Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,995
A Judicial Murder...?
The Case Of Richard Bruno Hauptmann...
On February 13, 1935, a jury at Flemington, New Jersey, found German immigrant Richard Bruno Hauptmann...
...from Kamenz in Saxony guilty of kidnapping and murdering the 20-month-old baby Charles of the world-famous Atlantic aviator Charles Lindbergh.
Immediately afterwards the judge sentences him to death!
The following picture shows Hauptmann - together with his lawyer - at the moment of the death sentence...:
Hauptmann had fought as a German machine gunner on the western front in World War I, had been wounded several times (once by poison gas!), was traumatized and after the end of the war, like many of his contemporaries, had no solid ground under his feet!
He was probably something like a "broken existence", eking out a petty criminal and was imprisoned several times in the notorious Bautzen prison.
He shortened his last prison stay on his own initiative, escaped - and left his prisoner's clothes with a note saying "Best regards to the police".
He then tried twice unsuccessfully to immigrate to the United States, but was not allowed into the country due to his past.
A third attempt at immigration was successful - Hauptmann disguised himself as a woman and used a fake passport!
In the spring of 1924 he met Anna Schöffler, also a German immigrant, in the USA. She had legally entered the United States on January 1, 1924. In October 1925 they married...
...which made the hitherto illegal captain a legal US citizen.
The two had an apartment in the Bronx...:
Hauptmann worked as a carpenter, his wife in a bakery.
On March 1, 1932, the 20-month-old son of aviation pioneers Anne and Charles Lindbergh, Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, was kidnapped. ...
The kidnapper or the kidnappers leaned a ladder against the wall of the house, entered the children's room through an open window on the first floor and took the sleeping baby out of its cot...:
Then the kidnapper or kidnappers disappeared without a trace - and took the ladder with them again!
(I add: even common sense dictates that it's almost impossible to disappear, possibly running, with a sleeping child under your arm and a ladder over your shoulder, without the baby waking up and starting to cry! All of that seems to me to speak for several perpetrators!)
Negotiations were held with several alleged kidnappers. An "intermediary" named John Condon...
...handed the alleged kidnapper $50,000 (about $879,000 adjusted for inflation).
Among the ransom notes were also very rare so-called gold certificate notes, like this one, which one does not usually go shopping with or carry around with them...:
However, the baby was not released, rather his body was found on May 12, 1932...:
In September 1934, a $10 gold certificate note was discovered that came from the ransom. A gas station owner wrote Hauptmann's license plate number on the rare banknote.
When a bank employee found that the banknote was registered, he alerted the police. As a result, Hauptmann was arrested...:
A search of his home uncovered an additional $14,600 in gold certificate notes that counted toward the ransom.
In addition, a wooden ladder was found at Hauptmann's, which was proven to have been used during the kidnapping and which had been made at Hauptmann's workplace in the carpentry shop...:
So far the facts!
**continued next post**
The Case Of Richard Bruno Hauptmann...
On February 13, 1935, a jury at Flemington, New Jersey, found German immigrant Richard Bruno Hauptmann...
...from Kamenz in Saxony guilty of kidnapping and murdering the 20-month-old baby Charles of the world-famous Atlantic aviator Charles Lindbergh.
Immediately afterwards the judge sentences him to death!
The following picture shows Hauptmann - together with his lawyer - at the moment of the death sentence...:
Hauptmann had fought as a German machine gunner on the western front in World War I, had been wounded several times (once by poison gas!), was traumatized and after the end of the war, like many of his contemporaries, had no solid ground under his feet!
He was probably something like a "broken existence", eking out a petty criminal and was imprisoned several times in the notorious Bautzen prison.
He shortened his last prison stay on his own initiative, escaped - and left his prisoner's clothes with a note saying "Best regards to the police".
He then tried twice unsuccessfully to immigrate to the United States, but was not allowed into the country due to his past.
A third attempt at immigration was successful - Hauptmann disguised himself as a woman and used a fake passport!
In the spring of 1924 he met Anna Schöffler, also a German immigrant, in the USA. She had legally entered the United States on January 1, 1924. In October 1925 they married...
...which made the hitherto illegal captain a legal US citizen.
The two had an apartment in the Bronx...:
Hauptmann worked as a carpenter, his wife in a bakery.
On March 1, 1932, the 20-month-old son of aviation pioneers Anne and Charles Lindbergh, Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, was kidnapped. ...
The kidnapper or the kidnappers leaned a ladder against the wall of the house, entered the children's room through an open window on the first floor and took the sleeping baby out of its cot...:
Then the kidnapper or kidnappers disappeared without a trace - and took the ladder with them again!
(I add: even common sense dictates that it's almost impossible to disappear, possibly running, with a sleeping child under your arm and a ladder over your shoulder, without the baby waking up and starting to cry! All of that seems to me to speak for several perpetrators!)
Negotiations were held with several alleged kidnappers. An "intermediary" named John Condon...
...handed the alleged kidnapper $50,000 (about $879,000 adjusted for inflation).
Among the ransom notes were also very rare so-called gold certificate notes, like this one, which one does not usually go shopping with or carry around with them...:
However, the baby was not released, rather his body was found on May 12, 1932...:
In September 1934, a $10 gold certificate note was discovered that came from the ransom. A gas station owner wrote Hauptmann's license plate number on the rare banknote.
When a bank employee found that the banknote was registered, he alerted the police. As a result, Hauptmann was arrested...:
A search of his home uncovered an additional $14,600 in gold certificate notes that counted toward the ransom.
In addition, a wooden ladder was found at Hauptmann's, which was proven to have been used during the kidnapping and which had been made at Hauptmann's workplace in the carpentry shop...:
So far the facts!
**continued next post**
