A New Series From The Free Press | The Lindbergh Conspiracies

Summary

The Free Press Investigates — The Lindbergh Conspiracies

Episode 1: The Broken Window
Published: May 19, 2026
Host: Joe Nocera, The Free Press

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Overview & Main Theme

The premiere episode of "The Lindbergh Conspiracies" launches a deep investigation into the notorious 1932 Lindbergh baby kidnapping—a case often dubbed the "First Great American Conspiracy." Host Joe Nocera and producer Poppy Damon pull listeners into the labyrinthine world of theories and doubts that have surrounded the crime for nearly a century. The episode sets the scene, introduces key players and their perspectives, and explores the case's enduring grip on public imagination.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Conspiratorial America: Setting the Stage

• Conspiracies as a Social Phenomenon:
  Joe Nocera compares the spread of conspiracies to "Japanese knotweed"—invasive, persistent, and eroding foundations ([00:41]). He references modern and classic American conspiracy flashpoints before landing on the Lindbergh case:

  “Conspiracies are now part of American life… What else would we talk about at night if not for the Lindbergh baby case?” (Joe Nocera, [01:00])

• Why the Lindbergh Kidnapping?
  The case’s facts—famous parents, a high-profile crime, a dubious prosecution—created the perfect breeding ground for endless speculation.

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The Night of the Execution

• Vivid Account of Hauptmann’s Execution
  The episode opens with a recounting of Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s 1936 execution, exploring both public sentiment and the almost celebratory reaction in Trenton, New Jersey ([03:58]):

  “The hotel had a whole ballroom set up with a live band and dancing. And when they flipped the switch, all the lights dimmed in that end of Trenton.” (Jim Davidson, [04:36])

• Initial Acceptance of the Official Story
  In the 1930s, faith in officialdom was high, but over time skepticism set in, especially regarding the fairness of Hauptmann’s conviction ([05:11]).

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The Obsessive World of Lindbergh Slueths

• Introducing Key Amateurs and Experts

  • Jim Davidson: Lifelong collector of Lindbergh memorabilia ([05:56])
  • Robert Zorn: Self-described "accidental detective" convinced he knows the true kidnapper ([06:34])

    “They don’t care about facts, they don’t care whom they hurt. And they will be dealt with…” (Robert Zorn, [06:49])

  • Renell Delmont: Ran the conspiracy site “Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax” ([07:05])

• Host’s Caution:
  Nocera emphasizes that these theorists are not “crazy”—the case is so complex, anyone who wades in gets caught up in its mysteries ([07:06]).

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The Crime Scene and Timeline

• Isolation of the Lindbergh Home
  Joe and Poppy describe the seclusion of the Hopewell, NJ, estate, which was supposed to be a refuge from the press; ironically, its location was publicized in the newspapers ([08:43]).

• Key Timeline Anomalies

  • March 1, 1932: The Lindberghs were unusually at Hopewell on a Tuesday due to illness, deviating from their normal routine ([11:28]).
  • Unusual household activity and attempts to close a warped shutter on the nursery window ([12:36]).

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The Kidnapping: What (Supposedly) Happened

• Crucial Clues Left at the Scene:

  • Clue 1: A Bucks Brothers chisel ([15:25])
  • Clue 2: A handmade ladder—crucial, yet “inscrutable”

    “The ladder is fascinating because it is clearly important and it clearly is inscrutable.” (Nick Gillespie, [16:28])

  • Clue 3: The ransom note—strangely left on a windowsill during a howling wind, only discovered by Lindbergh ([17:11])

• Odd Circumstances:

  • No fingerprints found—raising questions of evidence being wiped ([20:04]).
  • Items by the window (dresser, suitcase, toys) undisturbed ([18:38]).
  • The possibility of an inside job and suspicions about staff ([19:06]).
  • The family dog did not bark; Lindbergh himself heard a cracking sound but did not check ([14:14], [36:53]).

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Media Frenzy and Mishandling

• Chaotic Press Response
  Massive media presence descended on the scene, trampling evidence ([22:38]):

  “You have press that are climbing trees, trying to climb over walls… I thought, all that evidence!” (Candace Fleming, [23:00])

• Police Inexperience & Power Struggles

  • The New Jersey State Police took over, sidelining the FBI and local authorities ([25:30]).
  • Commander H. Norman Schwarzkopf, inexperienced in investigations, deferred to Lindbergh and failed to treat the household as potential suspects ([28:45], [30:05]).

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Revisiting the Scene

• Joe and Poppy’s House Visit
  The hosts describe a tense, chaperoned visit to the Lindbergh house (now a halfway home), noting how difficult it would be to pick the correct window and hypothesizing that prior knowledge or inside assistance was necessary ([32:29]–[33:08]).

• Sound and Access Tests
  They explore possible entry routes (door versus ladder), debating plausibility ([33:21]).

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Unanswered Questions & Enduring Mysteries

• Persistent Questions:

  • How did the perpetrator know the family was home that night?
  • Why did Lindbergh restrict staff investigations and rebuff the FBI?
  • Why didn’t the dog bark or the baby cry out?
  • Was the ladder even used?
  • Was the window’s unlatched status known beforehand?
  • Why did Lindbergh miss his New York engagement?
  • Could inside staff have assisted, intentionally or not?

  “The questions are endless.” (Joe Nocera, [37:29])

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Discovery of the Baby's Body

• Final Shock of the Episode
  Ten weeks after the kidnapping, the decomposed body of Charles Lindbergh Jr. was discovered just four miles from the home ([39:26]):

  “He suddenly realizes that what he’s seeing is a child’s body… This is no longer a kidnapping case. It’s now a murder investigation.” (Joe Nocera, [39:26])

• Mystery Deepens:
  The area had already been searched—how was the body missed the first time? ([39:48])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Conspiracies are like Japanese knotweed… The more you try to get rid of it, the more you'll drive yourself mad.” (Joe Nocera, [00:41])
• “I found myself in the position of an accidental detective in one of the greatest cold cases in history.” (Robert Zorn, [06:34])
• “They don't care about facts, they don't care whom they hurt. And they will be dealt with.” (Robert Zorn, [06:49])
• “On that evening… Lindbergh was supposed to make a speech in New York, but he never showed up. No one knows why.” (Joe Nocera, [10:44])
• “A family that wasn't supposed to be there, a window that was warped and left open, a baby taken, a ladder, a chisel and a ransom note left behind, and two parents desperate for answers.” (Joe Nocera, [20:35])
• “I'm here to take charge. This case is now under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey State Police.” (Joe Nocera impersonating Schwarzkopf, [28:45])
• “Now our minds are just flooded with questions and theories and arguments… We're hooked, too.” (Joe Nocera, [35:09])
• “This area had been searched thoroughly and nothing had been found. So where in the world did that body come from?” (Joe Nocera, [39:48])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening discussion on the persistence of conspiracies: [00:41]
• The night of Hauptmann’s execution: [03:58]–[04:57]
• Meet the Lindbergh obsessives and their theories: [05:56]–[07:05]
• Examining the Hopewell house & timeline anomalies: [08:43]–[11:28]
• Inside job theories & crime scene complications: [19:06]–[20:04], [33:08]
• Media/police mishandling & lost evidence: [22:38]–[23:48]
• Visiting the scene and reenactments: [32:29]–[34:59]
• The endless questions: [36:01]–[37:29]
• Shock discovery of body: [39:26]

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Tone & Language

The episode mixes journalistic gravity with a tone of curiosity, skepticism, and awe at the enduring power of unsolved mysteries. Joe Nocera balances empathy for those trapped in the Lindbergh “rabbit hole” with a clear-eyed examination of facts, fumbles, and conspiracies—setting the stage for a compelling serial investigation.

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Looking Ahead

The episode closes with the promise to delve deeper: how the body evaded discovery, more on media chaos, and the origins of the “conspiratorial America” phenomenon. Listeners are left pondering not just what happened to the Lindbergh baby—but why this story continues to haunt, and obsesses, so many.

Transcript

[Joe Nocera]

I would stake my entire professional career on the fact that Brigitte Macron, the current first lady of France, was born a man. And I think the real answer is

[Nick Gillespie]

Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of Intel Services. Probably not American. And we have every right to ask on whose behalf was he working? Pizzagate is real. The only question is, what exactly is it?

[Sarah Rose Siskind]

And if you look at the numbers, the numbers are false. The numbers are corrupt. It was a rigged election, 100%, and people know it. That's why you have people marching all over the United States right now. They know it was a rigged election.

[Joe Nocera]

Conspiracies are like Japanese knotweed. The invasive plant is hollow inside and it looks innocent enough. And yet just a little bit of it can rapidly spread up to 10ft tall and upend the foundations of whatever it is you're trying to build. You're screwed. The more you try to get rid of it, the more you'll drive yourself mad with finding new areas infested clusters of small cream colored flowers growing in plumes everywhere you look. And that's what conspiracies do too. They grow and they grow and they grow until the original foundation has been utterly abandoned. Conspiracies are now part of American life. Of course, the JFK assassination, a rigged election, the prison cell death of Jeffrey Epstein. It's a very long list. There are so many moments of our shared history where we can't seem to agree on what actually happened. And such is the case of the subject of this podcast, the Lindbergh kidnapping. It took place a very long time ago. 1932. A child of a famous man was kidnapped and then murdered. A German immigrant was eventually charged with the crime and executed. But the case against the accused was far from airtight. And the official explanation of how he pulled it off was so unsatisfying that people have been filling the void with their own theories ever since. Some people say it's the original true crime story. Me, I'm calling it the First Great American Conspiracy. What else would we talk about at night? What else would we keep our wives up late at night talking about if not for the Lindbergh baby case? I'm joe nocera and from the free press. This is the lindbergh conspiracies. Episode 1 the broken window. I'm going to start with that execution I mentioned. It's the night of April 3, 1936. Bruno Richard Hauptman, the man convicted of kidnapping and killing Charles Lindbergh's 20 month old son, is strapped in the electric chair. He's about to die. Du Bois father, Charles Lindbergh, is the most famous and most admired man in America. Haltman, who was arrested two years earlier at his home in the Bronx, has become the most hated man in America. With the execution twice delayed, most Americans are anxious. No, they're eager for him to breathe his last breath. In fact, in Trenton, New Jersey, where the execution is taking place, parties are being thrown.

[Jim Davidson]

I got interested in the Lindbergh kidnapping from listening to my parents talk about growing up in Trenton and going to a Haltman execution party at the Hotel Hildebrecht, where the execution was broadcast live.

[Radio Announcer]

There go the witnesses into the New Jersey State Prison at Trenton who are to see Bruno Richard Hoppner die for the kidnapping of a Lindbergh baby. And so, silent and stolid Huffman goes to the chair of doom, paying with his life for the crime that rocked the world.

[Jim Davidson]

The hotel had a whole ballroom set up with a live band and dancing. And when they flipped the switch, all the lights dimmed in that end of Trenton.

[Joe Nocera]

By 8:47pm the lights were back at full strength. The deed had been done.

[Radio Announcer]

Winged words fly by wire and by air tonight so that all may read fini to the sordid tale. But there are only three words. Bruno is dead.

[Joe Nocera]

The Lindbergh conspiracies didn't start right away. There were people even back then who never bought the official line, but they were few and far between. The country was just so relieved that the crime had been avenged. Besides, America was a more innocent place in the 1930s, and people generally didn't believe that prosecutors would stoop so low as to frame an innocent man. But over time, the idea that Haltman had been railroaded by a corrupt government, that became the prevailing view as well as the obsession of the people who populate this podcast. Like Jim Davidson, the guy whose parents went to the execution party.

[Jim Davidson]

In 1936, I started collecting Lindbergh memorabilia. And I had so much memorabilia, I probably had one of the finest collections in the country. And then I started collecting pictures. I have over a thousand original pictures of the trial and kidnapping. Just by chance, I ended up buying a house that was directly across from the Lindbergh driveway.

[Joe Nocera]

And then there's Robert Zorn, who says he knows who really kidnapped the Lindbergh baby. His life's work has been convincing the world that he's right.

[Robert Zorn]

I found myself in the position of an accidental detective in one of the greatest cold cases in history.

[Joe Nocera]

In fact, he gets angry at some of the others in this world whose theories differ from his.

[Robert Zorn]

They don't care about facts, they don't care whom they hurt. And they will be dealt with. I will be dealing with them very personally and with as large a megaphone as I can possibly find.

[Joe Nocera]

Or Renell Delmont, who used to run the popular website the Lindbergh kidnapping hoax.

[Renell Delmont]

This is drama.

[Joe Nocera]

This is an opera. This is vaudeville. Here's the thing, though. These people who found themselves caught up in the Lindbergh case, they're not crazy. They're not. The fact is, once you dive into it, once you begin to learn about all the contested facts, all the strange rabbit holes, all the media hysteria, and not least the very odd behavior of Charles Lindbergh, through it all, you inevitably start asking yourself what really happened. In the months that my producer, Poppy Damon, and I spent in this world with she and I looking at the same set of facts and conducting the same interviews, we developed very different theories about what had happened. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Ultimately, there's one thing we all agree on, and it comes from Bruno Hauptmann himself.

[Jay]

Apparently, he said in one of these letters, they think when I die, the case will die. They think it will be like a book I closed. But the book, it will never close.

[Joe Nocera]

He was right. The crime had taken place in a tiny New Jersey town called Hopewell, 15 miles north of Trenton. Months earlier, Charles and his wife, Ann Maro Lindbergh had built a house deep in the woods and were using it as a weekend home. When Poppy and I visited the house not long ago, we were struck by how secluded it is even today.

[Jay]

So driving up, it is trees walling each side.

[Poppy Damon]

Yeah, it's quite a little hike.

[Joe Nocera]

And the closer you get to it, the more isolated it seems.

[Jay]

Can't see the house. You know, it's not like there's nothing indicating it.

[Poppy Damon]

Half a mile and we still can't see the house.

[Joe Nocera]

That, in fact, is exactly why Lindbergh chose the spot. Ever since he flew across the Atlantic in 1927, the first person to ever do so, reporters had searched incessantly for any morsel of news about the man that they had labeled the Great Aviator. His flight was an historic feat of engineering and stamina. The ultimate triumph was of the human spirit. We'll tell the story of his astonishing fame in the next episode, but what you need to know is that pick a celebrity. Taylor Swift, George Clooney, the Beatles, they all look like nobodies in comparison to this man's star power. So he felt hounded by the press. He thought the house in Hopewell would offer him and his family some measure of privacy. But the newspapers had discovered where the house was being built and had published the location. Lindbergh's father in law, a wealthy financier and diplomat named Dwight Morrow, had advised him to hire security guards, even warning that the baby will be kidnapped if you don't have better protection. Lindbergh's wife Ann would note in her diary that every few days strangers would arrive on the property hoping to get a peek of the family and had to be chased away by Ollie Whatele. Get out of here before I call the police. Yet when a writer for the Saturday Evening Post visited Lindbergh on the property, he asked that the family needed more security.

[Will Rogers]

I'm not worried about intruders.

[Joe Nocera]

What a terrible misjudgment. And here's another misjudgment on the only

[Richard Cahill Jr.]

window that was accessible to somebody from the outside had warped shutters and that

[Joe Nocera]

was the window that opened into the baby's room where Little Charles Lindbergh Jr. Was put to bed that fateful night. Now here's the weird thing, or I suppose I should say one of the many weird things. On that evening, March 1, 1932, Lindbergh was supposed to make a speech in New York, but he never showed up. No one knows why. March 1st was also a Tuesday. Ever since the family had begun using the house, they'd always returned to Lindbergh's in laws home on Monday morning. That's where they lived during the week.

[Robert Zorn]

This was the first time they'd ever spent a night on a Tuesday. Okay. The Lindberghs were extremely guarded about their schedule.

[Joe Nocera]

How could a kidnapper have possibly known that on that particular Tuesday little Lindy, as the press called the baby, would be in Hopewell? And why were the Lindberghs in Hopewell that night? Well, for the most ordinary of reasons,

[Renell Delmont]

Charlie had had a cold and Ann had caught the cold. She was also pregnant at the time and she says, I'm exhausted. We're staying put.

[Joe Nocera]

Maria Fredericks wrote a fine novel called the Lindbergh Nanny, a reimagining of the Lindbergh kidnapping through the eyes of Betty Gough, who was little Lindy's nursemaid, as she was called back then. She was a key player on the night of the kidnapping. Betty had spent the weekend at the Morrow household in Englewood and was waiting for little Charlie's return. She got a call that morning. Get to Hopewell immediately. When she arrived, she quickly took over the care of the baby at around

[Renell Delmont]

7:30, she and Ann start putting him to bed. They put him in his little sleepy suit. Because they've stayed longer. He doesn't have adequate clothing and Betty makes him a little shirt out of her petticoat, just on the spot.

[Joe Nocera]

They want to close the windows for the sick child, but of course they can't.

[Robert Zorn]

As it turned out, the shutters of that southeast corner window of the nursery were warped. In fact, Betty Gough, the Lindbergh's nursemaid, and Ann Morrow Lindbergh, the baby's mother, were trying to pull them shut on the knife and they couldn't do it.

[Renell Delmont]

They both try, but her failure to close that shutter will come back to haunt her. She then goes downstairs and has dinner with Elsie Waitley, who is the cook for the Lindberghs.

[Joe Nocera]

The baby falls quickly asleep. Soon Charles Lindbergh returns home. Or does he?

[Renell Delmont]

At 8, the family hears the approach of a car and everyone assumes it's Colonel Lindbergh coming home. But it isn't until around 8:30 that they hear the honk of the horn, which is his signal to the people inside the house. Please lift up the garage door.

[Joe Nocera]

He and Ann have dinner, after which Lindbergh has a bath and then heads down to his study.

[Lawyer Richard Cahill Jr.]

The exact time of the kidnapping is not known precisely. We do know that Charles Lindbergh reported hearing a cracking sound at one point when he was in his study beneath the nursery. He described it as a cracking like the slats on orange crates, I believe is the way he referred to it.

[Joe Nocera]

Strangely, no one else in the house ever reports hearing that sound. Nor does Lindbergh get up from his chair to see if something's happened outside. There was a dog in the house. He doesn't bark. So it's not until 10 o' clock or so that Betty Gow walks upstairs to see how the baby is doing.

[Renell Delmont]

As is the family custom, Betty goes to check on Charlie and discovers that he is gone.

[Lawyer Richard Cahill Jr.]

She went first to Ann Lindbergh to see if she had taken the child and she hadn't.

[Joe Nocera]

Ann thought at first that her husband might have hidden the child as a practical joke. Believe it or not, that's something he'd done before.

[Lawyer Richard Cahill Jr.]

And then she went downstairs to see Charles, who was down in the study, and she said, you know Mr. Lindbergh? Do you have the baby?

[Joe Nocera]

When he tells her no, he runs upstairs himself. And get this. Even before he enters the bedroom, he

[Will Rogers]

shouts, ann, they've kidnapped our baby.

[Joe Nocera]

He grabs a loaded rifle and a flashlight and he races outdoors to search the grounds, but he finds nothing.

[Jim Davidson]

When the kidnapping took place, there were three clues.

[Lawyer Richard Cahill Jr.]

A Bucks Brothers 3/4 wood chisel.

[Jim Davidson]

They didn't know if it belonged to a carpenter there or was used to try to pry the window open.

[Joe Nocera]

So clue one, chisel.

[Lawyer Richard Cahill Jr.]

Underneath the window, they found ladder impressions, basically two impressions where the ladder had sunk into the mud. They found a set of footprints leading away from the ladder. They followed him about 70 to 75ft away, and they found part of a ladder, two pieces of a ladder.

[Joe Nocera]

Clue two, the ladder. I mean, the ladder is a really crucial piece of evidence.

[Nick Gillespie]

Yeah, because you know, the ladder is involved. Right. Because that seems, you know, the way that the kidnapper got in and maybe got out.

[Joe Nocera]

I spoke to my friend Nick Gillespie, editor at large at Reason magazine, about the latter. He's a conspiracy, I guess you'd say, aficionado. And you'll be hearing from him and his wife, the science writer Sarah Rose Siskind, who is a conspiracy skeptic throughout the show. It's quite a marriage they've got.

[Nick Gillespie]

It's this tantalizing, I think, in a contemporary context. The latter is fascinating because it is clearly important and it clearly is inscrutable.

[Joe Nocera]

And then there's one other clue that will become the focus of almost a century of investigation.

[Renell Delmont]

The ransom note.

[Jim Davidson]

Ransom note.

[Candace Fleming]

Ransom note.

[Lawyer Richard Cahill Jr.]

Ransom. Ransom note.

[Jim Davidson]

They found a ransom note up in the baby's room.

[Joe Nocera]

The ransom note was simple in its demands. Give us $50,000 and you'll get your baby back. This was the Great Depression and the Lindberghs had money. The note was written in broken English and there was a strange red circular symbol at the bottom of it.

[Will Rogers]

We warn you for making anything public or for notify the police.

[Joe Nocera]

But here's another curious fact. When Benny Gal and Ann Lindbergh first went up to the baby's bedroom, they didn't see a ransom note. It was only later, when Lindbergh himself went up there, that he discovered was sitting on the windowsill. Which leads to another puzzling question. There was a howling wind that night. If an envelope with a ransom note in it was sitting by a warped shutter and it was, how was it not swept to the floor by the wind? Also kind of curious. Lindbergh didn't open the envelope to read the ransom demand. He waited for the police to arrive outside. The imprint of the ladder in the ground showed that it had been placed to the right of the window. Its height meant that it had to be at least 2ft below the sill to climb into the bedroom from that position and then climb out again with a baby in hand. You'd practically have to be an Olympic gymnast. They found the ladder on the ground 75ft away, which means the kidnapper would have had to drag a heavy ladder with a baby under his arm. It just doesn't seem plausible.

[Greg Algren]

You want more?

[Joe Nocera]

We got more.

[Jim Davidson]

At the time, they had a dresser in front of the window with a small suitcase on it and toys on that, and all of those were intact. So they decided that. That if somebody got up there either through the front door or somehow made it up the ladder, somebody had to pass the baby out.

[Joe Nocera]

Not surprisingly, one of the big questions that's always surrounded the kidnapping is whether it was an inside job. Had Betty Gough handed the child down to somebody on the ladder instead of putting little Charlie to bed? Had the cook or the butler, a husband and wife team, been involved somehow? Did someone working for the Lindberghs sell the family out to make some money? When the Lindberghs were away during the week, Ollie Whateley, the butler, sometimes gave tours of the house to strangers who showed up wanting to get a peek of the famous family. Had he accidentally allowed the house to be staked out by a future intruder?

[Renell Delmont]

When I saw that Ollie Whateley had given tours of the Hopewell house to sightseers, I thought, oh, that's a bit odd.

[Joe Nocera]

And when the police got to work, they found other things that were fishy as well.

[Greg Algren]

The fingerprint man arrived who checked the room for fingerprints, said there were no fingerprints.

[Joe Nocera]

Seriously? No fingerprints? I should say none that were usable. At least the lack of prints led investigators to conclude that the kidnappers wore gloves.

[Greg Algren]

The fact that there were no fingerprints in the room meant that that room had been wiped. I mean, otherwise, why wouldn't Betty Gough's fingerprints be on the crib or the mother's or the father's or anybody? The bureau, the crib, the window, the window sill, any of those hard surfaces that are why. Why was the room white?

[Poppy Damon]

And so there you have it.

[Joe Nocera]

A family that wasn't supposed to be there, a window that was warped and left open, a baby taken, a ladder, a chisel and a ransom note left behind, and two parents desperate for answers. Anne Marle Lindbergh, who wrote a number of books in her lifetime, published one in 1973 titled Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead. It's a collection of her diary entries and letters from the year before her son was kidnapped and the year after. She writes that she found herself startled as she reread the letter she wrote to Friends and family right after the kidnapping.

[Ann Morrow Lindbergh]

It was, of course, a nightmare. When I first reread them, I was shocked and bewildered. How could I have been so self controlled, so calm, so factual in the midst of horror and suspense? And above all, how could I have been so hopeful?

[Joe Nocera]

That line jumps out because it's a reminder that despite her horror at discovering her son missing, there was hope that night. Surely they all thought the baby would be returned. Kidnappings were common during the Depression, and it was usually a straightforward transaction. You get your relative back and I get my money, and we go our separate ways. Kidnapping wasn't even a federal crime until after little Lindy was taken.

[Lawyer Richard Cahill Jr.]

The police speculated early, and it was, I think, poor speculation, but they speculated early that maybe the mob was involved in this because it wasn't uncommon for Freedom School to have children kidnapped by the mob.

[Joe Nocera]

This is lawyer Richard Cahill Jr. Whose book on the kidnapping is titled Houtman's Ladder.

[Lawyer Richard Cahill Jr.]

As long as you follow the instructions, you'd get your kidnapping. But this, by any reasonable looking, was done by an amateur. It wasn't done by the mob. If it had been in those days, it would have been done and done properly.

[Joe Nocera]

This wasn't in your book. You talk a little bit about how

[Poppy Damon]

the press covered the Lindbergh case.

[Candace Fleming]

Oh, it was insane. The entire thing was insane. You have the press on day two, right? As soon as this. This kidnapping is announced, as soon as the press gets wind of it, you have all this press from New York City and other places descending on the Lindbergh home.

[Joe Nocera]

That's Candace Fleming. She wrote a young adult book about Lindbergh.

[Candace Fleming]

And when things get cordoned off by the police, and you have press that are climbing trees, trying to climb over walls, and you have regular citizens as well creeping up through the house through all these woods. And you think about that. The first time I read it made me sick because I thought all that evidence, right, that no one had gone out into the woods. Yet.

[Joe Nocera]

Here's Richard Cahill again.

[Lawyer Richard Cahill Jr.]

One of the things that happened is somehow nobody knows for sure. It could have been an operator. It could have been someone in law enforcement. This got leaked on the night of the kidnapping to the press, and the press descended on the house, and two of the detectives, they saw press walking all over the place and looking at stuff and picking it up. So they picked up the evidence and took it inside to preserve it. But any footprints, evidence is compromised. Any other evidence, you know, fingerprint evidence, is compromised. So that makes it difficult.

[Joe Nocera]

It's nearly impossible to exaggerate the frenzy that overtook the fourth estate when it learned of the kidnapping, the New York

[Will Rogers]

Evening Post declared, kidnappers must know that if they harm the baby, they face the possibility of being torn limb from limb by the people of the U.S.

[Joe Nocera]

a Hearst reporter named Adela Rogers wrote,

[Ann Morrow Lindbergh]

remember, little Lindy was everybody's baby. Or if they had to, their only child kidnapped. The Lindbergh baby. Who would dare?

[Joe Nocera]

And the humorist Will Rogers.

[Will Rogers]

Why don't lynching parties expand their scope and take in kidnappings?

[Joe Nocera]

The competition was fierce, with the relatively new medium of radio competing with newspapers for scoops.

[Candace Fleming]

Every edition you had newspapers that hired ambulances so that they could snap pictures and write copies and then race back to the city in this ambulance blaring at sirens so that they could get a brand new story out for the evening edition.

[Joe Nocera]

As much as Lindbergh found reporters intolerable, he was willing to use the press to help him get his son back. Or so he hoped. Newspaper stories and ads conveyed messages to the kidnappers. Ann even issued a list of the food her son should eat so the kidnappers would know what to feed him. And the day after the kidnapping, Lindbergh issued an extraordinary statement to the press in which he offered a reward of $50,000 for the safe return of his child. But then he went further, saying that he himself was prepared to meet with the kidnappers.

[Will Rogers]

We further pledge ourselves that we will not try to injure in any way those connected with the return of the child.

[Joe Nocera]

He was effectively telling the kidnappers that they would not be prosecuted if they gave back little Lindy. Of course, Charles Lindbergh had no authority to offer the kidnappers immunity, but he did it anyway. Who would dare challenge the great aviator? By early morning, the local cops, and there were only two of them, had been pushed aside by the New Jersey State Police. The State Police were relatively new and had zero experience handling criminal investigations. Pretty soon, state troopers were the ones swarming all over the Lindbergh property, turning the garage into a temporary police headquarters and bunking in the main house. In a letter to her mother in law, Ann Morrow, Lindbergh described the scene.

[Ann Morrow Lindbergh]

This house is bedlam. Hundreds of men stamping in and out, sitting everywhere on the stairs, on the pantry sink. The telephone goes all day and night. People sleep all over the floors on newspapers and blankets. The chief of the Jersey police has not been able to sleep since the thing started. I wish I had more to tell you. I know it is a terrible strain on you. It is easier to be in the place where things are happening even if you can't do anything. I am in that position.

[Joe Nocera]

The chief Anne was referring to was Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf. And his official title was Commander of the New Jersey State Police. Yes, he was the father of Storman Norman schwarzkopf of the first Gulf War. A decorated World War I veteran, he had founded the Jersey State Police in 1921. Its first big task was catching bootleggers and he had trained the first few classes of troopers himself. In fact, if you visit the State Police headquarters, one of the first things you see is his statue looming over the grounds.

[Jay]

What have you spotted, Jay?

[Joe Nocera]

Well, I've spotted a statue of Colonel Norman Schwarzkopf. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the first superintendent of

[Poppy Damon]

the New Jersey State Police. Right.

[Jay]

So anyway, he's wearing kind of boots, breeches. He looks, he's got a mustache. He looks very 1930s, doesn't he?

[Joe Nocera]

Schwarzkopf was 36 when little Lindy was kidnapped. Tall, broad shouldered and always impeccably dressed in his gray uniform and polished boots, he carried himself with the rigid confidence of the military man he'd once been. Whatever his other skills, though, he knew absolutely nothing about how to investigate a crime.

[Patrick Bamarak]

When Schwarzkopf was appointed as head of the New Jersey State Police, this fledgling organization, they're inventing the organization as they go along.

[Joe Nocera]

That's Patrick Bamarak.

[Patrick Bamarak]

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

[Joe Nocera]

He knows all about Schwarzkopf because the two men hated each other. In fact, his great granduncle fired Schwarzkopf in 1936.

[Patrick Bamarak]

He's not a law enforcement person. He's a military man who understands vehicles, logistics, maneuvering in the field. He was not the right man for the job.

[Joe Nocera]

When the call about the Lindbergh kidnapping reached Schwarzkopf, he jumped in his police car and drove through the night, the gravel crunching beneath his tires as he arrived at the Lindbergh estate. Stepping into the house, Schwarzkopf surveyed the room with a commanding presence. He introduced himself briskly. I'm here to take charge. This case is now under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey State Police. What he was doing, of course, was claiming turf. He was especially keen on keeping away another fledgling organization, the FBI and its press savvy young leader, J. Edgar Hoover. He saw to it that a high level treasury investigator was pulled off the case. But the one person he didn't keep away, quite shocking really, was Charles Lindbergh himself. Anyone who looks into the Lindbergh kidnapping today is bound to be astonished at how deferential Schwarzkopf was to Lindbergh. It was simply assumed by Schwarzkopf and everyone else in America, for that matter, that Lindbergh couldn't possibly be involved in his own son's kidnapping. Greg Algren is a former detective turned Lindbergh kidnapping sleuth.

[Greg Algren]

And I think now we know that probably the parents should be looked at as much as anybody else.

[Joe Nocera]

So why didn't that happen? The answer is that Lindbergh was the most admired man in America. Schwarzkopf, for his part, practically worshiped the famous aviator. I would do anything he asked of me, Schwarzkopf was once quoted as saying. So when Lindbergh told him that the priority should be on seeing to it that the ransom was paid, even if it meant the kidnappers got away with it, Schwarzkopf did not object. And when Lindbergh also told him that his household staff was above reproach and that he wouldn't allow the state police to consider them potential suspects, Schwarzkopf went along with that as well. But, I mean, if you couldn't demand answers from Lindbergh's staff, how were you ever going to find out if someone on the inside had been involved? On a warm, cloudless fall day, Poppy and I visited the scene of the crime. It had taken us weeks to get this visit approved. The Lindbergh home is now a halfway house for teenage girls. For several decades, at least, it's been owned by the state of New Jersey. And visits from curious journalists, I can tell you are not encouraged. In fact, when we arrived, we were met by a very large human being who, I know I probably shouldn't call him a bouncer, except that he was, you know, a bouncer. He ordered us back to our car and told us not to return until we'd gotten rid of all of our electronic gear, including our phones. When we were finally allowed in, we were introduced to a young resident who served as our guide. But our bouncer was never far behind. I lost my nerve. What can I say? I've totally lost my nerve.

[Jay]

What the hell?

[Joe Nocera]

Now, I gotta tell you, being followed by this guy who could break our necks in an instant, it did not instill in me the warm and fuzzies.

[Poppy Damon]

Let's be honest, Poppy, it was not my finest moment as a journalist. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

[Joe Nocera]

Poppy and I debriefed afterwards.

[Jay]

What happened, Joe, when we went inside?

[Poppy Damon]

So she takes us upstairs and takes us into what, in 1931, was Charles

[Joe Nocera]

Lindbergh Jr. S bedroom.

[Jay]

It was a large room. It had the window still there and what was immediately kind of observable. It's quite a distance to cross out of the window, over to the crib and out again. And then when we were on the ground floor looking up, it was very clear that it'd be hard to know what window. It's hard to. There's so many windows, it's huge. You'd need to know which one.

[Poppy Damon]

Right. Which is, of course, one more reason to think there was an insider involved. It's just, it's implausible that somebody shows up there out of nowhere and picks exactly the right window when there are a dozen second floor windows in various places around the house.

[Joe Nocera]

We then walked downstairs. There were two more rooms we were allowed to see a library and what had once been Betty Gough's bedroom, which was to the left of the library

[Poppy Damon]

and just below the baby's bedroom.

[Jay]

We did a bit of a sound test. So we shut the doors. I went up the stairs just to see if someone had come through the front, would they have heard? And you said you could hear.

[Poppy Damon]

Right. And don't forget that there are a series of theories around this that in fact they never did go up the ladder and that whoever kidnapped the child actually did it by going up the stairs, taking the child out of the bed and either coming down the stairs with the child or handing it off to somebody who was on a ladder.

[Jay]

Yeah, And I think I agree. I mean, if we'd open the front door and then you could hear right through, it's just right there. It's just impossible they had to go through the window, right?

[Poppy Damon]

Yes, that's right, because the stairs are right next to the library and, you know, that's where the family and the servants were sitting, you know, talking when it happened.

[Jay]

We then asked the young woman whether she felt, you know, noise, carriage, and she said it kind of did. Now, everyone says it was a windy night, but it is hard to imagine that if the baby had cried or cried out, they wouldn't be heard from where they were sitting. I kind of wonder if, I don't know again, if was it an insider that the baby recognized.

[Joe Nocera]

Back outside, we looked up at the window again.

[Jay]

The other thing we observed was that looking up at the window, it's not a huge height. I wouldn't be scared to go on a ladder to that window.

[Poppy Damon]

Yeah, I agree with you on that. The issue then still becomes, though, how difficult was it to crawl in to the room from wherever the ladder happened to be? Positioned. It would have been difficult.

[Jay]

Yeah, I don't know. Like an athletic man, I think. Could get in. Good upper body strength. You just pull yourself in from the ledge. It's a solid window to pull yourself in.

[Poppy Damon]

Easy for you to say.

[Joe Nocera]

Poppy, can you see what's happening here? Poppy and I, we couldn't have been at the house for more than an hour. And yet, you know, here we are. Now our minds are just flooded with questions and theories and arguments about how in the world the strangest of kidnappings took place. And now we really do understand why all the people we're interviewing got so hooked on the Lindbergh case. Because you know something? We're hooked, too. Let's do a quick review. How did the kidnapper or kidnappers know that the family would be in Hopewell on a Tuesday night when the Lindberghs were never in Hopewell on a Tuesday night? Why was Lindbergh so hell bent on keeping his staff from being interviewed? How did the kidnappers know which room the baby was sleeping in?

[Greg Algren]

How do they know which window was the only window in the whole house that didn't latch? And there was only attempt made at one window because there's only one set of ladder imprints in the mud. So whoever put that ladder up against the house knew that that was the only window you could get in. How would he have known that?

[Joe Nocera]

Was it really possible for the kidnapper to pull himself into the baby's room using that ladder and then carry the baby out without being heard?

[Richard Cahill Jr.]

Either somebody inside of the house, There were only five people in the house, took the baby out of the crib and walked out the front door. And then somebody was outside and they gave that baby to somebody outside. Or somebody put the ladder outside and then somebody from inside the house picked the baby out of the crib and handed it to somebody on the ladder.

[Joe Nocera]

Why didn't Lindbergh check outside when he heard that cracking noise? Why didn't the baby cry out? Why didn't the family dog bark?

[Richard Cahill Jr.]

They had a dog that barked at everything named Wagoosh. Waguch didn't bark.

[Joe Nocera]

Why did Charles Lindbergh skip that dinner in Manhattan that night?

[Richard Cahill Jr.]

Lindbergh had a speaking engagement at the Waldorf's in Midtown Manhattan at 6pm on Tuesday, March 1, 1932. Not only would he get no show, he left a room full of people waiting to hear him speak. And instead of speaking there, he drove to Hopewell.

[Joe Nocera]

What do we make of the fact that Lindbergh had previously hidden the child from Ann and Betty Gao as a practical joke.

[Greg Algren]

I mean, that's an awful. That's something that would jump out at any law enforcement investigator.

[Joe Nocera]

Did the tours the butler gave to gate crashers allow someone a chance to scope out the house? Why was Lindbergh so insistent that the FBI be kept away? Why? Why? Why? The questions are endless. Before we leave you, we need to jump ahead 10 weeks to May 12, 1932. Most of the press has left Hopewell. About four miles from the Lindbergh mansion. A truck driver named William Allen pulls over to the side of the road. He has to pee. He steps cautiously into the undergrowth. His boots sink slightly into the soft ground. He moves a few paces deeper, past some trees, when he spots something. It's a strange shape, nearly entirely hidden by branches and moss. As Alan moves closer, his chest tightens. He suddenly realizes that what he's seeing is a child's body. He freezes in horror, stops breathing for a second. He sees a fractured skull and a face that's half decomposed and half still recognizable. He hurries back to the and he tells his partner to take a look. When his partner returns with the same horror in his eyes, they know what they have to do. They rush into town and report what they found. The police retrieve the body and take it to the morgue. They're pretty sure they know whose body it is. Betty Gough is brought to the station and shown the corpse. Sure enough, she identifies it as Charles Lindbergh Jr. The great aviator confirms it as well. This is no longer a kidnapping case. It's now a murder investigation.

[Nick Gillespie]

There are two shocks in that six and a half week period where one is the shock of the kidnapping in March and then on May 12, 1932, when the body is discovered that afternoon, that's the second shock.

[Joe Nocera]

Despite the greatest manhunt in history, the

[Greg Algren]

baby's murder was not discovered until his

[Joe Nocera]

little body was found here in the

[Greg Algren]

woods near his home two months later.

[Joe Nocera]

This area had been searched thoroughly and nothing had been found. So where in the world did that body come from? That's next time. 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.