March 6, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 21 radicals, immigrants, or people of color -- refused to confess. Handwriting experts generally confirmed that Hauptmann’s handwriting was that of the ransom note, down to the Germanic misspellings of several words. Two experts who felt otherwise did not formally testify. Possession of part of the ransom money, Hauptmann’s service as a German machine-gunner in World War I, and his nonviolent post-war criminal record in the German state of Saxony -- including one theft involving the use of a ladder -- pointed to him as a very plausible suspect. The telephone number of one of Lindbergh’s bungling assistants, the contact man for the ransom drop-off, was found written on an interior wall in Hauptman’s house. Several forensic experts testified that the wood used for kidnap ladder came from Hauptmann’s garage -- and Hauptmann was a carpenter. Again, an expert who did not believe this did not testify. Hauptmann flatly denied he had kidnapped or killed the Lindbergh baby -- even when he was offered a chance to save his own life and benefit his family with cash before he got the chair on April 3, 1936. The decision split before the state threw the switch. People in the German-American community saw Hauptmann as one more victim of the World War I Creel Commission and British propaganda that attacked all things German. This argument can be overdone. When Prosecutor David Wilentz is heard on the sound movies of the trial blasting Hauptman as a “superman,” his reference is probably not to Hitler but to the Leopold-Loeb Case of the previous decade, where a couple of high-IQ punks from Chicago who wanted to be “supermen” murdered a teenaged boy to bond with each other by committing the “perfect murder.” (The two killers and the victim were all Jewish.) Hauptmann’s trial took place before Nazi government promulgated the Nuremburg Laws in the autumn of 1935, the first concrete Nazi venture into official anti-Semitism. Before the Nuremburg Laws and the November 1938 horror of Kristallnacht, mainstream Americans tended to see Hitler as an eccentric but useful anti-communist. New Jersey did not frame Hauptmann because he was German. State officials may, however, have pushed for a conviction because they needed a fall guy and Hauptman was an ex-con with some marked ransom money and some shady friends. One shady friend of Hauptmann’s was Isidor Fisch, a Jewish German known as a non-violent but capable swindler in the German-speaking community of the Bronx. Fisch returned to Germany in the summer of 1934 -- suggesting that fear of Nazism was not yet endemic -- and after Fisch died of tuberculosis in October of 1934 and Hauptmann got caught holding the marked money, Hauptmann claimed he got the marked ransom money from Fisch for payment of debts. Both Hauptman and Fisch were somewhat shady characters, despite the spirited defense of Hauptmann’s character by Hauptmann’s admirable but misguided wife, Anna, which went on for decades. A recent “Nova” program failed to mention Fisch -- perhaps another plausible suspect in the money matter, though not in the kidnapping. The various sources cannot agree on whether there were one or two kidnappers at the house at Hopewell, but the FBI confirms that no useful fingerprints were found inside the house and that no recovered footprint matched Hauptmann’s shoe size. “Nova” did add one or two elements to a case that may be crumbling, but has not yet collapsed. A man by the name of Sargur N. Srihari has developed a computerized handwriting analysis program. He scanned the Hauptmann handwriting specimens and the Lindbergh ransom note, and found the specimens and the note were not in the same handwriting. Earlier, a British expert whose advice was not part of the testimony had also pointed out “marked differences.” The ladder -- the key to conviction by the 1934 jury - also remains controversial. The wood of the ladder was 1/16th less thick than the boards from Hauptmann’s garage, and no exact match of the grain was possible because of the cut of the board, though a match seemed plausible based on specimens shown on “Nova.” The non-clincher is that DNA can now prove whether the ladder and the garage boards came from the same tree. The state has reportedly refused to release the ladder to be tested. New Jersey has also reportedly refused to pursue DNA tests of the traces of saliva on the ransom note envelopes. What happened? Pure guesswork, consonant with the new evidence, suggests that Fisch, possibly using Hauptmann for muscle, laundered the ransom money after he swapped a smaller amount of dirty street money to the actual kidnappers. Fisch then left much of the money with Hauptmann, who spent it too soon. They were probably accessories after the fact, but probably not the actual kidnappers, or the deliberate or accidental killers of the Lindbergh baby. They deserved jail time, but not the chair. However, when one side needs a martyr and the other side needs a scapegoat, the logical truth tends to evaporate. The Crime of the Century may last for another century unless somebody does the DNA tests. New Jersey is famous, among other things, for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, which took place 81 years ago. New Jersey is also famous for the allegations that the investigation was bungled and the wrong guy got the chair. Since names like Wilentz and Schwarzkopf figure in the case, the baby’s mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was the daughter of Dwight Morrow, and Lindbergh was a familiar figure at Teterboro Airport and is a name-brand American hero, this case will never be closed. But what really happened? On March 1, 1932, Charlie Lindbergh, the aviator’s first baby, vanished from an upstairs bedroom in a mansion near Hopewell. Lindbergh himself seized control of the investigation, though police in New York and New Jersey were also involved. The kidnapper or kidnappers left behind a clumsy-looking but serviceable collapsible ladder with 400 fingerprints that turned out to be useless because investigators handled it too much. Various helpful or exhibitionistic buffoons tripped over one another and the evidence, further complicating matters, starting with the number of tracks they left on the lawn. The legendary Gaston B. Means, who had been both a British and a German spy before America’s entry into World War I and was acquitted of murdering a previous employer because he lost her investments, copped a cool $104,000 from a rich widow on the promise of rescuing the Lindbergh baby alive. Meanwhile, Charles Lindbergh and the Morrow family offered a negotiated ransom of $50,000, down from $70,000 -- paid in old-style U.S. gold certificates soon to be withdrawn from circulation, with the serial numbers recorded. The kidnappers furnished Lindbergh with the baby’s pajamas as evidence by mail on April Fool’s Day 1932, and the marked ransom money changed hands in a cemetery in the Bronx the next day. The baby was not found at the specified location, despite a frantic search. On May 12, a black truck driver who walked into the woods five miles from the Lindbergh home to answer the call of nature found the long-dead baby in the woods. Both of the child’s hands were missing -- gnawed by raccoons or feral dogs -- but the clothing and dental records identified Charlie to his father’s satisfaction. Suspecting an inside job, investigators questioned Violet Sharp, the family’s English housemaid. Sharp committed suicide before her fourth questioning. Charlie being dead, Means finally went to prison for the rest of his somewhat scabrous life. Marked gold certificates from the ransom began to turn up by the fistful in New York City, but nobody could trace them. Then, in September of 1934, a numbered gold certificate from the ransom with an automobile license number written on it turned up and was traced by license number to Bruno Richard Hauptmann, an illegal German immigrant who lived in the Bronx and had quit working about the time the ransom was paid. A police descent on Hauptmann’s house found $13,760 of the money hidden in Hauptmann’s house and garage. Hauptmann, despite a ferocious beating by the New York police -- fairly routine in those days in dealing with Why unsolved crimes stay unsolved Glen Rock Roundup Advisory group to meet The Senior Citizen Advisory Committee of Glen Rock, chaired by Doris Ciaramella, will meet on Tuesday, March 12. The committee will gather at 1:30 p.m. at the municipal building located at Harding Plaza. All are invited. The borough provides bus transportation for residents age 65 and older and for disabled adults who cannot drive. For more information, call Paula Fleming at (201) 6703956 Seniors who may need assistance with snow shoveling may contact Glen Rock Recreation Director Marc Barone at (201) 670-3951. Learn about house plants Dr. Susan Petro will present “Growing House Plants” at the March 19 meeting of the Glen Rock Garden Club. The club meets at 7:45 p.m. in the Glen Rock Municipal Annex Building located at 678 Maple Avenue. Dr. Petro will discuss choosing, feeding, watering, and repotting plants. The presentation will include a Power Point demonstration. Dr. Petro received her doctorate in veterinary medicine from Cornell University, and teaches biology at Ramapo College of New Jersey. She holds certificates in plant systematics and field botany from the New York Botanical Garden. Garden club meetings are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more information, call (201) 447-6099. Local students honored The following students from Glen Rock have been named to the Dean’s List for the fall 2012 semester: Joseph S. Leem, Baylor University; Eric Agnello (President’s List), Berkeley College; Lisa Mogami, Lehigh University; Michael Angelo Amoresano, Marlon Becker, Jeffrey M. Dendett, Patrick A. Cua, Joy Gammel, David M. Goldsholl, Kelly Talbot Haggerty, Beasann Hammoud, Julia L. Hughes, Jessica C. Julianda, Cyril C. Julianda, Kaitlynn Kusant, Nina E. LoPiccolo, Alyssa Maria Muller, Caitlin F. O’Neill, Brittany Lynn Ritterman, Molly Rose Roecker, Stephen Joseph Sorace, Christopher S. Stone, and Susan Amy Vanino, Ramapo College; Chelsey L. Van Heest, Rowan University; and Neely Broderick Dolan, University of Connecticut. Arboretum seeks volunteers for spring cleanup The Thielke Arboretum, located at 460 Doremus Avenue, in Glen Rock, will hold a Volunteer Day on Saturday, March 9. Volunteers will be needed 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. (Rain date: March 16). Adults, teenagers, and children ages five and up are invited to help with a variety of tasks to prepare the arboretum for spring. Tasks planned for the day include raking the gravel along marked paths to prevent further erosion and cutting down dried grasses and pond reeds to make room for new growth. Children may also play an active role by weaving waddles, an ancient construction of living materials placed in strategic locations to take root and prevent soil loss. Volunteers are encouraged to dress for the weather and are welcome to bring garden gloves, pruners, rakes, wheelbarrows, and weed wackers. For further information on programs, or how to become a member, visit www.glenrockarboretum.org, or call (201) 447-0452. Press releases for this column may be e-mailed to editorial@villadom.com. Deadline is Wednesday at noon.