EP05 | Suspect Number 1

Summary

The Free Press Investigates: EP05 | Suspect Number 1

Podcast: The Free Press Investigates
Series: The Lindbergh Conspiracies
Host(s): Joe Nocera, Poppy
Date: June 16, 2026
Episode Theme:
This episode dives deep into the evolution of conspiracy theories surrounding the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder, particularly focusing on the “Lindbergh did it” theory. The story traces the aftermath of the official story, persistent doubts, and how shifting American attitudes gave rise to suspicion of not just outsiders but of Charles Lindbergh himself. The episode also examines how developments in media, culture, and trust in institutions have fueled ever-wilder theories, culminating in modern re-investigations and even mock trials.

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Main Topics & Key Discussion Points

1. The Aftermath of Hauptmann’s Execution and the Lindberghs’ Life (03:00 – 09:40)

• Lindberghs’ self-exile:
  After Bruno Hauptmann’s execution in 1936, the Lindbergh family fled to Europe to escape the relentless press.

  “At the end of 1935 and into 1936, he flees to England … we’ve got to get out of this madhouse.” — Thomas Dougherty, 02:59

• Decline of Lindbergh’s heroic standing:
  Lindbergh’s repeated trips to Nazi Germany and his isolationist, America First Committee activities in the early WWII years led to a reputational fall.
• Lindbergh’s controversial speeches:
  Excerpts from Lindbergh’s infamous 1941 Des Moines speech, revealing deep-seated antisemitism and anti-interventionist views.

  “The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.” — Charles Lindbergh, 05:12

2. The Lingering Trauma and Silence (09:47 – 10:44)

• Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s interview:
  Describes Charles as silent, internalizing his grief, and traumatized by the media after the kidnapping.

  “He really couldn’t bear invasions on his way. Privacy. Now, there, I think there was something irrational. He had an irrational feeling about the news, about newsmen. … he never forgave them.” — Anne Lindbergh, 09:47

3. A Cascade of Conspiracy Theories (10:44 – 19:40)

• Outline of major theories:
  • Mafia did it, covered up by J. Edgar Hoover (11:11)
  • “Lindbergh did it” theories grow in prominence (11:55)
  • Prank gone wrong: Lindbergh allegedly played cruel pranks and may have inadvertently caused his son’s death (14:42)
  • Competing familial suspects: Anne’s siblings, employeed staff, and even a “Rosalind Russell” theory involving blackmail and mistaken identity (15:48)
  • Notable oddball theories: Alien abduction, body misidentification, and claimants who insisted they were the grown-up Lindbergh baby.

    “There’s also this whole rabbit hole … that argues that the body found in the woods wasn’t actually Charles Lindbergh Jr. That it was misidentified. Maybe it was a body from a nearby orphanage.” — Poppy, 17:59

4. Governor Harold Hoffman’s Counter-Investigation (20:40 – 24:22)

• Hoffman’s skepticism:
  The governor of New Jersey believed Hauptmann hadn’t acted alone, pushing for further investigation.
• Political fallout:
  Hoffman’s interventions led to scandal—his detective’s kidnappings and coerced confessions, damaging his career and silencing challenges to the official narrative.

5. Conspiracy Culture and the Shift in American Trust (24:46 – 26:54)

• From postwar faith to Watergate cynicism:
  The Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, MLK and RFK killings, and then Watergate — all fueling doubt in official stories, enabling fresh reexamination of the Lindbergh case.

  “We are left to fend for ourselves because we know that the government is never giving us the full story or law enforcement or a business.” — Nick Gillespie, 26:31

6. Trailblazing Books and Revisionist Authors (27:56 – 30:50)

• Key books:
  • Scapegoat (Anthony Scuduto, 1976): Exposed manipulation of trial evidence and unreliable testimony.
  • A Talent to Deceive (William Norris, 1977): Posited orchestration by the Lindbergh family.
  • The Airman and the Carpenter (Ludovic Kennedy, 1985): Dismantled the prosecution’s case, focusing on the lack of fair trial rather than assigning guilt.
• Wrongful death suit:
  Anna Hauptmann's decades-long fight to clear her husband’s name.

7. The Rise of the “Lindbergh Did It” Theory and Eugenics Motive (31:11 – 39:39)

• Medical letter and eugenic context:
  A letter from a Hauptmann cellmate surfaced, claiming Lindbergh orchestrated the kidnapping because his son was “damaged” (e.g., genetic rickets, cranial issues). Collaboration with eugenicist Alexis Carrel is emphasized.

  “My letter says that the baby had weak bones. It was a sickly child that couldn’t hear … And so the basic premise of why Lindbergh, according to the letter, wanted to move the child out of the country was because the baby was sick.” — Jim Davidson, quoting Arthur Jones, 33:06

• Lisa Pearlman’s “Suspect Number One” (book, 2020):
  Argues Lindbergh arranged the kidnap/death for eugenic reasons and medical experimentation.
• Mock trial revelations:
  Dr. Peter Speth, forensic pathologist, testified about surgical removal of organs and odd preservation of parts of the child’s body, suggesting a possible link to experimental research.

  “What he says is the kidneys had been surgically removed before the body entered the advanced stage of decay … and it is really strange to think about the foot and the face being partially, you know, intact.” — Poppy, 38:45

8. Assessing Lindbergh’s Character: Monster or Victim? (40:08 – 41:03)

• Host reflection:
  If the eugenics theory is true, Lindbergh would have to be viewed as a “monster.” The hosts reflect on his legacy—his reputation forever marred by unsavory political ideology and personal duplicity.

  “If any of us had to buy that Charles Lindbergh was capable of conducting a possibly painful, certainly fatal experiment on his own son, you really have to believe he was a monster.” — Poppy, 40:08

9. The Final Revelation: Lindbergh’s Secret Families (41:03 – 42:22)

• 2003 DNA proof of double life:
  Lindbergh fathered seven children with three German women, all kept secret while he remained married to Anne Lindbergh.

  “In total secrecy, in a kind of slightly Aryan coded way.” — Poppy, 41:45 “The secrecy fits in well with Lindbergh’s passion for secrecy and deception.” — Thomas Dougherty, 42:19

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s totally dizzying. And the thing that I keep finding is every theory I read, I suddenly believe it’s the truth. Like, they’re all extremely compelling.” — Poppy, 01:41
• “People don’t usually phrase it like this, but he was an immature human being.” — Joe Nocera, 15:33
• “Americans were now open to the idea that things were not always as they seemed. In fact, more and more people believed that things were often not as they seemed ... and eventually one of those things was a Lindbergh kidnapping.” — Joe Nocera, 26:54
• “With each successive book, each new documentary, each new theory. Americans with even a passing knowledge of the case knew that the official version was no longer the only version.” — Joe Nocera, 31:11
• “That Lindbergh might be responsible for his son’s death is a horrible thought.” — Joe Nocera, 36:13

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:00 – Lindbergh family’s retreat and life after Hauptmann
• 05:12 – Lindbergh’s Des Moines speech (antisemitism, America First)
• 09:47 – Anne Lindbergh interview about media and family silence
• 11:11 – First mention of Mafia/Hoover theory
• 14:42 – Greg Algren explains the “prank gone wrong” theory
• 16:49 – Review of alternative suspect theories
• 20:40 – Governor Hoffman’s investigation
• 26:31 – American loss of trust in institutions, Nick Gillespie comments
• 27:56 – Discussion of revisionist books and their impact
• 31:11 – Jim Baum and the rise of “Lindbergh did it” narrative
• 33:06 – Details from Arthur Jones’s letter (Lindbergh orchestrated the crime)
• 38:45 – Dr. Peter Speth’s forensic findings in the mock trial
• 41:03 – Revelation of Lindbergh’s secret German children

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Tone and Language

The tone is intelligent, investigative, and at times irreverent. The hosts and guests blend historical rigor with curiosity and skepticism. They are unafraid to poke fun at themselves or marvel at the absurdity and darkness of the theories. They maintain sensitivity toward the trauma at the story’s heart, especially when considering the monstrous implications of the most damning theories.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode chronicles not only the evolving suspicions around Charles Lindbergh but also how America’s relationship to authority and truth has changed. As faith in official narratives weakened, every established fact became suspect—leading even the story of “the crime of the century” to be endlessly reinterpreted. The Lindbergh case ultimately becomes a mirror for America’s own anxieties about truth, trust, and the capacity for darkness within its icons.

Transcript

[Joe Nocera]

And we're live on Matchday as Doug reaches for a buffalo wing. He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi, too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it.

[Ann Lindbergh]

It just tastes better.

[Joe Nocera]

Matchdays deserve Pepsi. Before we get started, just to let you know, if you want to binge this whole series today and without ads, you should become a paid subscriber to the Free Press. Our paid subscribers can listen to all six episodes right now with no ads, and will gain all the other benefits of a paid free press subscription. That's access to our journalism podcasts, community features and event perks. Subscribe today and save yourself waiting for the next episode. There are some people who are not so sure that we'll ever know what really happened on March 1, 1932, in Hopewell, New Jersey. Like Jim Davidson, it's never going to

[Jim Davidson]

be solved, just like Kennedy's assassination.

[Joe Nocera]

I'm putting this out there as a new conspiracy theory. Amelia Earhart took the baby. That's our friend Sarah Siskind. She's just kidding.

[Jim Davidson]

The only theory that hasn't been written about that I might write about is alien abduction.

[Joe Nocera]

Jim Davidson's kidding, too, I think. And yet Poppy and I had promised to look at every single theory in turn, assessing their merits so that we could come to our own conclusions. When we first started this project and were just learning about the different conspiracies, I had a conversation with one of my Free Press colleagues, Kira Noonan. She'd been part of our team digging into the case. She said something that has stuck with me.

[Poppy]

It's totally dizzying. And the thing that I keep finding is every theory I read, I suddenly believe it's the truth. Like, they're all extremely compelling. You know, some seem more outlandish than the others, but, you know, when you read the books on them, you're like, maybe they've got a point.

[Joe Nocera]

In this episode, we dig into those theories, one more shocking and stranger than the next, and also totally plausible. I'm Joe Nocera, and for the Free Press, this is the Lindbergh conspiracies. This is episode five, suspect number one. At the end of the last episode. It was 1936. Lindbergh was 34 years old when Hauptman was executed. In the months after, the Lindberghs fled the glare of the media, living for long stretches in England and France, where anonymity felt just barely possible.

[Thomas Dougherty]

My name is Thomas Dougherty. I'm a professor of American Studies at Brandeis University and the author of Little Lindia's how the Media Covered the Crime of the Century. At the end of 1935 and into 1936, he flees to England, which is seen as a country that will not be as dangerous. And I think at that point he realizes, we've got to get out of this madhouse.

[Joe Nocera]

Of course, some feel that even their leaving was suspicious. Life resumed in increments. Their son John had been born later in 1932, followed by Land in 1937, Ann in 1940, Scott in 1942, and Reeve, the youngest, in 1945, while Charles returned obsessively to flight and aviation and turned inward, shaping her experience into journals. Even as their family grew, though, their parents never spoke of Little Lindy. By the 1940s, Lindbergh's stature as a hero who could do no wrong was eroding.

[Thomas Dougherty]

He makes six or seven trips to Nazi Germany and expresses his admiration for the Luftwaffe and for the way the Nazis are getting the country moving again. Lindbergh's defenders say that when he comes back, he is channeling information to American intelligence about the progress of the German war machine. But I think most of us believe that he has an authentic admiration for the way Hitler is getting Germany on the march again. And then when he returns to America in the late 1930s, he becomes the leader, or one of the. Certainly the main spokesman and the most famous spokesman for something called the America First Committee, which is an isolationist organization that wants America to stay out of this dreadful European war. We remember how those Europeans got us into that other great war, and that didn't turn out too well. And so we, innocent, moral America, want to stay away from corrupt, violent Europe and not have anything to do with this next conflagration. And Limberg is quite eloquent and a popular voice for that opinion.

[Charles Lindbergh (speech excerpts)]

It is now time to tell the people of this country the truth about their position. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction. The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.

[Thomas Dougherty]

And in late 1941, he gives a notorious speech in Des Moines which crosses over from isolationism into anti Semitism that Lindbergh states publicly what he had been muttering privately, which is, the Brits and the Jews want us into this war, America into this war for their own purposes.

[Charles Lindbergh (speech excerpts)]

I am saying that the leaders of both The British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war. No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy, both for us and for them. A smear campaign was instituted against individuals who opposed intervention. The terms Fifth Columnist, traitor, Nazi, anti Semitic were thrown ceaselessly at anyone who dared to suggest that it was not to the best interests of the United States to enter the war. We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.

[Thomas Dougherty]

And you can really see the culture shift on Lindbergh once he embraces the America first ideology. Roosevelt insults him and in a peak of anger, literally, Lindbergh resigns his commission in the Army Reserves. And then after Pearl harbor, he wants to get back in and Roosevelt won't let him, so he won't be recommissioned. But interestingly enough, Lindbergh becomes a civilian consultant to an aircraft manufacturer and then goes out to the Pacific and trains pilots. And of course, this is totally against military regs as a civilian flies combat missions and takes down some Japanese Zeros. And the explanation of this is every pilot in the Pacific had probably became pilots because of Lindbergh. And there's nobody in the Army Air Force that's going to tell Charles Lindbergh he can't fly a plane. He later gets a commission and medals for his service in the Pacific theater. And a general in the Pacific theater actually said what Lindbergh taught our pilots saved them 50% of the fuel that they would have used. Because who knows more about fuel conservation than Charles Lindbergh? And the consequence of that, of course, is that instead of taking four islands, you only have to take two. That's sort of the, maybe the kind of the penance that Limberg does during the Second World War. He never recanted his admiration for the Nazis.

[Joe Nocera]

In the post war years, Charles and Anne settled more permanently in the United States. Beneath the surface, fractures widened. Anne had an affair with her personal physician in 1953, and Charles led an increasingly private life abroad. More on that later. Charles spent his final years in Maui, where he died of cancer in 1974. He was laid to rest in a simple, quiet and swift funeral attended by only about 15 close friends and family. Wearing his khakis and resting in a locally made eucalyptus casket, Ann lived on for decades after her husband's death. She spoke to CBS's 60 Minutes on April 20, 1980. Morley Safer was the correspondent. He asked her about the effect of the kidnapping on Lindbergh.

[Ann Lindbergh]

He didn't express himself very much about it, and I think. I think that is a Swedish tradition. And I think he held it all in. Whereas I wrote reams in my diary, I could get above it by writing about it. He really couldn't bear invasions on his way. 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.

[Joe Nocera]

Ann died in 2001. By then, alternate theories about what really happened to little Lindy had already taken root. Do you have a theory of who actually kidnapped the baby? I think it's Mafia connected, covered up by J. Edgar Hoover, and the Mafia had Hoover giving blowjob to his second in command.

[Greg Algren]

And so.

[Joe Nocera]

So you know that story, right? Well, yeah, of course, everybody knows that, but. So that's why Hoover's covering it up and because the Mafia was involved. Oh, because the Mafia knew Hoover was a homosexual.

[Jim Davidson]

Yeah.

[Joe Nocera]

So, yeah, there's the Mafia theory with Hoover and his blowjob. Not one of the dominant theories, to be honest. But then there are all the Lindbergh did it theories. People have come around to believing that Lindbergh had something to do with the death of the child. Previously, it was just focused on Hauptman and Lindbergh was an innocent victim, but it's no longer that way. Jim Davidson even says it's the prevailing theory.

[Patrick Bamarak]

Now.

[Joe Nocera]

Part of the reason we did this podcast, to tell you the truth, we wanted to understand where the Lindbergh did it theories came from, why they became so prominent, and whether there was anything to them.

[Jim Davidson]

I think as the decades have changed, I think probably more people today feel that Lindbergh did it more than Haltmann did it. So. Because probably the last 10 books that came out have one theory, another, how Lindbergh was involved.

[Joe Nocera]

For instance, Greg Algren, who co authored a book in 1993 called Crime of the Century believes that it's possible that it was a prank gone wrong, a prank pulled by Lindbergh himself. It's true that Lindbergh had once hidden his son from his wife and his nanny, Betty Gough. And to an ex cop like Algren Lindbergh, that raised the suspicion that he could have done it again, except this time with disastrous consequences. His core belief, though, is simply this. The kidnapping was not the work of a stranger who climbed into the window at Hopewell and took little Lindy.

[Greg Algren]

We believe, and I believe, that it is unlikely that there was a stranger abduction. There had been other books written before us that had talked about the trial and whether or not Haltman was guilty or not guilty or what his degree of guilt was, but they had all, as far as I can tell, everybody who looked at this before us started with the assumption that there had been a real third party abduction. There had been a stranger abduction. And what we said is, wait a minute. Forget about what the evidence against Houtman, is this even a kidnapping? Is it likely that this was a kidnapping? And I think now we know a lot about domestic violence, domestic situations that we probably weren't as aware of in 1932. And we can all think of cases where a child has been murdered or disappeared.

[Joe Nocera]

Algren told me that nowadays, when a child disappears or dies mysteriously, parents are always suspects and often the prime suspects.

[Greg Algren]

And we know from FBI statistics that if a child under the age of five is murdered, that one of both parents is responsible 85% of the time. So I don't think we were aware of that in 1932. In fact, if you look at attorney Reilly's summation, he says to the jury, in defending Hohman, we all know that in cases like this, everybody should be a suspect except the parents. And I think now we know that probably the parents should be looked at as much as anybody else.

[Joe Nocera]

Here's what Algren told me about the prank theory.

[Greg Algren]

We looked at the various theories. We thought that the most likely, I'm not saying it's over 50%, but more likely than any other particular theory was that there was this prank on Beth. I mean, he did have this habit of playing very cool pranks on people. He did it at a time when he was disagreeing with something that they were doing or they weren't listening to him. They weren't complying with his wishes. You know, he poured water on Ian's silk dress once when she was having an animated discussion with Amelia Earhart about feminism. He didn't like A former roommate of his who used to go out and drink. So he played and come home and drink water from a pitcher. So he replaced the water with kerosene. Danya killed the guy. He had a few months earlier hidden the child. I mean, that's an awful. That's something that would jump out at any law enforcement investigator.

[Joe Nocera]

People don't usually phrase it like this, but he was an immature human being.

[Greg Algren]

He. Yes. I mean, at the time, based on his behaviors. I remember talking to Steven. I said, you know, his behaviors are almost sociopathic.

[Joe Nocera]

Let me list a few other theories that Poppy and I have heard along the way. Ann's older sister Elizabeth, kidnapped little Lindy because she was jealous that Charles had fallen for Anne instead of her. Elizabeth, you should know, had a serious heart condition and she would die in her early 30s. She and her sister were very close, and Charles Lindbergh was desperate to find a way to help her regain her health. I myself owe Elizabeth Morrow a significant debt of gratitude. A few years ago, my son graduated from the Elizabeth Morrow School, which she founded in Englewood. In fact, the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades are all in Dwight Morrow's old mansion. I feel confident in saying that Elizabeth Murrow did not kidnap her sister's baby. Another theory revolved around Ann's younger brother, who was said by the conspiracy theorists at least, to have suffered from some sort of mental illness. And that somehow he did it.

[Greg Algren]

No.

[Joe Nocera]

How about Hoffman was involved, but he either had help from someone working for the Lindberghs or from someone he knew in the Bronx. Oh, and here's one more I just can't resist. It's the Rosalind Russell theory. In November 1934, shortly after Houtman had been arrested, the famous actress wrote a letter to J. Edgar Hoover about a conversation she'd overheard in a New Jersey speakeasy. She heard a man telling someone that Ann's father, Morrow, had had an affair with one of the Morrow maids, who became pregnant. Morrow had the child sent to France, where he was brought up by a couple there with an intermediary sending them money while keeping the boy from finding out who his real father was. And who was that intermediary? Are you ready for this? John F. Condon. Jaffsy. According to this theory, the boy eventually discovered who his father was, perhaps from Condon, returned to America, demanded $50,000 from Dwight Morrow's widow, kidnapped little Lindy when she refused to pay it, and set the ransom at, you guessed it, $50,000.

[Poppy]

There's also this whole rabbit hole, Jo that you can go down that I have been down. That argues that the body found in the woods wasn't actually Charles Lindbergh Jr. That it was misidentified. Maybe it was a body from a nearby orphanage that had been placed there and that the real Charles Lindbergh perhaps lived on. And from time to time, people have emerged to claim they were little Lindy, you know, that he never died. He grew up. And this idea was so prevalent that it's become a sort of meme, even appearing on the Simpsons.

[Joe Nocera]

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[Nick Gillespie]

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[Joe Nocera]

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[Nick Gillespie]

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[Joe Nocera]

of such claimants surfaced. Some writing long explanations and sending photographs as proof. We even spoke to a journalist who had been fooled by one of these claimants, only to ultimately learn he was a fraud. Of course it must have been very painful for the family to have these people contact them. And I must say I don't see any reason to believe little Lindy made it out of Hopewell alive. Not Everybody in the 1930s believed Hopman deserved to fry. There was one person, aside from his wife of course, who was convinced that the trial was unfair and that there simply had to be other people involved in the kidnapping. His name was Harold Hoffman and he was the governor of New Jersey. And what happened to him sent a powerful message to anyone who dared question the official version.

[Jim Davidson]

Harold.

[Patrick Bamarak]

The governor was of the belief that Bruno Hauptman was involved in the crime but did not act alone. And there were undiscovered co conspirators out there somewhere.

[Joe Nocera]

Remember Patrick Bamarak.

[Patrick Bamarak]

I'm the great grand nephew of New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman.

[Joe Nocera]

When Hoffman took office in 1935, he was 38 years old, the youngest governor in the country and widely viewed as a man with a bright political future. But he had doubts about what had transpired during the trial. So after the appeals court confirmed the guilty verdict, the governor took it upon himself to meet with Bruno Hauptman in his cell. His goal was to get Houtman to name his co conspirators. If he did, the governor told him he wouldn't get the electric chair.

[Patrick Bamarak]

He's doing the same thing in the cell with Harold as he did on the stand, which is simply saying I did not do this. And Harold's message to him was tell me who, otherwise there's nothing I can do.

[Joe Nocera]

Governor Hoffman had asked Ellis Parker, a well known and flamboyant detective, to investigate the case for him. As Ellis uncovered facts that favored Hopman, the governor became increasingly troubled. He used his power as governor to delay the execution by 30 days to give Parker more time to investigate. The newspapers were furious. The New York Times described his actions as indefensible.

[Patrick Bamarak]

The rush to execute Bruno so quickly was something that was putting like closing the door on the event, the story, you know, obtaining that swift justice. But it also was removing the possibility that Bruno Hauptman would at some point fess up and reveal the identities of his co conspirators.

[Joe Nocera]

Every step Hoffman took to reinvestigate the case was splashed on the front page and roundly condemned. Schwarzkopf refused to cooperate with him and Hoffman ended up firing him shortly after the execution. And the governor let Parker pursue an alternative theory that a New Jersey man had been involved in the kidnapping instead of Hartman. It was a huge mistake. In 1936, Parker and his associates abducted Paul Wendell, a disbarred Trenton attorney.

[Jim Davidson]

This guy was really low life in Trenton and he just hated Lindbergh with a passion because Lindbergh was everything that he wasn't.

[Joe Nocera]

With no more than that to go on, Ellis transported Wendell across state lines, held them in a private home and coerced him into signing a confession to the Lindbergh kidnapping. Once free, however, Wendell recanted, saying it had been extracted under torture. In a great irony, Parker and several others were indicted in federal court for, yep, kidnapping Ellis Parker was arrested for

[Jim Davidson]

kidnapping under the newly produced Lindbergh kidnapping law.

[Joe Nocera]

Hoffman's investigation into the Lindbergh case ended his political career. The Ellis fiasco made his doubts look reckless and even dangerous and helped Cement the perception that challenging the verdict was destabilizing rather than principal. Hoffman wrote a series of articles for Liberty magazine detailing his meeting with Hoffman and all the many holes in the case, many of which are the same holes we've been talking about in this podcast. That didn't help his cause either. Once viewed as a potential vice presidential candidate, the Republican party tossed him aside.

[Patrick Bamarak]

He did not get the Republican Party nomination for the next go round to run for governor. So while he had, you know, run for reelection, it was the party itself as much as the voters in the primary level of the election that essentially kicked him out of that aspect of his political career.

[Joe Nocera]

Once Houtman was executed, the official story became the only story. And it stayed that way for the next 40 years. Charles Lindbergh's baby was taken by a kidnapper who climbed through a window and that man was eventually captured and executed for the crime. The Lindbergh kidnapping became part of American lore. But then America changed. In 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In September 1964, the Warren Commission issued an 888 page report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had been the lone gunman. Amateur sluice, unwilling to accept its verdict, picked it apart. Wasn't there a second gunman on the grassy knoll? How could a single bullet have penetrated both Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally, who was riding in the same car as the president? Books were written claiming the CIA did it or the Mafia, or that Oswell was a Russian asset or a Cuban asset. In 1991, Oliver Stone directed a movie claiming that the Kennedy assassination was a government conspiracy. Average Americans were now more willing to entertain the possibility that the government was lying to them. On the heels of the Kennedy assassination, of course, came the Vietnam War and then the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and then Watergate, which really was a conspiracy by the White House to cover up the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. And with every new trauma came a further loss of faith in American institutions. Here's our friend Nick Gillespie.

[Nick Gillespie]

There was this great and wonderful and horrible unmasking of how rotten most of American authority structures were. In business, in family, in politics, you name it. We are left to fend for ourselves because we know that the government is never giving us the full story or law enforcement or a business.

[Joe Nocera]

Americans were now open to the idea that things were not always as they seemed. In fact, more and more people believed that things were often not as they seemed. And eventually one of those things was a Lindbergh kidnapping. When writers finally turned their gaze to the Lindbergh kidnapping, they focused primarily on the trial. Reading the trial transcripts was shocking. It was plain as day that Houtman hadn't received a fair shake. The first such book was published in 1976, two years after Watergate and four decades after Hauptman's execution. It was also two years after Lindbergh's death at the age of 72. The book was called Scapegoat, and its author was a former tabloid journalist named Anthony Scuduto, who had spent years covering the Mafia. His primary source was a man who had worked with Ellis Parker, so of course, he concluded that Paul Wendell had done it.

[Poppy]

So in this book, its strongest sections really are about the trial. And Skidutto shows how the evidence had been manipulated, how witnesses had shifted their stories, and how the trial had been less about truth than about satisfying a nation desperate for closure. And Anna Hoffman, by the way, she was convinced it was Isidor Fisch who died in Germany and who Houtman blamed the gold notes on. And. And she really believed it was him who was involved in the kidnapping.

[Joe Nocera]

The following year, in 1977, a journalist named William Norris released A Talent to Deceive. Norris went further still. He suggested not simply injustice, but orchestration, the possibility that the kidnapping itself concealed a darker, more intimate truth. The members of the Lindbergh family, though not Lindbergh himself, may have been involved.

[Poppy]

So he's the one who put forth the theory that Anne Lindbergh's brother may have done it.

[Joe Nocera]

Then in 1985, came the most powerful account yet, when British author Ludovic Kennedy published the Airman and the Carpenter. Kennedy was a serious investigative journalist with a track record of writing about injustices in the British criminal justice system. Lindbergh Kidnapping was right in his wheelhouse. Ann Lindbergh gave him her then unpublished diaries and she told them that if in fact a miscarriage of justice had taken place, quote, it should not be glossed over, end quote, even if it caused her and her family anguish.

[Poppy]

So the Airman and the Carpenter did not propose this theory of who kidnaps little Lindy. It's one of the only books not to do so, but it did poke a lot of holes and it dismantles the prosecution's case even more rigorously than we'd seen Scuduto doing. And it argues that Houtman's conviction rested on circumstantial evidence, unreliable testimony, witnesses who'd been bribed, and again, a public who just wanted blood.

[Joe Nocera]

It became the gold standard for future Lindbergh investigators.

[Poppy]

And here's my thing, Joe. I really think it's no coincidence that Anna, the wife of Haltman, sued the state right around this time.

[Joe Nocera]

In 1981, 46 years after her husband's execution, Anna Haltman filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the state of New Jersey. She had granted interviews to all the authors investigating the kidnapping, and it seems likely she thought the Zeitgeist had changed enough to give her a chance. But it never happened. The case dragged on for years, but was ultimately dismissed in the late 1980s, largely on procedural grounds. She died in 1994 at the age of 95, after a lifetime devoted to clearing her husband's name.

[Poppy]

The idea of a wrongful death suit for Houtman just would not have been possible until the 1980s. And all these books coming out that had kind of rewritten the narrative.

[Joe Nocera]

Even though Anna Houtman lost her suit, the Lindbergh case had been reopened in the court of public opinion.

[Poppy]

Well, that's the thing. Like, if the government could be wrong about Kennedy, why not Lindbergh? Or like, if evidence could be shaped in Dallas, why not in Flemington? And if one national myth legend could fracture, perhaps they all could.

[Joe Nocera]

The Lindbergh kidnapping was the first time celebrity, media spectacle, national trauma and state power fused into a single narrative. The public was asked to accept with each successive book, each new documentary, each new theory. Americans with even a passing knowledge of the case knew that the official version was no longer the only version. With that in mind, I want to bring us to the present, where, as I've mentioned, lots of authors are claiming that Lindbergh did it himself. Like Jim Baum, who believes that Lindbergh wanted to ship the baby out of the country because of his physical problems. He didn't pull this theory out of thin air. Rather, it's because of a letter that has been in his father's possession for half a century.

[Jim Davidson]

I knew he had the letter because when I was a kid, I remember going in his room, and I don't know what I was doing in there. Was it always in his top door of his dresser? So I saw, and I asked him about it. Said, oh, yeah. Prisoner gave that to me.

[Joe Nocera]

Jim is a retired school teacher. His father, Nicholas Baum, who died in 1999, spent most of his career driving trucks. But for a brief time, he was a prison guard at the Trenton State Prison in New Jersey. As a kid, Jim was always bugging his dad to tell him about his prison guard days. And especially about that letter, you see, it had been given to him by a prisoner.

[Jim Davidson]

He kind of blew me off about it, but he kept it, you know, so I would spread it out on the floor and read it. And I did this many times, just. I was fascinated by the case.

[Joe Nocera]

The letter was written by a man who said he was a cellmate of Bruno Hauptman's named Arthur Jones. And this original tattered letter had remained in Jim's dad's possession until he died and what it claimed was explosive.

[Jim Davidson]

My letter says that the baby had weak bones. It was a sickly child that couldn't hear. And then it all said no. Can anyone verify that the baby talked, that the baby never talked?

[Joe Nocera]

According to Arthur Jones's letter, Lindbergh was the ringleader of the kidnappers. Haltman was involved, but as part of the group Lindbergh had put together. Betty Gow is also involved, the letter said, and Violet Sharp and Isidor Fish.

[Jim Davidson]

And so the basic premise of why Lindbergh, according to the letter, wanted to move the child out of the country was because the baby was sick. He had a genetic form of rickets, cranial tobes, which is a brain disorder, apparently. And this is documented, too. There's medical records to prove that. And so Limber did not want a damaged baby. You know, he's. He's the great aviator and he's friends with Alexis Carell, who was the eugenics guy.

[Joe Nocera]

The intention was never for the baby to die, but little Lindy caught pneumonia a few days after the kidnapping. Poppy spoke to Jim Davidson about all of this.

[Poppy]

The other thing he has going for it is, why would this guy make it up?

[Greg Algren]

I mean, it.

[Poppy]

There was no. It seemed genuinely, authentically like Bruno and him are sitting in PR on death row and you talk and he told him.

[Jim Davidson]

Yeah, exactly. The guy had nothing to gain. He didn't make any money out of it. He wasn't going to get out of prison by putting it out there.

[Joe Nocera]

Of the people claiming Lindbergh was involved, there is a primary proponent, a retired judge named Lisa Pearlman, whose book from 2020 is titled Suspect Number One, the Man who Got Away, Suspect number one being Lindbergh himself. At the time of the kidnapping, Lindbergh worked with Alexis Carell, a Nobel Prize winning vascular surgeon at the Rockefeller Institute. He was also a raving eugenicist who believed that the west was in trouble because, quote, the white race was drowning in a sea of inferiors. Why preserve useless human beings? He once wrote Pearlman, who sadly did not respond to our Many, many, many efforts to interview her speculates that little Lindy had become one of those useless human beings because of his supposed physical problems, rickets and possibly brain damage caused by the flights Ann took with her husband late in her pregnancy. She might have suffered from oxygen deprivation and carbon monoxide poisoning. So Lindbergh had the baby kidnapped and taken to Carell's lab where he was, you know, offed. Lindbergh's purpose, according to Perelman, was to test a heart machine that he'd invented in Carell's lab and that he hoped would save his sister in law's life. Here is Perelman speaking to Ronell Delmont on her YouTube channel. So you put it all together. Lindbergh may have been motivated by knowing

[Charles Lindbergh (speech excerpts)]

his son had health problems by being

[Joe Nocera]

concerned about the publicity that he might garner for having potentially caused those health problems. There you go, to save Elizabeth's life. And Dr. Correll was looking to experiment more to permit human bypass operations on the heart which were not yet viable. That Lindbergh might be responsible for his son's death is a horrible thought. I asked Nick Gillespie why beginning in the 1970s, people were willing to assume that Lindbergh was somehow involved in his son's kidnapping. Here's what he told me in the

[Nick Gillespie]

early 70s, he becomes the object of where it's not just that he was a treasonous American who was a eugenicist and wanted the Nazis to win and wanted to keep America out of World War II, et cetera, but that he killed his own child. Which is exactly, you know, when you look at one of the metaphors in Vietnam that came out was the idea that the young men in Vietnam were being sacrificed, like Isaac by Abraham, you know, that our fathers killed us. So, you know, it makes sense that the trajectory of Lindbergh's theories about Lindbergh end with him. Not just that, oh, this happened to him, but actually he was the cause.

[Joe Nocera]

Although Perlman's book was published six years ago, she has become just as dogged as anyone else we met in Lindbergh conspiracy land, continuing to dig up new facts that she believes support her theory. Last year, Poppy and I wangled our way into a mock trial she organized at the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Brunswick. Most of it was a rehash of information familiar to any self respecting Lindberghologist, until at the very end, a pathologist and forensic consultant named Peter Speth took the stand. What I am going to tell you now in these 90 years or so has never been addressed by anyone. He Told the room, despite all the writings and books and documents, no one has ever addressed what I am going to tell you now. Poppy and I were at the edge of our seat. This guy Speth, it turns out, is no quack. A former New Jersey assistant medical examiner with over 55 years of experience, he's worked on some high profile cases, even helping crack down the Golden State Killer. What he then detailed to the crowd were several unusual findings.

[Poppy]

So what he says is the kidneys had been surgically removed before the body entered the advanced stage of decay, and that was because of the way the clothing had been put back on the body afterwards and other ways in which the incisions were made.

[Ann Lindbergh]

He.

[Poppy]

He also says there's a really unusual preservation of the face and the right foot. So while the rest of the extremities were skeletonized, this uneven state of preservation suggests that some form of chemical treatment or environmental factor may have been used. And it is really strange to think about the foot and the face being partially, you know, intact. We'll remember that there was a man who went to pee in the woods who found him, and that was how he described it, as well as the autopsy testimonies. So Dr. Speth looked at different substances that could have been involved. He looked at atanic acid, which is sometimes used in taxidermy, but he thinks that wasn't quite right. And then he looked at alum, which is a potassium, and it's a compound used in tanning and certain forms of laboratory preservation. And he sort of concluded that that had maybe been used. He also noted that there was a small round hole behind the right ear of little Charlie. And in addition, the findings raised questions about, therefore, possible links to early experimental transplants and shunt research that was taking place exactly at that time and by Charles Lindbergh himself.

[Joe Nocera]

When we called Dr. Speth to ask him to tell us more, he declined. I guess he's waiting for HBO to show up.

[Poppy]

But here's the thing, Jo, that I come back to a lot. If any of us had to buy that Charles Lindbergh was capable of conducting a possibly painful, certainly fatal experiment on his own son, you really have to believe he was a monster.

[Joe Nocera]

So was he a monster? In his memoir, Lindbergh wrote, life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it, but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance. The truth is, distance has not been especially kind to Lindbergh. His Wikipedia page spends as much time on his views about eugenics, his dalliance with the Nazis prior to World War II and his involvement in the America first isolationist movement, as on his famous flight across the Atlantic. And then in August 2003, there came a revelation that was truly astonishing.

[Poppy]

This twist in the tale is just completely bonkers. So a German newspaper comes out and publishes these interviews with a group of adult siblings who had grown up believing their father was a man named Karoo Kent or Karau Kent. I don't speak German. And then they discover letters and faded photographs that pointed to a more shocking reality, that it was actually Charles Limberg who was their father and that he'd spent the last 17 years of his life weaving a kind of secret existence in Germany and fathering seven kids with three different women, even as he was married to Anne. In total secrecy, in a kind of slightly Aryan coded way.

[Joe Nocera]

Three children were born to Brigitte Hesheimer, two to her sister Marietta, and two to his German secretary, Waleska, all born between 1958 and 1967, all kept in silence by secrecy and pseudonyms. Only after the mothers died did the truth surface. And by late November 2003, DNA confirmed that at least three of these children were undeniably his. On a forum called the Lindbergh Kidnapping Discussion Board, one participant wrote, the secrecy

[Thomas Dougherty]

fits in well with Lindbergh's passion for secrecy and deception.

[Joe Nocera]

Well said. But just how far did his passion for secrecy and deception really go? Next time, in our final episode of the Lindbergh Conspiracies, we give our verdict.

[Poppy]

So, Joe, the time has come. Who do you think did it?

[Joe Nocera]

I'm Glenn Washington, host of Snap Judgment, the award winning storytelling podcast from kqed. Every week, Snap deals a new card. Like the girl whose sister was a monkey. Or the man who lived in the woods for 30 years. Or even the woman who snuck her lover out of prison in a dog crate. Pick a card, any card. Tap to listen. Now to Snap Judgment from KQED on Spotify.