Lindbergh: The Crime
Books / Hardcover
Books › Social Science › General
ISBN: 0871135442 / Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr, January 1994
Recounts the infamous 1932 kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh, jr., and the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, offering new evidence about the case, the investigation, and the other suspects
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It is known as the crime of the century - the infamous kidnapping and murder of the infant son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh in 1932. But nearly six decades after Bruno Richard Hauptmann died in the electric chair, questions that even then troubled many have become more insistent. At the time, no less a figure than New Jersey's governor, Harold Hoffman, gambled away his public reputation in a heroic effort to prove Hauptmann's innocence. Today, more puzzling questions and possibilities have surfaced. Lindbergh: The Crime is a book that gets to the heart of the mystery, a grand piecing together of this tangled and many-faceted case that will startle all with its central revelation.Best-selling author Noel Behn has spent eight years researching and investigating the case. Among the new evidence he has uncovered is the personal account of a confidant to Governor Hoffman who maintained that while Hauptmann awaited execution on death row, employees of the Lindbergh and Morrow households provided the governor with affidavits that established the condemned man's innocence by stating how the child was killed and by whom. The governor was reluctant to go public with the explosive disclosures until he could find additional proof. His efforts to do so were Herculean - and futile.Behn picks up the thread of the governor's investigation. Revisiting old evidence and discovering new details, the author builds a compelling, plausible scenario that puts the child's murderer closer to the Lindbergh household than anyone has heretofore dared to suggest.Behn shows how Lindbergh took charge of and possibly manipulated the investigation from the very start; tells how Lindbergh may have paved the way for extortionists to intercept the ransom payment; demonstrates that if there was a case at all for Hauptmann's involvement, it was only as an extortionist; re-examines the theory that the first ransom note and the next twelve notes were written by different people, and names the probable extortionist; and takes a searching look into the history and dynamics of the Lindbergh extended family and finds ample clues to support the book's conclusions.Behn recreates this story against a broad and colorful canvas of the times. We follow Lucky Lindy on his historic transatlantic flight and see how his newfound fame led to an obsession with privacy. We see how in the waning days of Prohibition kidnapping became an increasingly common source of income for gangsters. And we understand how the fiery rivalries of the time between law enforcement agencies and politicians, and within the media, contributed to the bungling of the original investigation.Noel Behn has woven a web of provocative clues and hard facts to create a responsible and convincing scenario for the unthinkable in a case that continues to haunt the American imagination.
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