Post Mortem | Lindbergh

Summary

48 Hours – Post Mortem | Lindbergh

Host: Jim Axelrod (CBS News)
Guest: Joe Nocera (Senior Editor & Writer, The Free Press)
Date: June 2, 2026
Main Focus:
A deep-dive post mortem into the Charles Lindbergh Jr. kidnapping—one of America’s most infamous true crime stories—exploring unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories, botched investigations, and its enduring hold on the public imagination, as discussed with journalist Joe Nocera, creator of "The Lindbergh Conspiracies" podcast series.

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Episode Overview

In this "Post Mortem" episode of 48 Hours, Jim Axelrod hosts Joe Nocera to dissect the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping, the investigation and trial that followed, and the lasting cultural fascination with the case. The conversation journeys through the facts, controversies, and conspiracy theories—highlighting why this nearly century-old crime continues to vex and intrigue.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why the Lindbergh Case Still Haunts America

• Enduring Mystery: Nearly a century later, many view it as an unsolved case.
• "The Original True Crime Story": The kidnapping was the first massive media event, creating the blueprint for American true crime fascination. (04:31)
• Snapshot of a Bygone Era: Lindbergh’s godlike reputation reflects a different, more "innocent" America. (04:31)

2. Charles Lindbergh: Hero and Flawed Figure

• Public Adoration: First man to fly solo across the Atlantic made him a national hero. (05:22–05:26)
• Flaws Exposed: Sympathy for Lindbergh complicated by his racist eugenics beliefs, anti-Semitism, and isolationist politics. (05:40–06:14)
  • Quote: “[Lindbergh] was a believer in eugenics, as many upper class white people were at the time.” — Joe Nocera (05:40)

3. Timeline of the Crime (March 1, 1932)

• Unusual Circumstances: Lindberghs were usually only at their Hopewell, NJ retreat on weekends; were there midweek because their baby had a cold. (06:21)
• Discovery: Baby found missing at 10:00pm by nursemaid Betty Gow; initial assumption was a prank by Charles (who had previously hidden the baby for fun). (07:17)
  • Quote: “He had once before hid the baby for 20 minutes from Ann and Betty as a prank. He did weird things.” — Joe Nocera (06:38–07:09)
• Key Oddities: No fingerprints in the room, ransom note appeared only when Lindbergh entered, ladder left outside. (08:36)
• Evidence Mishandling: Footprints were never preserved as reporters trampled the scene. (09:29)
  • “By the time the state police showed up, the grounds had been trampled to death by journalists.” — Joe Nocera (09:44)

4. The Ransom and the "Jafsie" Intermediary

• Bizarre Decisions: Lindbergh engaged mobsters; ransom communications were compromised. (11:12–12:04)
• Dr. John Condon (“Jafsie”): Self-appointed intermediary, met kidnappers/extortionists in cemeteries. (12:13–14:25)
  • Memorable Experiment: Nocera reenacted Lindbergh’s claim of hearing the kidnapper's "German accent" from a car, finding it implausible. (14:54)
    • “I couldn’t hear a thing even, even with the no traffic.” — Joe Nocera (15:09)

5. The Discovery of the Body

• Body Found: Six weeks later, discovered by chance about 4 miles from Lindbergh home; died from blunt force trauma. (15:44–16:19)

6. Bruno Richard Hauptmann: The Trial & Conviction

• Identification: German immigrant, carpenter, tied to ransom money via gold certificates used at a gas station. (19:56–20:48)
• Implausible Lone-Wolf Theory: Authorities assumed a group was involved until Hauptmann’s arrest—then focused solely on him despite logistics challenges. (21:48–22:32)
• The “Trial of the Century”: Frenzied media presence (50,000 people descended on a town of 3,000). (23:35, 23:50)
  • “Inside the courtroom... there is no way Bruno Richard Hauptmann had a fair trial.” — Jim Axelrod (24:09)
• Unfair Prosecution: Forced handwriting “matches,” shoddy defense, dubious ladder evidence, and prosecution misconduct in closing arguments. (24:21–27:49)
  • “He [the defense lawyer] became a lawyer because when he read about the Lindbergh trial… he said, you know, I could have done better than this.” — Joe Nocera (25:06)
  • “That attic had been looked at… a dozen times… by investigators after Hauptmann was arrested... and [yet] the home… was taken over by a police lieutenant who moved in.” — Joe Nocera (26:11–26:44)
• Verdict and Execution: Hauptmann found guilty and executed in 1936. (28:33–28:42)

7. The Aftermath for the Lindbergh Family

• Media Impact: The Lindberghs fled to England to escape media scrutiny.
  • Archival Audio (29:20): “He really couldn’t bear invasions on his privacy... we were terribly pursued. And at the time of the baby’s kidnapping, the newsmen… broke into the morgue and took pictures of the baby, and he never forgave them.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh to Morley Safer
• Later Controversies: Lindbergh’s post-tragedy reputation suffered due to his WWII politics and later, revelations he fathered seven children with three women in Germany. (30:26–31:47)
  • “He had adopted a new name... Karoo Kent. Like Clark Kent? Like the German version of Clark Kent.” — Jim Axelrod & Joe Nocera (31:47–31:59)

8. Rise of Conspiracy Theories

• Mistrust Grows: From the 1970s on, the case became fertile ground for alternative theories, paralleling rising distrust in U.S. institutions. (32:39–33:40)
  • “As America itself has become more conspiratorial, so has the belief in the Lindbergh theories grown and grown and grown.” — Joe Nocera (33:32)
• Popular Theories:
  • That Lindbergh's son had health issues and Lindbergh’s eugenic beliefs played a role.
  • An inside job involving someone from the Lindbergh household.
  • The involvement of more than one perpetrator.
  • Quote: “What resonates to me is the idea that more than one person did it... somebody inside the Lindbergh household was involved.” — Joe Nocera (34:40–35:04)

9. Modern Investigations & DNA Hopes

• Evidence Revisited: Ongoing lawsuits seek DNA testing on the ransom notes' stamps and envelopes—police resist, citing preservation issues. (35:09–35:52)
  • “Can you imagine if there was DNA testing and it ruled out Richard Hauptmann.” — Jim Axelrod (35:39–35:44)

10. Broader Lessons & Legacy

• Reflection: The Lindbergh case illuminates lasting dilemmas in U.S. justice, media influence, and societal appetites for conspiracy.
  • “It teaches you so much about the judicial system, it teaches you so much about how we’re mired in conspiracies. It teaches you what the country was like back then versus what it’s like today. And it’s a damn good story, you know.” — Joe Nocera (36:15–36:39)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Lindbergh’s Eccentricity:
  “He had once before hid the baby for 20 minutes from Ann and Betty as a prank. He did weird things.” — Joe Nocera (07:09)

• On Investigative Oddities:
  _“They could find no fingerprints anywhere in the room… No fingerprints.”— Joe Nocera (08:36)

• On the Trial:
  “By today’s standards, it was an absolute travesty. And the fact of the matter is, even by the standards of the 1930s, it was an unfair trial.” — Joe Nocera (24:09)

• On Later Revelations:
  “He [Lindbergh] fathered seven children with three women. Two sisters and his secretary... It’s for real.” — Joe Nocera (31:13–31:47)

• Final Reflection:
  “It’s a damn good story, you know.” — Joe Nocera (36:39)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:52–04:31: Introduction to the Lindbergh case’s cultural impact
• 06:21–08:36: Discovery of the kidnapping and initial oddities
• 09:44–11:12: Mishandling of evidence and investigative errors
• 12:13–15:18: Role of Dr. "Jafsie" and the ransom plot
• 15:44–16:19: Discovery and autopsy of the body
• 19:56–20:48: Identification and arrest of Hauptmann
• 22:13–22:32: Skepticism about Hauptmann acting alone
• 23:50–24:09: Description of the trial’s media circus
• 24:56–27:49: Dissection of trial errors and key evidence
• 29:20: Archival audio from Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• 30:26–31:47: Later controversies about Lindbergh’s life and secret children
• 32:39–33:40: Emergence of conspiracy theories
• 35:09–35:52: Current legal fight over DNA testing
• 36:15–36:39: Nocera’s final thoughts on the case’s modern relevance

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Summary Takeaway

Through meticulous storytelling, Jim Axelrod and Joe Nocera reveal the Lindbergh case as a prism for American anxieties about justice, celebrity, and truth. It’s a sprawling, stranger-than-fiction whodunnit—still unresolved, and perhaps unresolvable, nearly a hundred years later. The podcast underscores the case’s place not just in history, but in today’s cultural and conspiratorial mindset.

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For more:
Check out Joe Nocera's "The Lindbergh Conspiracies" for an even deeper dive into the case.

Transcript

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[Jim Axelrod]

In March 1932, the whole world was captivated and terrified by the kidnapping of 20 month old Charles Lindbergh Jr. The baby son of the famed aviator.

[Joe Nacera]

And there's a chance that somebody might notice one of the posters who'd recognize little Charles Lindbergh and so furnish a valuable clue.

[Jim Axelrod]

He was mysteriously taken from his nursery on the second floor of the family's home in New Jersey while his parents were downstairs.

[Joe Nacera]

Meanwhile, the child is still gone and the parents are suffering tortures that only fathers and mothers can suffer.

[Jim Axelrod]

Little Lindy's disappearance, along with the discovery of his body, the arrest and prosecution of Bruno Houtman was the original true crime story of the modern media age, yielding countless theories about what really happened to the baby of the most famous man in America. I'm CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod and welcome to a special episode of the 48 Hours podcast. I'm joined today by Free Press senior editor and writer Joe Nacera, who's out with a new six part podcast series about the kidnapping called the Lindbergh Conspiracies. And we welcome in Joe Nicera.

[Joe Nacera]

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Jim Axelrod]

Great for you to be here. 94 years since this kidnapping. So much news has developed and unfolded since then. So why this? Why does the Lindbergh kidnapping still claim so much interest?

[Joe Nacera]

Because it's a 94 year old mystery that many people feel has never been solved. I think there's two other aspects to it though. One is it's the original true crime story. I mean, it really is. And we're a culture that's obsessed with true crime now. And secondly, I think it gives a snapshot of a different America, a more innocent country where a man like Charles Lindbergh could be almost godlike in the admiration Americans had for him, which doesn't really exist anymore. Lindbergh was the first person to prove that flight could be more than daredevils or war machines.

[Jim Axelrod]

Lucky Lindy, the first man to fly alone across the Atlantic.

[Joe Nacera]

It was an American hero kind of thing. It was like only an American could have done this.

[Jim Axelrod]

But in terms of Lindbergh as this enormous world hero, he's also a deeply flawed man.

[Joe Nacera]

He was a believer in eugenics, as many upper class white people were at the time.

[Jim Axelrod]

Which is the sort of selective breeding to promote traits.

[Joe Nacera]

Yes. And he made trips to Germany before The war. And they gave him some medal at one point and he became part of the America first movement, which was an effort to persuade the country not to go to war. He was also. He also was shown to be, during this period of his life, anti Semitic.

[Jim Axelrod]

All right, so take us to March 1, 1932, by Hopewell, New Jersey. What happens?

[Joe Nacera]

Well, it was a Tuesday night. The Lindberghs were never at Hopewell, which was really their weekend retreat on a Tuesday night.

[Jim Axelrod]

Charles Lindbergh was married to Anne Mara Lindbergh, who was an heiress and that's right, very wealthy. They spent a lot of their time in Englewood.

[Joe Nacera]

Dwight Morrow, her father, who was a financier and a diplomat, lived in Englewood. They would spend the week in Englewood and then they would go hope well for the weekend. But the baby had a cold and Ann was feeling pretty run down, too. So nurse maid Betty Gow, she puts the baby to bed. At 10 o', clock, Betty Gough goes upstairs, opens the door, looks into the baby's bedroom. He's gone. Ann would later write, at first I thought maybe Charles was playing a prank. Believe it or not. Believe it or not, he had once before hid the baby for 20 minutes from Ann and Betty as a prank. He did weird things.

[Jim Axelrod]

It was bizarre. Yeah, but that's the first thought. Maybe he's playing a prank.

[Joe Nacera]

Right? Maybe he's playing a prank. So they go downstairs, Betty and Ann, and they say, charles, the baby's missing. And he runs up the stairs, and even before he gets in the room, he says, they've kidnapped our baby. Now here's another little quirky thing. When Ann and Betty were in the room, they did not see an envelope. When Charles gets in the room. Now maybe he was there and they just didn't notice it because then they were panicked. Charles gets in the room and he sees an envelope which is obviously the ransom note. So he takes the ransom note and he says, don't open it. We're going to let the police do that. He takes a gun, takes a rifle. He runs outside, can't find anything. He sees a ladder that has been dragged 60 or 75ft away and then they call the police.

[Jim Axelrod]

So, quick question about the ransom note, because I know there was some reporting. Not only didn't they see the ransom note, but then they found it on the window sill.

[Joe Nacera]

Yes, that's right.

[Jim Axelrod]

Windows open, ransom notes on the sill.

[Joe Nacera]

Windy night.

[Jim Axelrod]

Windy night, yeah.

[Joe Nacera]

I mean, so you just stumbled on. You've just hit upon the first of many, many, many Oddities, strange things that happen that don't add up. And this is part of the reason the case. So fixate people, because once you start to dig in, it's like, oh, my God, that happened. Oh, my God, that happened. Oh, my God, that happened. I'll tell you the next one. They could find no fingerprints anywhere in the room. Anywhere on the walls, on the drawers, on the bed. No fingerprints.

[Jim Axelrod]

So what kind of evidence was there? The ransom note, obviously.

[Joe Nacera]

Okay, so they had the ransom. There was the ransom note. There were footprints at the base of the. Of the window.

[Jim Axelrod]

Okay, that's pretty helpful.

[Joe Nacera]

It would be if somebody took a mold. But nobody did because the two cops that came were local cops. By the time the state police showed up, the grounds had been trampled to death by journalists. Somebody had leaked the fact that the Ken Lindbergh baby had been kidnapped, and journalists just swarmed all over the place.

[Jim Axelrod]

Now, the New Jersey State Police, at that point, run by, and this is a sort of famous last name in American history, Schwarzkopf.

[Joe Nacera]

Famous first name, too. Norman Schwarzkopf, father of Storm and Norman. It turns out he worships the ground Charles Lindbergh walks on. So not only does he not investigate the possibility that the parents could be involved, he lets Lindbergh manage the investigation of his own child.

[Jim Axelrod]

So you have one of the people involved as. As the parent of this victim dictating to all the investigators what they can and can't do. You mentioned the note, the ransom note, whether. Whether it's legit or not. What does it say

[Joe Nacera]

in very broken English? It says, give us $50,000 and you'll get your baby back.

[Jim Axelrod]

Broken English.

[Joe Nacera]

Well, it was clearly written by somebody who did not speak, for whom English was not their first language. So it had misspellings, and not just vocabulary problems, but grammar problems. But then Lindbergh then went on to make a series of idiotic decisions.

[Jim Axelrod]

Well, take me through them, though, in terms of the decisions he made that, sure, you might be critical of.

[Joe Nacera]

Well, the first decision he made was to give the ransom note, or a version of it, you know, to a couple of mobsters. Because the mob thought.

[Jim Axelrod]

Because we needed another element to make it even weirder.

[Joe Nacera]

Yeah. So because the mob was known to kidnap people once in a while, although, as one of our experts on the podcast says, you know, this was such. He said if the mob had done it, it would be a professional kidnapping. This was clearly not a professional kidnapping. But once the ransom note was out there, anybody could copy it. It also had a little red mark and then future ransom notes also had the little red mark.

[Jim Axelrod]

So, well then the whole thing's compromised at that point.

[Joe Nacera]

Right. So they could have been anybody. Extortionists, mobsters.

[Jim Axelrod]

Let me ask you about Dr. John Conti.

[Joe Nacera]

Jaffse.

[Jim Axelrod]

Jaffe, J.C. yeah. How does he get involved?

[Joe Nacera]

So who is he? He writes a letter to his local paper, the Bronx Home News, and he basically says he's a very pompous, full of himself, 70 plus year guy. And he basically says, I'm going to add a thousand dollars to the ransom money that I will contribute for myself. And the kidnappers put a note in the Bronx Home News saying, basically, huh, get in touch with us. But what happens is because the kidnappers give Jaffse a letter to give to Lindbergh, Lindbergh reads the letter and says, okay, you obviously have some contact with these guys or this guy, so you're going to be my intermediary.

[Jim Axelrod]

So Lindbergh is all in with Jaffsey.

[Joe Nacera]

So Lindbergh becomes all in with Jaffsey. That's exactly what happens.

[Jim Axelrod]

And they end up, Jaffsy at least ends up having meetings with these guys.

[Joe Nacera]

Well, with somebody. He has two meetings in two different cemeteries.

[Jim Axelrod]

Jaffs is conducting all of his business in cemeteries.

[Joe Nacera]

Yes, that's right. In the first meeting, supposedly. And by the way, I should just say for the record, Jaffsy is a major bullshitter. But he's the only person that you have who's on record. So you have to at some point assume he's not completely making it up. So he has his first meeting with the kidnapper. They have a long discussion. Jaffse says, you got to prove to me that you have the baby. You have to send me the, the baby's nightgown that he had the night he was kidnapped. Send the nightgown to the Lindbergh's. So that happens. So then Jaffsy meets again at a second cemetery in the, in the Bronx. And this time Lindbergh goes with him. But Lindbergh stays in a car and Jassy has the ransom money in a box.

[Jim Axelrod]

How much?

[Joe Nacera]

50,000. As he's going to meet the kidnapper, the kidnapper or extortioner, whoever he was, the guy says, hey, Doctor. And even though Lindbergh is sort of around the corner in a car, Lindbergh claims to have heard that and also claims that it was in a German accent. He takes the 50,000, he disappears.

[Jim Axelrod]

Now wait a minute. This claim was intriguing to you?

[Joe Nacera]

Well, we tried to replicate it. I sat in A car in the same position that Lindbergh was in. And Papi, my producer, was at the cemetery and we couldn't get in, so you have to stand outside. So she was actually closer than Jaffsy would have been. And so she yells out, hey doctor. And I couldn't hear a thing even, even with the no traffic.

[Jim Axelrod]

So it essentially undercuts this part of Lindbergh's story. He heard somebody in a germ with a German accent say hey doctor, from the cemetery.

[Joe Nacera]

Right.

[Jim Axelrod]

So all of this is unfolding. I'm sure folks are looking for little Lindy's either the baby alive or sadly, a body. And eventually a body is.

[Joe Nacera]

A body is found six weeks later where in the woods about four miles from the house in Hopewell. And the only reason it was found is because a. A truck driver had to take a leak and walked into the woods and saw this partially decomposed body. And the coroner basically concluded that he had died from blunt force trauma.

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[Jim Axelrod]

Let's talk about Bruno Richard.

[Joe Nacera]

Help.

[Jim Axelrod]

Right, so one of the great three named notorious people in American history. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald. Bruno Richard Houghton.

[Joe Nacera]

Yeah. Who is he? He is a itinerant carpenter, an immigrant who's been in the US for about a decade. The first time he came illegally, he got caught and sent back. The second time he managed to sneak through.

[Jim Axelrod]

But this is no boy Scout. This is someone who has a record.

[Joe Nacera]

He was jailed in Germany. He didn't have a record in the U.S. he seemed to be making an honest living. His wife worked at a bakery. She made an honest living. They had a child. They rented a house in the Bronx. Needless to say. Yeah, rented a house in the Bronx.

[Jim Axelrod]

Back to the Bronx.

[Joe Nacera]

Yeah. That was.

[Jim Axelrod]

Why did he very quickly become the sole suspect?

[Joe Nacera]

Well, because he had ransom money on him. There was a certain kind of money called gold certificates that was about to go out of circulation. The Treasury Department knew this, and so they insisted that a whole bunch of the ransom money be made in gold certificates, knowing that if somebody tried to pass it off, it would be a tell. It would be a tell. So two years later, Houtman goes to a gas station, gives the gas station attendant a bill in a gold certificate, and the attendant writes down the plate number on the gold certificate that is traced, that is traced to Houtman. They go into his house and they do a search and they find $14,000 worth of the $50,000 ransom.

[Jim Axelrod]

So that's a smoking gun.

[Joe Nacera]

Well, it isn't. It isn't. It isn't. Depends on who you ask. Hoffman had a friend and business partner named Isidore Fish. He says Isador Fish gave him this box and said, please store this for me. I'm going to go to Germany right now. So he takes it home, he puts it up, is it or fish does go to Germany, and then is it our fish dies of tuberculosis? At which point Houtman says, okay, he's dead. Now I'm gonna take a look what's in here. Oh, wow, there's money in here. I'm gonna take it.

[Jim Axelrod]

Were there any other suspects who were ever seriously considered as having taken part in the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr. No.

[Joe Nacera]

Here's the thing. Up until the moment they caught Houtman, they had always assumed it was more than one person. Because for the. Logically.

[Jim Axelrod]

Because how are you gonna pull all

[Joe Nacera]

of that off if you. Right.

[Jim Axelrod]

You don't have more than one person.

[Joe Nacera]

Right. But once they got Houtman, it was like, we're done.

[Jim Axelrod]

You know, it's. It's interesting to hear you say this, Joe, about the idea, because. Because what the prosecution's case essentially relied on was that Bruno Richard Houtman, acting alone, drove from the Bronx on a random night with no idea, or he really should have had no capacity to have any confidence about it, that the baby was going to be there, the window was going to be open.

[Joe Nacera]

And how did he know which window led to the baby's room? How did he know that was the only window in the house that could. That could not be locked shut? So could. Could Houtman have been involved as part of a gang or something? Absolutely. Absolutely. But could he have done it by himself? I just find that implausible.

[Jim Axelrod]

And yet, Bruno Richard Houtman is tried, and it is the trial of the century.

[Joe Nacera]

Right. So don't forget, this was called the crime of the century. And once the trial happened, it was the trial of the century. Now, I want to ask you something. Yeah. So rumor has it that you had your. Your relatives, your ancestors lived.

[Jim Axelrod]

So growing up, my grandfather and grandmother lived in Flemington, New Jersey, and for years in the 1930s, they had Axelrod's Pharmacy on Main street across from the Hunterton County Courthouse. My grandfather had a lunch counter, and I can remember as a kid, him telling me stories of Damon Runyon coming in. Walter Winchell would set up shop in my grandfather's pharmacy, Axelrod's Pharmacy on Main Street. Commandeer the phone. And Winchell was really establishing himself for the first time as this sort of became this monster media figure.

[Joe Nacera]

Right.

[Jim Axelrod]

But he put himself on the map with his reporting from the Houtman trial.

[Joe Nacera]

Right. Someone else from Flemington who was a source for us, he said, you know, it's a town of 3,000 people. And the first week of the trial there were 50,000 people there. He said the cars were backed up for, like, 10 miles.

[Jim Axelrod]

So inside the courtroom, what was going on that. That shaped and influenced the proceedings? Because if I understand you correctly, there is no way Bruno Richard Houtman had a fair trial.

[Joe Nacera]

That is correct. By today's standards, it was an absolute travesty. And the fact of the matter is, even by the standards of the 1930s, it was an unfair trial.

[Jim Axelrod]

How so?

[Joe Nacera]

Well, to start with, let's just take. Let's just take something simple like handwriting. So, obviously, the prosecution is going to have handwriting experts who are going to say that the handwriting is the same as Houtman's. But Houtman says when police got him in the room, they said, okay. They didn't just say, write some stuff. They said, look at this note. They showed him the ransom note. We want you to write this exactly the same way that this ransom note is exactly the same way. Same spelling, same curvatures.

[Jim Axelrod]

Try to copy it.

[Joe Nacera]

Try to copy it. Then he gets in the trial and they say, well, look, it's the same. It's the same.

[Jim Axelrod]

Didn't he have a lawyer?

[Joe Nacera]

Oh, he had a terrible lawyer. We had a lawyer on our show who said he became a lawyer because when he read about the Lindbergh trial and he was, like, 14 years old, he said, you know, I could have done better than this. But having said that, it wasn't just the defense, it was also the prosecution. The handwriting analysis is just one example.

[Jim Axelrod]

I understand there was something critically important about the latter itself.

[Joe Nacera]

Yes, well, that is in dispute to this day. What was it? Well, the prosecution said as definitive proof that Houtman did it, that a piece of wood from his attic had been cut out and made part of the ladder. It is a handmade ladder. It was not a ladder. You go into Home Depot and buy.

[Jim Axelrod]

You've seen the ladder.

[Joe Nacera]

Oh, yeah, it's at the New Jersey State Police Museum. Yeah. Anybody can see it. You can see it. It's a really interesting ladder. I know this will sound weird. It's an unusual ladder, but this became

[Jim Axelrod]

a big, important piece of evidence for the jury to.

[Joe Nacera]

Right. And this is. This is some of the stuff that I just find so unbelievable. That attic had been looked at, you know, dozens, a dozen times by. By investigators after. After Houtman was arrested, the home that the Houtmans were living in was taken over by a police lieutenant who moved in.

[Jim Axelrod]

He was living in the house?

[Joe Nacera]

In the house? Yes. And he's the one who comes to them and says, hey, look at this hole in the attic. So let me give you the denouement, as they say. Please, David Willance, the prosecutor, gets up and he's going through his closing statement and he says, and then Howman took an instrument and he hit the baby over the head and crushed his skull. Now, there had not been one word of testimony to this effect. The testimony had always been, well, the baby must have fallen and cracked his head on the ground to bring up a new allegation in a closing argument that is against every rule in the book. Yet neither the defense attorney nor the judge said, hang on here, we can't allow this.

[Jim Axelrod]

Did Helpman take the stand himself?

[Joe Nacera]

He did.

[Jim Axelrod]

Did he help himself?

[Joe Nacera]

Yeah. Not really. He kind of got chewed up. They caught him in a lie about the gold certificates. His lack of language skills, you know, hurt him badly. His lawyer hurt him badly. His lawyer was being hurt. Paid for by Hearst, the Hearst newspaper chain. I mean, which had I much. Which had a vested interest in wanting a salacious trial, which they certainly got.

[Jim Axelrod]

Did he. Wow. I didn't. I had never heard that before. Did. Did the defense lawyer write for Hearst or.

[Joe Nacera]

No, they were paying Anna. Anna Houtman for her, quote, unquote, exclusive stories.

[Jim Axelrod]

So in the least surprising verdict imaginable, Bruno Richard Heltman is found guilty.

[Joe Nacera]

That's right.

[Jim Axelrod]

And this is 35.

[Joe Nacera]

Correct.

[Jim Axelrod]

He is executed in 1936. The Lindberghs, as a couple, does this whole thing just engenders some sympathy for them, I would imagine.

[Joe Nacera]

Yeah, for sure.

[Jim Axelrod]

But they take off.

[Joe Nacera]

Well, yeah, they take off for England for a while because, you know, they want to get away from the press, basically. They'd like to be a little more anonymous. It's. I mean, Charles Lindbergh hated the press. He'd been dealing with it since his. Since he flew to Paris.

[Jim Axelrod]

In fact, we have a. A clip from Ann Lindbergh talking to Morley Safer in a 60 Minutes interview.

[Commercial Narrator]

He really couldn't bear invasions on his privacy. Now, there. I think there was something irrational. He had an irrational feeling about the news, about newsmen. He felt they intruded on him. I don't think he was quite rational. He had reasons not to be. I mean, we were terribly pursued. And at the time of the baby's kidnapping, the newsmen, some of them behaved absolutely terribly, broke into the morgue and took pictures of the baby, and he never forgave them.

[Jim Axelrod]

You hear Ann Lindbergh describe how much Charles Lindbergh hated the media. Where does that leave you?

[Joe Nacera]

I have some sympathy for him, to be honest. I mean, you know, so it's one thing to be, you know, chased by the media because you did something amazing, you know, and. And. But there's another thing to be chased by the media because your kid was kidnapped and killed.

[Jim Axelrod]

But it's only after this that he becomes a less sympathetic figure.

[Joe Nacera]

Very, very true. Very true. As Hitler begins invading Poland and other countries in Europe, and he is the leading spokesman for the America first movement.

[Jim Axelrod]

Did it cost Lindbergh in terms of popularity?

[Joe Nacera]

It sure did.

[Jim Axelrod]

What a complicated math.

[Joe Nacera]

Totally.

[Jim Axelrod]

The complications don't end there either.

[Joe Nacera]

Yes, well, that's true. He dies at the age of 74 in Hawaii. Very tiny funeral, 15 people, something like that. And it comes out years later, many years later, that he has fathered seven children in Germany with three different women,

[Jim Axelrod]

none of whom are his wife.

[Joe Nacera]

None of whom are his wife. Two sisters, first of all, he has five other children. He had five other children with Anne, but then he's always spent a lot of time in Germany. And so he fathered seven children with three women. Two. Two sisters. And his secretary. And basically a German magazine at some point in the late 90s, early 2000s, breaks the story. They do DNA testing and they're his. They're real. It's real. It's for real.

[Jim Axelrod]

He had adopted a new name, a double.

[Joe Nacera]

Yes.

[Jim Axelrod]

Karoo Kent.

[Joe Nacera]

Karoo Kent. Like Clark Kent? Like the German version of Clark Kent.

[Jim Axelrod]

I mean, the story just keeps. If you're into bizarre, this just keeps this story that keeps giving and giving and giving. Now, let me ask you this. It may not have been part of American culture in the 1930s to think about conspiracy theories, but certainly after the Kennedy assassination and certainly part of our modern life is, you know, you can't have two people looking at the sky and agreeing it's blue. There's always some sort of other angle to be considered. Were there any conspiracy theories about the Lindbergh kidnapping? Or did any develop later, as you

[Joe Nacera]

said, Kennedy assassination, rfk, Martin Luther King, Warren Commission, CIA secrets exposed, on and on and on. And Americans start to lose faith in institutions and start to lose faith in government. Around the late 70s, early 80s, books start to be written for the first time that look at the trial and make conjectures about what really happened. And as America itself has become more conspiratorial, so has the belief in the Lindbergh theory's grown and grown and grown to the point that one of the people in our podcast said, I think more people today believe Lindbergh has something to do with it than think Hopman had something to do with it.

[Jim Axelrod]

What would the rationale be for that?

[Joe Nacera]

So there's a lot of theories that the child had rickets and had various other physical problems.

[Jim Axelrod]

Yeah, I had read some delayed speech. There were issues never proven correct. But this was sort of talked about

[Joe Nacera]

later that Lindbergh, as a eugenicist, could not abide. Let me add one other thing to that. Ann Lindbergh wrote a. She published her diaries and letters from that era, and in the diaries and letters about her son when he was alive, and he's babbling and talking and playing with his dad and playing with his mom and playing with Betty Gao. And you just read that and it just. You're just like, no, there's nothing wrong with this kid. I found it very hard to believe.

[Jim Axelrod]

Is there a conspiracy theory that you encountered in your research that resonated that perhaps untrue?

[Joe Nacera]

What resonates to me is the idea that more than one person did it, Whether Houtman was involved or somebody else. There's one guy out there that has a name of a different person that he believes did it. We don't need to get into that. It's too complicated. What I believe is that somebody inside the Lindbergh household was involved.

[Jim Axelrod]

Was there any part of this investigation that involved DNA?

[Joe Nacera]

They didn't have DNA back then. DNA didn't come till the late 80s. But there's a lawyer who is suing the New Jersey State Police Museum to have DNA tested on the ransom notes because the stamps probably still have DNA. And the envelopes, the way you lick the envelopes probably still has DNA. New Jersey is resisting this like crazy. But an appeal, why? They say it'll damage the evidence. I don't really think that's the reason, to be honest.

[Jim Axelrod]

Can you imagine if there was DNA testing and it ruled out.

[Joe Nacera]

Right.

[Jim Axelrod]

Richard Haltman.

[Joe Nacera]

Right. The point is that there is an appeal ongoing right now, and we'll see what happens.

[Jim Axelrod]

All right, so sum up. For everyone listening watching your series, your investigation into the Lindbergh kidnapping, the takeaway for you that you feel sort of most relevant for the day in which we live, is what

[Joe Nacera]

I connect it more than anything with the America we live in today. That it teaches you so much about the judicial system, it teaches you so much about how we're mired in conspiracies. It teaches you what the country was like back then versus what it's like today. And it's a damn good story. You know, this is what you.

[Jim Axelrod]

And I live for Joe Nacera with a damn good story. Thanks for being here.

[Joe Nacera]

Thanks for having me.

[Jim Axelrod]

The Lindbergh Conspiracies podcast is currently available. Wherever you get your podcasts,

[Commercial Narrator]

They're completely

[Joe Nacera]

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[Jim Axelrod]

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[Joe Nacera]

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[Jim Axelrod]

Gives unprecedented access to Gloriavale, the controversial

[Joe Nacera]

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Wrong things have occurred. They do not define who we are.

[Joe Nacera]

Can't you just accept the fact that I love my life? I need to destroy them. Devotion, obedience or betrayal. Now streaming on Paramount Plus.