blowhard adjacent. Yeah. And he's also from the Bronx, and I don't trust people from the Bronx.

So, anyway, both the kidnapper and Lindbergh, agree. agree. And so now Dr. John Condon is right smack in the middle of this thing. And it's kind of the point where, like, Lindberg and Condon have almost shut the police out of what they're doing in regards to, like, contacting the kidnapper. Like, it's pretty much exclusively going through Condon and Lindberg at this point. Yo, look at that album drop photo right there. That is totally an album cover. They're so dripped out, let's go. The coats, the hats, the 1930s. I don't know if it's just global warming or what the hell it was, but I can't, I don't understand how they were able to walk around in that much clothing during some of the heat. I know they're on the East Coast, but it still gets hot there.

I was going to say, it is, it is New York, and that could be in like, it might be approaching winter and I mean they get some snowfall over there dude but even in the summer though they're still like fully decked out with this stuff sometimes true true they a proper gentleman always wore a suit and a coat

and a hat back in those days no matter what the weather was like that they did oh yeah so Condon is actually communicating and relaying Lindberg's willingness to pay the ransom through newspaper classified

ads under the name of Jafsey. So it's kind of like the kidnapper and Condon had their own little secret messaging service in plain sight take out classified ads and sort of communicate with each other.

And after going back and forth for a while, Condon finally gets a more concrete hit on March 12th. Condon would get a note via a taxi cab driver who was given a note by someone he had never seen before with the order to deliver this note to Condon.

It was a strange note that basically told Condon the location of another note. It's like he's on a wild goose chase. It's like an Easter egg hunt. One note's like, hey, there's another note that'll tell you where to find and meet me, but that note is hidden under a stone near a subway station. And sorry, just, bleh.

Just, it's it's, it's, it's very convoluted, but I guess they're probably paranoid that,

oh, well, what if they follow the taxi cab driver? Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a paper trail

leading to, but yeah, it's very convoluted and very, ugh. But the final note would

basically give content instructions to meet a man named John at the Woodlawn Cemetery. And famously, or I guess infamously, the person Condon met there would always be known in the history books as Cemetery John. Cemetery John. Cemetery John.

And that is a sketch of Cemetery John. Cemetery John. Cemetery John. He looks evil as hell. He looks like the devil himself trying to masquerade as an individual being like, I got a deal for you. Well, considering what we're doing, you are not far off. But oddly, Cemetery John, really, Cemetery John, really didn't do a whole lot to cover up his identity. Like, he wasn't wearing a mask or anything.

And Condon got a really good look at his face. and he was also able to discern that he had a foreign accent. But Cemetery John, John would tell Condon that he had Lindberg's child and the child was being kept on a boat and was in good health. Naturally, Condon's like, well, I need some proof that the child is alive because if we don't have proof that the child is in good health, how are we going to strike a deal? So Cemetery John is like, well, all right, how about, how about this?

How about we return the sleepware of the child to let you know that they're okay and we got them? And so he's like, all right, fine. You send us that stuff and then we'll talk a little more. But strangely, after all that, Cemetery John asks a very, very foreboding question. He specifically asked Condon, would I burn if the package was dead? Oh, God. Now, I don't know about you, but this should have been Red Flag Central. I haven't seen a red flag that bad since when I visited China.

Fair enough. At this point, alarm bells should have just been going off all over the place. Ding dong! Like, the fact that he was at all concerned with what would happen to him if little Lindy was dead would make me immediately suspicious of any dealing with these kidnappers. But I guess there's no real way to confirm anything, so you kind of have to go along with it. Even if there is a chance that this foreboding question is being asked for a reason, it could just be, oh, you know, he's just paranoid because, you know, this.

crime, everybody knows about it. It's in every paper. It's front-line. Maybe he's just paranoid. You know, he just wants to know every angle. You kind of have to go along with him. It should be noted that this meeting with Cemetery John, Condon and Lindbergh did not tell the police about it. The police had no idea that this meeting with potentially the kidnapper was happening, which many documentaries and sources point out as just, it's such a bad move. It's such a fatal flaw because if they had kept the police at least informed that they were going to do it, they could have had a stakeout. They could have had people tail Cemetery John to wherever the child was,

or at very least get some idea of where the kidnappers themselves were hiding. But Lindberg thought he knew better. And like we said, the police at the time didn't exactly have the greatest track record. So Lindbergh thinks he's doing all the right things by keeping to his methodical ways and leaving the police in the dark. I mean, it wasn't a federal crime at the time, though, also, right? True. At the time, kidnapping is only a state crime. It's only a state offense. So, but still, you could tell the New Jersey police and they can still, like I said, do a stakeout. and track him or something.

But, yeah, his own kind of hubris gets in the way a little bit. Anyway, so the kidnapper does send them Little Lindy's sleepwear, and the Lindbergs are like, yeah, that's what he was wearing. And now they're ready to do basically whatever the kidnappers want, because that was proof enough for them. Yeah, that was the clean proof, just like, yeah, oh, yeah, oh boy. So what happens next? And this is kind of the TLDR version of it

because we could be here all day. Otherwise, Condon is putting more ads in the paper saying, hey, we're ready to go. You know, we're ready to pay you. We're ready to cooperate, whatever you want. And there would be like five more notes that Condon would get for like a total of 12 notes, 12 of these ransom notes. Some of them are threatening to increase the ransom if they don't comply quicker.

Some of them are general instructions. And the final 12th one finally had instructions on where to meet and hand off the money. Now, in an effort to make it potentially easier to find the kidnappers after the money had been handed off, obviously the serial numbers on the money were copied down, and they used a bunch of gold certificates, which from what I've seen, gold certificates, they kind of look like just normal money, but they have like this gold seal on them and they have like gold serial numbers on them,

which, if I remember correctly, these bills back in the day, you could literally exchange them for gold if you wanted to. So they were kind of hoping that since the U.S. really using the quote unquote gold standard, it would be really, really easy to pinpoint the location of these gold certificates if the kidnapper tried to use them. Right, they tried to deposit them or something. They also put all the money in this like custom made wooden box.

So if they saw this very unique box or they were like, oh, we found the box in someone's possession, it's like, hey. you're the kidnapper or you've got the box from a kidnapper, ooh, we've got a lead. So they were doing all they could. There was also a slight problem that they could only manage to get $50,000 when the kidnappers wanted $70,000. But Condon was like, ah, don't worry, I can talk him into accepting $50K,

it's still a ton of money, it'll be fine. So Condon puts another ad in the... the paper stating that, hey, the money's ready. I'm going to show up alone. I'm not going to show up with any police trailing me. You've got nothing to worry about. Let's just go ahead. We'll make this transaction and everything will be hunky-dory.

Yeah, the gold certificates is back when U.S. dollar was backed by gold, Great Depression, yada, yada, yada. Yeah, impression years, et cetera. Yeah, yeah. And just like before, Condon meets with Cemetery John. and he hands Cemetery John the money. The lower ransom money was accepted, and Cemetery John hands Condon a final note

that gives him the location of Little Lindy. The note says that he's on a boat named Nelly near Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. So finally, finally, they know where Lindberg's son is. The following day there is this extensive search of Martha's vineyards. A bunch of sources said that Charles Lindbergh was even flying overhead in one of his planes looking for any boat that matched the description or had the name Nellie. But no matter how hard they searched, no one could find a trace of a boat named Nellie. Did they give the

Cemetery John all the money? They gave him all 50,000. Yep. 50,000, not the 70,000. Not the 70,000. He was like, oh, you know, 50,000. Okay, fine, we'll accept that. That's still a lot of money.

That's sure. But no matter how, yeah. Do they just, do they just like, did they just do like an old school style with like a big bag? Oh, big box. Big box. They put in big box.

Yeah, pretty much. Was it still only the gold standard stuff? or was it a mixture of both? It's a mixture. So I think about $40,000 of the ransom money. Well, actually, I guess most of the money. I think it was $40,000 worth was in these gold certificates. So actually a majority of it was, yeah, the gold certificates.

So they specifically in a way to try to catch the guy. Yes, exactly. If he were to use it. So I'm just trying to put together. How long were they searching for the boat? Um, pretty much the whole day. The whole next day, which would be April 3rd. Probably, like, they probably spent the whole week looking, honestly.

It says a boat in Massachusetts. Like, it's Massachusetts. They're a crap load of boats. True. But they did specifically say Martha's Vineyard, which isn't that kind of like a little isolated, I don't want to say island, but it's not a huge area, right? Oh, I thought the boat's name was Martha's Vineyard. Oh. The boat's name is Nelly, and it's near Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Yeah. Okay, well, I've never been there, so I don't know. Yeah, it's a, if I'm not mistaken, Martha's Vineyard is kind of a hoity-to-dy kind of place. Oh, okay. But anyway, anything like that. As it turned out, Nellie, the boat simply didn't exist. The kidnappers had lied to them and made off with the money, leaving everyone to wonder what had become of little Lindy.

And then on May 12th. I thought you were about to end the whole story right there. And I was like, don't do that. Don't do that, man. Oh, no, no, no, no. This happened in the 30s. There's no way that's the final say, right? But then on May 12th, there was a delivery driver named Orville Wilson who was driving

a little due south of the Lindbergh's home when he had to stop and take a piss. You know, nature called, man. I can't hold it anymore and got a long drive. Holy Jesus. So when he and the assistant he was driving with went into some nearby woods, you know, to relieve themselves, they would make simply the most horrific discovery. They found the body of a small child that had a fractured head and was already severely decomposing. Oh my God, they just killed the kid.

When they called in the police, it was confirmed that these were the tragic remains and the final resting place of little Charles Lindberg. So they, they, is that, is that a, no, okay, the photo looked weird, cropped like that. Oh, no, yeah, they did. Yeah, no, they put, took a picture of the dead kid. It's like, oh, yeah, okay, good. And this spot would actually end up being only about five. miles from the Lindbergh's home.

And after further investigation, it was determined that it was more than likely that little Lindy had actually died the night of the kidnapping. Really? The cause of death was ruled to be blunt, forced trauma, hence the fractured skull, and that the child, at least this is what they claimed, they claimed the child was probably dropped from the custom ladder unexpectedly when that leg sort of snapped and cracked. So they're thinking it probably wasn't intentional that they killed the poor child, but the ladder unexpectedly sort of and they, uh, and drop the child.

Oh my God, just the thought that these kidnappers just like just slipped and dropped the kid and just killed it is horrifying. It is also horrifying, yeah. So now President Roosevelt is basically telling every government agency that would listen. He's like, look, we need to be helping the New Jersey police in any way possible. Give them whatever resources they need. Give them whatever resources are at your disposal. We need.

This is, oh, my, this is awful. This is the worst. They also made sure that, like, every bank in the area had the information on the serial numbers, on the money, and they were like, look, be on the lookout for these really specific gold notes, these gold certificates. And according to the FBI website, where they have this really long sort of history of the case, it was noted that President Roosevelt also made a proclamation that all gold certificates were to be returned to the United States Treasury.

and so since like we said, $40,000 of the gold notes was used for the ransom, it's like, hey, there's a good chance that some of that money's got to come back and we can figure out where it is, let's go. All gold certificates. Every single one. All of them. Send them all back.

That is an unprecedented amount of control for one kid. God damn. He was Charles Lindbergh's son. Charles Lindbergh is probably the most famous man in the world at the time. But like, like this is the, this isn't just New Jersey, right? This is the nation. Yes, all of them. That's insanity to assume that they would do that during the Great Depression.

Oh, my God. Yep. Oh, my God. There were also some concerns. that the kidnapping might have been an inside job. That was my first thought. Uh-huh. So the waitresses and the staff of the Lindberg's home were under heavy scrutiny.

Now, some people would wonder, like, why are you jumping to inside job, aside from the obvious reasons? Because how do you sneak into a 900-acre house? Yeah. But also, remember how we said before that the Lindberg's new home wasn't complete? and they only stayed in the house on weekends. Right. The kidnapping of Little Lindy took place on a Tuesday. And the Lindberg family and their staff were literally the only ones who knew that they would even be there that night.

Like Lindberg had specifically missed a speaking event that night. He was supposed to attend in order to come home early to his family. So unless it was coordinated by someone on the inside, who else would even know that they were there? Now, that being said, there was a specific waitress named Violet Sharp that everyone was suspicious of because she had been interrogated by the police I think three times. And every time she was questioned, her story changed.

and so they were like, man, she is very suspicious. And you know what? Let's go back to her a four time and see if we can't, see if she changes their story some more, see if there are any consistencies and stuff like that. But before they could, Violet Sharp would end her own life. Oh, that's an admission. Which, like I was about to say, at this point, everyone's like, okay, so she was guilty of something, like, ooh, man.

But actually, when they kept investigating a little bit, they determined that she actually had an alibi for the night of the kidnapping. Like, based on her movements, she couldn't have been involved in the kidnapping. Was she not in the country legally? I'm not really sure. They were just like, yeah, you know what? it couldn't have been her based on

like testimonies like it couldn't have been her she wasn't involved that's the only genuinely the only thing I can imagine is that maybe like either either yeah the amount of stress in this situation was insane or maybe she wasn't there

legally and therefore she was fearful of you know I would imagine it was probably just a crazy amount of stress and in the 1930s, if, like, if she had any pre-existing mental health issues, the 1930s weren't a great time to, like, you know, mental health was, has only recently become like, oh, hey, it's okay. You can talk to people about it.

You can get medicated for it with something, you know, that'll help you. And, you know, it could have been. It is the depression, too. The great depression, yeah. Yeah. That suicide was at a pretty high. Hi. Yep, yep.

John Condon was also seen as being a little suss by the general populace since he was the one doing all the communicating. He saw and met with Cemetery John. He handed over the money, all of that. And Condon insisted that if he ever saw Cemetery John, again, he could 100% identify him. and he would actually spend a lot of his free time just going down to police stations and looking at lineups and looking at like criminal pictures in like the records trying to see if he could find someone that looked like Cemetery John. And like I said earlier, the police would get a sketch artist to draw Condon's

interpretation of Cemetery John so they kind of knew who to look for. And like I said before, at this point, everybody's kind of like, I don't know how much you can really trust testimony from Condon. It was that PBS documentary I told you about earlier where they were like, yeah, he's kind of a blowhard. Oh, right. He's really prone to exaggerations. So anything he's saying, it's kind of hard to take it face value. So everybody's just kind of suss of him because he's just kind of like, every time he talks, it's just, He sounds like he's trying to sell you a line and just, he's kind of...

He is from the Bronx. He is, he is. And also, upon further investigation of all the ransom notes that they had, they figured that all of these notes were probably written by the same person and that the person was more than likely of German descent. They figured this out because of the kind of phonetic spelling of stuff like signature, Also the word good was written as GUT, which is the German word for good. There's also the dollar sign appearing after the number, so it's 50,000, and then the dollar sign, which is the German way to write it.

So they at least had a sketch of cemetery, John, and they knew that he was probably German, although Condon said the man looked and sounded Scandinavian, but they were pretty sure that he was. German. They even went so far as to call in woodworking experts to painstakingly examine the ladder that was found, the one that had that big crack in it. Like they went there over every little detail of this ladder trying to find something that might lead them back to whoever put it together since it's a custom-made ladder. And about the only thing, I could find that they learned was it looked like like the pieces of this ladder had lumber that was used for indoor construction.

So it looked like somebody like took up their floorboards and made this ladder with it. But realistically, they kind of sort of don't have much to go on. And it seems like all they can do is hope that the kidnapper makes a mistake at some point and they can like pounce on him. And from what I've read, there are obviously a lot of gold certificates

that are coming back to the banks because of the proclamation. So they kind of have a vague idea of where some of the ransom money is circulating. But it wouldn't be until September 18th, 1934, that they finally get a massive, massive break in the case. As it turns out, one of the gold certificates was used at a gas station.

I think it was a $10 note, not that it really matters, but the teller was really suspicious of this $10 note. The teller said that the man who gave it to him was acting kind of weird, kind of suspicious. There was just this weirdness about him. There was a podcast I listened to on this that mentioned that, The teller was probably also worried that, like, oh, man, I don't know if a bank is going to accept this $10 gold certificate. I don't know if it's going to be spendable because, you know. Because they're trying to take it all back at this point. Wouldn't it be suspicious if anyone buys anything with a gold note, considering the president is like, bring it all back?

Yeah, yeah, you think that. So it could have been that or it could have been, you know, he's just like, I don't know what a gold certificate? What even is this? because these have been out of circulation for a while. What the hell is this? But regardless, the teller's like, you know what? I'm going to do the safe thing, and I'm going to go ahead and copy the license plate number of this dude's car

on the border of this gold certificate. That way, when I call the bank about it, because this is all very weird, very suspicious, I can give them all the information they need. What a cool guy. Yeah, very smart thing to do when you are very suspicious. of a person. And so once the bank

had this information, they were like, whoa, hey, that that's information we should pass on to the police. And they do, and they use that license plate number to discover that the car was owned by a man

named Bruno Richard Helpedman, who lived in the Bronx. Oh. Helpman was a German carpenter who actually did have a criminal record in his home country of Germany. And one of the crimes that he committed in his home country, get this, was he is known to have robbed a mayor's home by using a ladder to get into the second story of the mayor's house

and rob him blind. Much like how the kidnapper got into Lindbergh's home. But he's in the Bronx. He is in the Bronx. Where a certain other guy was also in. True. Condon was also there. But as far as I know, they don't actually have any connection. Condon didn't actually like, you know.

Oh, this was totally a fine setup for. Condon actually worked with the kidnapper, which is why he was so keen to talk with them. Yeah. No, unfortunately. Red herring. There's a red herring. And when they did go and at,

apprehend Hauptman, not only did he have a $20 gold certificate from the ransom money on his person. This dude looks exactly like the sketch they had of Cemetery John. The one Condon gave the police. Like, he's not uncanny. He is like, exact. He's a damn near mat. Look at that. You put a hat on him.

It's the same goddamn guy. Yeah, that's damn close. it has the eyes look like they're depressed. Yep. Well, that's everybody's eyes in this era, but yeah. That is very true. Not only that, but when they search his house, there is so

so much damning evidence. He had a gasoline can in his garage that was filled with like $15,000 worth of the ransom money in the gold notes.

Okay. God damn. He had claimed that the gas can full of money, well, that was just left there by one of my friends. And my friend who left it there, he had died. And he owed me the money. So once he died, I was just a little curious about what was in this can that he told me to hold. And wow, look at all the money.

Okay. Is that actually his response? Or is that what the police believed? Because, I mean, this is the German guy. Did he, like, That was his, that was his, well, that was essentially his response. Obviously, that was not verbatim, but that was his sort of attempt at being like, I, I, it couldn't have been me. This is my friend's money.

How could I do it? Okay, because like, I was thinking that maybe, maybe just the, the cops used that as the excuse when they, he was trying to explain, but there's like a language barrier or something going on. Oh, like he can, he's, he's fluent in English. It's just, it's very broken English. Ah, okay, okay. Yeah. But then they also found Condon's phone number and address etched on, it was either a wall or a doorframe. Oh, man.

They found the literal sketch plan for building the exact ladder they found at the scene. And they also noticed that in the upstairs attic, there were a bunch of floorboards missing. and in a PBS documentary I watched, they literally took a section of the ladder and it matched perfectly to where it came from in the house. Like you could see the wood patterns on the ladder matched up and lined up right where the floorboards were missing. Like the wood grain and the wood pattern you see on those floorboards,

it matches exactly with the piece of, lumber on this ladder. Wait, okay. Wait, you're setting me up, though. You're setting me up for this to not go the way I think it's going to go. Well, I don't know what you mean. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't, I don't believe this guy is the guy now. You're setting me up too much for this to all be BS. But yeah, like if you look at that picture that shy posted, it's, it's like exact. It is exact. It is from his floorboard. No questions about it. And after getting writing samples, I believe the FBI had them tested, had Richard's handwriting tested against the ransom notes,

and all the experts were like, yeah, this is so strikingly close that this is totally the guy that wrote these. 100%. Well, not 100%, but they were fairly short. So on January 3rd, 1935, Richard Hauptman would be put on trial, and this would be another media frenzy. Much like how the crime itself was labeled as the crime of the century, this too was labeled as the trial of the century. And the courthouse was jam-packed. The public were crowding the area.

All the hotels completely full, completely booked out. Media spectacle, all eyes around the world locked on this trial. and I was watching a history channel documentary again one of many and they showed pictures of the police needing to barricade the crowd so that Charles Lindbergh could make his way into the courthouse

they also showed these scumbag like I guess you could call them merchants I guess but they had basically camped outside of the courthouse and they had handmade a bunch of miniature replica ladders that look like the ones that were used in the crime and they were selling them to the public as souvenirs.

Who the fuck would buy a souvenir ladder? A lot of people actually, like, there was like this woman that was posing with the ladder on her hand like she was doing a photo shoot. It's crazy. A lot of people bought them. It's just TikTok just a hundred years earlier. Basically, yeah. And there's actually a lot of footage of the actual case and Haltman getting grilled about what he did. Like, you must have done it. Oh, I know you did it. You left your job early that one day. And he's like, no, I didn't do it. I couldn't have done it. But the evidence was just too damning. And about five or six weeks later, he was convicted of first-degree murder with the sentence for his crime.

being death by the electric chair. Did he... Oh, go ahead. Did he get killed? Yeah. On April 3rd, 1936, his sentence was passed, and he died via electric chair. Why do I feel like you're still setting me up for something? I feel set up.

Well, we'll keep talking. And because of everything that happened, uh, the Lindbergh law was actually passed. shortly after. And basically the Lindbergh law turned kidnapping into a federal crime and not a state crime so that the

FBI could exert full jurisdiction even across state lines. Oh, and that's where we get our, uh, and that's where we get our, the feds have arrived to ruin everything. TV trope. Yay. Now, I think

there's basically no doubt that Hauptman was guilty. There's too much evidence piled up against him. Even Condon saw him and was like, oh, yeah, that's Cemetery, John, that's the guy. But? But the problem is, was Hauptmann alone in this? Because again, only about $14,000 to $15,000 of that ransom money was found. They gave up $50,000.

So what happened to the rest of it? I mean, it's... I thought you would have stashed it somewhere. Like, so that's what I was thinking, right? It's entirely possible that he stashed it, but he was stupid enough to keep 15,000 of it in a gas can in his garage. That was his idea of stashing money.

I don't know, like, bury the other 35 somewhere and then just like get it when you need it kind of thing, the Walter White style. Could be. Uh, but, it's also been theorized that there is almost no way that Houtman could have planned and enacted this thing alone. He must. He must have had some degree of help in carrying out this kidnapping, which is kind of where a lot of theories surrounding this case come from. Because it's like,

okay, look, Houtman had a hand in this. Absolutely. He must have. There's too much evidence against him, but there's no way that it was just him. Also, it should be noted that a lot of the evidence against Houtman was kind of sort of circumstantial. Like, yes, he had the money, yes, he probably built the ladder, yes, he probably wrote the ransom notes, but there was nothing that could properly, there was no evidence that actually placed him at the Lindbergh's home the night of the kidnap. napping. So there's also that. And, you know, like I said, there's a bunch of theories about who could have aided Hauptmann.

You know, maybe he ended up being just the fall guy. Maybe he truly was innocent and someone planted all this evidence at his home without him knowing. Some people think that there was like this group of German immigrants in the Bronx that were like convincing him like, hey, if we go hold Lindberg's kid for ransom, we can make so much money and we got this full proof plan. But one of the more interesting

theories revolves around him having help from the inside. Because like we said, you know, surely he must have had help from the inside, right? Surely. Because again, Tuesday, nobody else knew that they were even going to be there that day. The house was still

under construction. The way you open that Tuesday, you know, everyone kidnaps on Tuesday. It's like clearly. Yeah, you know, nobody expects a kidnapping on Tuesday. What if Charles Lindbergh himself had set up the kidnapping of his own son? And of course, that sounds a little crazy. That's a little, yeah, I don't know about that one. But.

The kid died. True, but there are some things about Charles Lindberg and even some stuff he does after the kidnapping that suggests that it might not be as impossible as it sounds. It needs a little explaining, so just hear me out for a second. So Charles Lindberg was actually known to be a rather big supporter of eugenics, sort of the idea that only the best, brightest, strongest, should breed and only they should pass along their traits for a strong child. Kind of the idea that the strong should survive and the weak should be weeded out. Yeah, I know about eugenics. I played Horatio in Endless Space 2.

Ah. And actually famously, and this is after the kidnapping, Lindbergh was sent to Nazi Germany to kind of scope out their air force and their planes and stuff like that. The whole, what is it, the Luftwath? Oh, God, I'm totally butchering that. Yeah, the L-U-F-T waffle. Yeah, yeah. And the Nazis kind of whined and dined him.

They actually quite liked him. And they showed him basically everything that they had. Everything their Air Force had, they were like, here, take a look at it. Do you want to fly some of them? Feel free. Go ahead. Do it. and a lot of documentaries are like, you know, Lindbergh was fairly, he was fairly impressed with the order and the discipline and just everything that the Nazi regime had.

He was very, very impressed. He kind of liked what he saw. Now, I do need to make it clear. I'm not saying that Charles Lindberg was a Nazi sympathizer because he wasn't. This is during the 30s too They were like just the up and coming party, right? Well, this is a little bit after So this is probably Maybe the 40s now, I don't know Oh, this is, wait, this is after all of the kidnapping though, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, this is after all the kidnapping

Okay But anyway, he's giving America like All the intel on what he saw And he's legit telling the higher-ups He's like, hey, um You guys know the Nazis have like, like, way better stuff than us and we really, really need to get our stuff together, right? In fact, he joined and spoke for the America First Committee, which was, it was this isolationist group,

all about U.S. isolationism and, you know, let's not get involved in a war. It was, though, kind of a white supremacist group because they were like, don't get involved in a war. we need to protect white people. And it's like, oh, geez, oh, Lindbergh, why you got to be this way? But he essentially had the position that America should not get involved in World War II. It would cost too many American lives to stop this war that was now raging in Europe. He would eventually give this speech that sounded super, super anti-Semitic,

where he was kind of blaming Jewish people for trying to push America into the war. Completely ruined his reputation and any hopes he had at a political future. And ironically, he met with JFK 25 years later. Well, to be fair, after, I think it's four days after Pearl Harbor, the America First Committee was completely disbanded. And Charles Lindberg and all of their supporters were like, yeah, you know what? We totally support America's war efforts. Sorry about that stuff before. We were probably right, but still, you know, yeah, we got to do this.

This is a bit of a non-sequitur and stuff, but, like, was he, he was all, like, what is it? Like, don't join the war in Germany, but he was still, I'm sure, like, very pro, like, get the Japanese out of here? I don't think he was. I don't think he was pro get the Japanese out. I'm a little shocked. His stance was basically like any, like, oh yeah, everyone in Britain is calling for like, oh, the defense of Britain and all, but all they really want us to do is kill Germany and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But anyway, the whole point of that story is just kind of like, he was really into eugenics. Like, he's strong, survive, weak, perish. And so the idea here is that Oh, what's this? Shai has a quote, We can have peace and security Only so long as we band together To preserve the most priceless possession

Our inheritance of European blood Only so long as we guard ourselves Against attack by foreign armies And dilution by foreign races. Oh. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah.

I don't love that. Yeah, yeah. Wait, so, okay, hold on. So this whole thing, thing, you're setting me up to the idea that his kid was not pure enough of race and bloodlines, so he, like, staged this? Well, that

is kind of sort of the setup. Again, he's not a Nazi sympathizer, but boy, some of his ideas sound very similar. Anyway, so, again, like you pointed out, the idea here is that there was something wrong with Little Lindy.

And there are numerous sources that suggest that little Lindy actually had a mild case of rickets, which is basically kind of like having weakened bones, maybe bones aren't growing the way they should. Severe cases, you see that, you know, you kind of have the bow-legged thing, and something's not quite right.

And so Charles hears of this diagnosis and realizes that his child is not as perfect as he would have hoped. So, Charles works. with Houtman and maybe some unnamed third parties to schedule this kidnapping. And again, on that Tuesday, Lindberg wasn't even supposed to be home. He conveniently forgot about a speaking event and was in the house at the time of the kidnapping. I only saw one source suggest that Lindberg was like, oh, hey, everybody, I'm putting my son to bed at 8 p.m. And he is not to be disturbed until well after 10 p.m.,

which is obviously the timeline of the kidnapping, though I only saw that from one source, so I can't say whether that was accurate or not. That, there's a giant, there's a giant hole in this, though. Okay. The German guy, they killed. Yeah, he did. Yeah.

If he worked with the damn guy, he would have said something. He would have been like, no, this Linden's thing. Well, so the thing is, I feel like, like, Houtman must have known that if he said anything, oh, Charles Lindbergh hired me to do it, who would believe him anyway? Yeah, well, you're going to be put to death. I assume you'd throw everything at the wall.

He never did, though. It's true, he never did. And true, you got nothing to lose, and there was, I remember, hearing a little tidbit about this in some documentary as to why he didn't, and I forget what it was. It was something like, it was just something you didn't do, or I don't remember what it was. But anyway, the theory suggests that, you know, if he was at home, he could at least be like, oh, he hears like a ladder snap or something. can you be like, oh, let me check out the weird one.

Let me check out that weird sound. Oh, it's just a dog being, you know, a little feisty to route any suspicions. And maybe the reason he wants to do this is because Charles Lindbergh never intended for his son to die. Rather, he wanted to stage the kidnapping and then get his son to a facility so that he could trade his mild case of rickets. The idea being that Lindbergh is kind of being shadowed 24-7 by the paparazzi anyway. Every little move he makes is in the newspapers and the tabloids. Any little nugget of news surrounding them was made into headlines. And this was one headline that Charles didn't want getting out,

that his son was not perfect, that his bones were weak, that his bones weren't growing properly, that he didn't have as pure a seed as he thought he had, because he was convinced that he was like, I am superior, you know? I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, that maybe there's something wrong with his genes. But some, that's a pretty thick conspiracy there.

There's a lot of layers you got to go through. There's a lot of layers, but somewhere along the way things go wrong. Child is dropped from the ladder on accident, and they had to pivot. Lindberg probably felt assured, like I said, that if Houtman is like, oh, Lindbergh told me to do it, he was a global hero. Who the hell would believe Houtman if he said Charles Lindbergh hired them to, you know? There was, this one is quite possibly even more far-fetched. So really strap yourself in for this one.

Okay. There's also the idea that the whole kidnapping was a giant hoax and a giant cover-up for something maybe a little worse. But so the whole thing is staged to make it look like Little Lindy was kidnapped and, oh, tragically, tragically killed by the kidnappers. When in reality, again, Charles Lindbergh prominent believer in eugenics, he sees all of these flaws in his son and he's like, oh, he's got the weak bones, he's got the this, he's got the that, you know what, I now find my child disposable. And the theory suggests that Charles Lindberg had taken his son to a doctor.

whom also believes in eugenics, and they start running experiments on little Lindy, taking out the thyroid, seeing what they can do, seeing if they can save him, seeing if they can make him pure, and the child dies of these surgeries and experiments dies on the operating table. And so Lindbergh sort of uses this kidnapping

as a way to cover up that he had been, doing all of these experiments on his own child. It's a lot. It's a lot. Also, shy, what is this prank one? Is that, is that the hoax one that I just talked about? Or is that a completely different one?

Is that, is that a different one? Or is that the one you were thinking of? That, that's, that's some, that, that one is playing fetch. Yeah, it is. and but what what else you know and and that's kind of it's it's one of those things where if you can

think up a wild scenario that vaguely fits with the pieces that are there you know there are also people that think that um Lindberg's child didn't die from the fall on the ladder

because again there was no blood on the scene there's no blood um Another documentary said that it was actually very possible that one of the kidnappers nailed the poor kid in the head with a ball peen hammer, and that's what caused the fracture. So that was my initial thought was that the kid was crying and screaming or something, and they didn't want to get caught. They just gave it a bit of a whack to try to shut it up, and they whacked it too hard.

That was my first initial thought when I heard about the Blunt Force trauma. So yeah, one of the documentaries was like, well, when you kidnap a child, you have to think about all the resources it takes to actually maintain this child in good health. It's going to be crying, you have to feed it, you have to nurse it, it's just a baby. And in a very morbid way of putting it, the documentary essentially said if you want that ransom money, it is far more efficient to, unfortunately, kill the child, make the pay. parents believe the child is still alive, get the ransom money, and then just be off the way they were. Which is, like I said, is very morbid, but still, it's, it, that, man, I get too much as a child. Like, I got, I got to say that it's, it, there's just too much pointing to the, to the dude who got, who got arrested doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, because, because, because, because, because, because, then you have to think, okay, he hired this guy to do it for him.

How did he, how did he hire him? How did he get in contact with him? I mean, you could say, oh, he's German, but like, he did all this, like, meeting the Nazis and stuff after the kidnapping, so that doesn't work. Why did he build a ladder out of the upstairs attic? Why didn't he just have a ladder? True, also true. And it's like, why would you use your, like, something that was so easy.

that would so easily point back to you too. Why not just go get lumber from literally anywhere else? Why go with the whole taxi cab, you know, message thing? Oh, right. Okay, I actually had heard that one. I don't know why I didn't write that down in script. Yeah, so Lindbergh was actually known for playing these really stupid practical jokes. Like, um, it's like, like, he was known to like take, take the child, little Lindy and hide him and

put him in, like, the closet and just like lock him in there and be like, oh, gee whiz, dear, don't know where the baby is. Ha ha ha ha. Oh, look, he's in the closet. Um, so like, so like old school, like when I was a kid, we would fall off the back of a pickup truck and we're still alive. Mm-hmm. And, and so the, the theory would go that, this was like another prank he was playing. Like he used the ladder. He climbed up and he's like, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,

but again, the ladder breaks, kid dies. And so now he kind of needs Houtman to help him cover this shit up. And Houtman's like, well, I guess I'll be the fall guy. I've got a record of this stuff. And well, I guess I can be the fall guy, sure. I don't think he would say,

I guess it's going to be the fall guy if he has the opportunity to die. True. Yeah, you would think Hauptman would still be like, guys, you're about to hit the electric chair switch. I just want to let you guys know, this was all just a prank gone wrong by Lindberg. You know, just a prank, bro. There's cameras right there, and then he pulls the liver. Yeah. Points you have no chance to get away, so you just say screw it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, true, true. And everything really was pointing at Hauptman. Like, there is no doubt howlpman was involved, no doubt whatsoever. it's just was he the only one involved like i don't i don't yeah only helpman could have uh you know told us and he he didn't say anything he just uh yeah like you said the investigation was botched too because you know at the time everybody is going to be scouring the area messing up any

evidence that was there charles linberg was leading the investigation He thought he was so smart. He thought he was so brilliant. He wasn't. You know? Oh, yes. He is nepotism and narcissism. Textbook.

Textbook narcissism, yeah. Yeah, I guess you could use that concept that, oh, it was his doing, which is why he was so apt to lead the investigation. But I think he was apt to lead the investigation because he's the father of the kid. Yeah. And he's just so famous. Where is his wife during all this? So during all this, I think Lindbergh tried to hide her as much as possible, not because of anything that she did, but because she was obviously much more emotional about it.

And he didn't want her to be seen like crying and everything. So he was like, hey, if you get seen on camera, don't cry or anything, don't show emotions. you got to be, you know, you got to be strong, you got to be the strong wife of Charles Lindberg and all that stuff. So, yeah, which, uh, poor Anne Morrow. In, in Lindberg's later years, as you, as, as we've talked out, he wasn't exactly seen as like this great guy anymore. And as it turned out, he had, um, he had an affair and secret life with how many other women in Germany was it shy? It was like six or seven? other women he impregnated in Germany and he had children with because again eugenics right it's that's trademark eugenics he's trying to spread his seed among as many people as he can he's trying to get his good genes out there to as many people as possible um and so he financially backed like seven german kids or something or a bunch of german kids behind and's back um so Oh, yeah. Charles Lindbergh started out an American hero and lived to see himself become a villain.

He took the pill. He took the pill and he became an asshole. Yeah, or he was always an asshole. He just stopped covering it up. The truth came to light. You can be a total asshole and still do crazy things. Wall of Quick Text. Is this stuff that I missed? Oh, a Wall of Quick Text.

Huh? All right. Oh, you go ahead and read him. Okay. Several books have been written proclaiming Hauptmann's innocence. These books variously criticized the police for allowing the crime scenes to become contaminated. Lindberg and his associates for interfering with the investigation, Hauptmann's trial lawyers for ineffectively represent him, and the reliability of the witnesses and physical evidence presented on the trial. Other coverage has said that certain witnesses were intimidated, and some claimed the police planted or doctored evidence, such as the latter. Or that the police doctored Hartman's time cards,

and ignored fellow workers who stated that Houtman was working the day of the kidnapping. Yep, nothing put him at the scene of the crime. Erastus Mead Husson, Hudson, sorry, was a fingerprint expert who knew about the then-Rare silver nitrate process of collecting fingerprints from wood and other surfaces on which the previous powder method would not work. He found that Houtman's fingerprints were not on the wood, even in place of the man who made the latter must have touched. But reporting this to police officer and stating that they looked further,

the officer said, good God, don't tell us that, doctor. The latter was then washed of all fingerprints and Colonel Norman Schwarzkopf, senior, or senior, the superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, refused his close to the public that Hauptman's prints were not on the ladder. Ooh, I didn't hear about that last part. I had heard about the other two parts, but ooh, that last one is some tricky-dicky stuff. At the same time, why did he make up random stories about like, it's my friend's 15,000 gold dollar notes?

That's true. Why did he make up such a obviously blatantly bad cover story for the money? Today, the Lindbergh phenomenon is a giant hoax perpetuated by people who are taking advantage of an uninformed and cynical public. Notwithstanding all the books, TV programs, and legal suits, Hauptmann is as guilty today as he was in 1932 when he kidnapped and killed the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindberg. End quote. Yeah, that is the modern opinion summed up by Jim Fisher, a former FBI agent and professor at Edinburgh University of Pennsylvania. I mean, he's still guilty. Houtman is still wildly guilty. He still took part in it. I don't know if he did the kidnapping. Like we said, nothing puts him there at the scene of the crime.

But there is no doubt in my mind that he is guilty of at least. aiding in the kidnapping of Charles Lindberg's son. I don't have enough evidence for a great depression era crime to point to anyone outside of Houtman. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. And again, it's the police, man. The police in that era were just not good. And that Charles Lindberg could even take over the case is wild. Like, you think about that happening today. It's like, oh yeah, a high profile person that's, you know, their son was kids. just took over the case. It never happens. So, anyway, that's the crime

of the century, Bricky. How you feeling? Not quite the crime of the century I was generally considering it would be. At the time, it was quite literally the crime of the century, though. At the, well, I fully believed that. And it was such a high profile crime. I believe that fully, mainly due to the person who it was. Yeah. You knew of Charles Lindberg, you just didn't know all of the other stuff.

Yeah, basically. The spirit of St. Bruce. Well, all right. That's, um, I mean, that sucks. So Lindbergh seems like a bit of a tool, but they didn't deserve to have his kid killed, so. No, no, definitely didn't, well, hopefully he didn't, hopefully it wasn't like the, oh, it's just a prank, bro. And whoops, I accidentally killed my own child. I really hope it isn't that.

I really hope. I'm, I, I, my psyche is just like, yep, it was Hauptman. because I don't want to believe that it was just a prank, bro, whoops, slip, now my child is dead. That would be so... That would be awful. Yeah, in my mind, it says,

yeah, it was somehow Houtman and some other... Anyway, all right, who's taking us home? You can take us home because my voice is dead. Yeah, well, you always have these hour and a half long episodes. I thought I was going to keep this one short. You never do. The last one I kept relatively short.

Because then when the thing is over, you're like, and let me tell you about these four other possible things that could have occurred. Well, they're interesting. God damn it. Get over it. What, do you have a life to live? You know what? I was going to make a eugenics joke, but I wasn't. What's not a joke about eugenics?

I wasn't, listen, I wasn't born to do it. Oh. Ah! Cut it. Cut it, shy.