Famous Kidnappings

FAMOUS KIDNAPPINGS

JASMINE GREY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHARLES LINDBERGH JR

MISTY COPSEY

CHOWCHILLA KIDNAPPINGS

EDGARDO MORTARA

CLEVELAND KIDNAPPINGS

BOBBY GREENLEASE

MCKAY KIDNAPPING

MISSING SODDER CHILDREN

SEX SLAVE MURDERS OF SACRAMENTO

CHARLES LINDBERGH JR

On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr. was taken from his bedroom, killed, and dumped in some nearby woods. All without anyone inside the house hearing a single peep. It was a case that gripped the entire nation, and baffled many for years.

Although one man was charged and executed for the crime, well into the 21st century many still doubt he acted alone. While many modern investigators continue to try to piece the events of that eventful night together to discover the truth, whether we will ever know truly what happened that evening remains to be seen.

The crime would touch a fear lurking in every parent: somehow, without warning or reason, their child would be taken from them. Never to return.

Never before had a child this celebrated and adored been so shockingly victimized.

Chapter one

Charles Lindbergh was a hero in his own time. At the age of 25, in 1927 Lindbergh did the impossible—he completed the first ever solo nonstop transatlantic flight. He instantly became a household name and a global icon. With his big blue eyes, Lindbergh personified the best of America. He was young, handsome, tall, and a bit shy. He was irresistible to the world in that moment.

The same year as his transatlantic flight, Lindbergh met Anne Morrow, the daughter of Lindbergh’s financial adviser, while on a goodwill tour in Mexico. The two instantly hit it off and were married two years later at Anne’s family estate in Englewood. The next year, the pair’s life seemingly became complete when they had their first child, Charles Lindbergh Jr. It was a happy day, and the newlyweds were looking forward to a happy future together.

But their happily-ever-after never came.

Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh purchased a rural family home just outside of Hopewell, New Jersey. The couple and their infant son, Charles Lindbergh Jr. spent their weekend in the new house, but during the week they stayed at Anne’s family estate in Englewood. The Hopewell property was under heavy construction and wasn’t fit for the family to live there full time.

On the night of his kidnapping, Charles Lindbergh Jr. was put to bed in his second-story bedroom around 8:00pm by the family nurse Betty Gow. Gow took care to tuck the young boy in extra tight so he would be safe and sound throughout the night. Charles Jr. was sick, so the family stayed at the Hopewell property into the week—it was a Tuesday night—so they didn’t have to travel to Englewood with the sick youngster.

Around 9:30pm, Charles Sr. heard a strange noise he believed to be coming from the kitchen. It sounded like wood cracking, and he presumed the crate of oranges in his kitchen had fallen from a table. When he got up about a half hour later he noticed that the crate was still in tact so he sent Gow to check on Charles Jr. to make sure it hadn’t been coming from his room above the kitchen. When Gow opened the baby’s bedroom door, she was shocked to see the crib empty.

Gow immediately ran to get Charles Sr., who found a ransom note on the window sill during a search of the room. He grabbed his gun and searched the surrounding property for intruders, but found no one and no sign of his first-born son. Only twenty minutes after discovering Charles Jr. was missing, local police were on the scene, along with a frenzy-storm of reporters and the family’s lawyer.

America was in a state of shock when the Lindbergh baby was reported missing. There was a sense of disbelief that this extraordinary royal prince figure could have been stolen. With no eye-witnesses and few clues except for a homemade ladder left by the kidnappers, the police had a difficult time reconstructing the events of the crime. 

What emerged as facts were these:

Sometime between 8-10pm on Tuesday, March 1, 1932, one or more individuals came to the Lindbergh house with a homemade ladder that left scrape marks on the wall to the right of the abby’s bedroom window. The kidnappers apparently climbed the ladder and entered the bedroom through the unlocked window. Once inside, they snatched the sleeping baby from the crib. They may have silenced him or rendered him unconscious because no one in the household reported hearing Charlie cry out or struggle as he was taken from his bedroom and whisked away.

The kidnappers left the ladder by a service road and used their car to make a getaway. They had placed a ransom note on the baby’s windowsill demanding $50,000 for his safe return and warned Lindbergh there would be trouble if he involved the police. The ransom note was also riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical irregularities that suggested the person who wrote it did not have a fluent grasp on the English language.

Other than these few facts, the New Jersey State Police, who were now in charge of handling the investigation, had little to go on and only a vague idea of where to start.

Chapter Two

Initially, Charles and Anne Lindbergh were hopeful that they would have their young son returned to them safe and sound. The kidnappers wanted $50,000 and the Lindberghs had it. Together with New Jersey officials, the Lindberghs decided to make it even more tempting for their son’s kidnappers to return the young child to his parents by offering a $75,000 reward for the return of Charles Jr. No questions asked. They were surprised when they weren’t taken up on their offer.

The kidnappers sent the Lindberghs a second ransom letter in the mail on March 6. The letter was confirmed to be from the same source as the first as both were marked with a distinctive image. In this note, the kidnappers demanded $70,000 in ransom money, and for John Condon to act as an intermediary between the two parties.

While the Lindberghs saw this as a sign of hope, officers were not as sure. It had occurred to them previously that caring for a toddler required a lot of planning from criminals—they would have had to find a place to take care of the young boy and would have had to have bought a number of supplies including food, clothes, and diapers. It would have been much easier on the men to kill the young child after kidnapping him, collect the ransom money, and then disappear before they could be caught. The police warned the Lindberghs against handing over their money without proof that the child was really with the kidnappers, but the Lindberghs had little choice but to cooperate with the kidnapper’s demands and hope for the best.

John Condon was chosen as an intermediary between the Lindberghs and the kidnappers who allegedly had their son for several reasons. He was a well known figure in the Bronx at the time, and he had personally offered up $1,000 to the kidnappers if they returned the child safely to a nearby church. Condon received a letter he claimed was from the kidnappers, which Lindbergh believed to be genuine.

Condon arranged to meet the kidnappers to hand over the ransom money during the night. They met at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Condon handed over the money to a man Condon said was named John. The man accepted the money, only $50,000, and gave Condon a note describing where the Lindberghs would be able to find their son alive and well.

Unfortunately, although the Lindberghs followed each of the kidnapper's instructions word for word, they were never reunited with their infant son Charles Lindbergh Jr.

It takes too much planning and resources to care for a toddler. It’s much easier to kill the child, pretend he’s still alive, collect the ransom, and then immediately skip town. And that is exactly what the kidnappers in the Lindbergh case did.

Two weeks after the $50,000 ransom was delivered, a truck driver walking through the woods stumbled upon the decomposing remains of Charlie less than five miles from his home. From the state of the corpse it appeared he died the very night of the kidnapping. An entire nation mourned Charlie’s death as if his death had been one of their very own.

The baby had a fractured skull, and when police found cracks in the ladder, they theorized the breaking ladder startled the kidnapper who then dropped the baby by accident. But many modern investigators disagree with this scenario.

While this theory does explain some of the injuries, it fails to explain all of them. On the left side of the child’s head there was a fracture line extending from the soft spot in the top of his skull all the way to the back of his ear. On the right side there was a rounded half-inch diameter defect behind the right ear. While the first injury could be attributed to many scenarios, including being drop from a two-storey tall ladder, the second injury on the right side complicates things more.

Police reports stated that an officer who had been trying to extricate the baby’s remains accidentally poked a hole in the side of the skull with a stick, which created the round impact-like injury on the right side. But again, many are skeptical. An individual prodding a body with a stick could not poke a hole through bone with a stick under any circumstance.

There is one possible scenario that could have caused the significant damage to both sides of the skull, and it is anything but accidental—it’s murder.

If he was laying on his left side face down on a hard surface and then struck a forceful blow on the right side of the head by a hammer or pipe, that would compress the head. If it was done with sufficient force, the blow could have easily caused the fracturing on the left side.

This theory supports the common idea that the kidnappers killed Charlie intentionally. It also explains how the kidnapper would have been able to keep Charlie quiet while removing him from his room. Most importantly, this theory tells us more about the individuals who could have committed the crime.

Chapter Three

Committing the kidnapping and murder of America’s young prince meant automatic death if caught. The individuals who were daring enough to pull this off knew this, and felt confident enough in their skills that they could pull this off and get away with it. They were not first time criminals—they knew what they were doing because they have done it before. They had to have been a career criminal; someone who has spent their life committing crimes. Possibly one who has a pretty good track record of breaking and entering and getting away with it.

It took police two-and-a-half-years to finally corall a suspect due to a combination of foresight and luck. When authorities prepared the original ransom money, they provided nearby banks and stores with lists of the serial numbers of the notes. They also used gold certificates, a currency that was to be discontinued within the year. The idea with this was that the serial numbers on these old bills would be more distinct and therefore easier for merchants and bank tellers to spot.

Two-and-a-half-years after the kidnapping, a german immigrant pulled up to a gas station in New York and bought about 98 cents worth of gas. He payed with a $10 gold certificate. The gas attendant was immediately suspicious—not that he was receiving Lindbergh ransom money, but that America had been off the gold standard for about a year at this point and the bank may not accept the old bill. Just in case this happened when the attendant went to deposit the bill, he wrote down the man’s license plate number on the edge of the bill. It belonged to Richard Hauptmann.

When the gold certificate bill used by Richard Hauptmann was brought to the bank, the tellers instantly realized the bill may have been Lindbergh ransom money, and they called the police. Police instantly followed up with the new lead by visiting Hauptmann at his home. Once there, police found a total of $14,000 in gold certificate notes, all of which matched the serial numbers of the Lindbergh ransom money. Hauptmann was arrested on the spot.

On January 3, 1935, Hauptmann went on trial for his participation in the kidnap and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. At his trial, Hauptmann presented himself as a hardworking business man who could never have committed such a heinous crime. But a closer look at his background called this assertion into question.

Prior to coming to the United States, Hauptmann had built up an extensive criminal history in Germany. In one of his past offences, Hauptmann had used a ladder to climb into the second story window of a mayor’s house to steal a large amount of money, expensive watches, and other valuables. In another, Hauptmann worked with an accomplice to hold up and rob a woman pushing her baby carriage down the road at gunpoint.

To get to the United States, Hauptmann had to escape from jail, stow away on a steamship, and lie his way through American immigration. So despite his clean, businessman demeanour Hauptmann was bold, ruthless, and criminally sophisticated—the very attributes modern profilers associate with the person who must have committed the Lindbergh Baby murder. Not to mention his history of using ladders to commit crimes.

Prosecutors claimed that Hauptmann personally built the kidnap