Lindbergh Baby

Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Parents have a hard time trying to keep their children safe. When children get kidnapped, parents, parents have to try to try their hardest to save them. Such was the case of the Lindbergh family. It was a regular day on March 1st, 1932. Mr. Lindbergh was going to work and Mrs. Lindbergh was going to stay home with the baby. She went upstairs to check on the baby. He was not there. Mrs. Lindbergh then found a ransom note. All of a sudden the world crashed down on her. Her baby was kidnapped. March 1st, 1932, twenty-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was abducted from the family’s New Jersey home, prompting a massive search of the area (Zorn 45). Anne found a ransom note in the empty baby’s room asking for $50,000 (“Body”). She saw that a ladder was used to climb up to the open second-floor window. There were also muddy footprints left behind. That is all the investigators found. Then the Lindbergh parents got another ransom note asking for $70,000 (Zorn 49). They made plans to drop of the money. The kidnapper said the baby was on a boat, Nelly. The baby was not there (“FBI”). Someone had found the baby close to the mansion buried. For the next two years, detectives worked diligently to identify the killer (Zorn 57). September 24, 1934, Richard Hauptmann stood before New York to magistrate to hear that he was accused of extorting $50,000 from Charles Lindbergh (“An”). David Wilentz, Charles Lindberg’s attorney, outlined the prosecutions theory of the case. During his forty-five minute opening statement, Wilentz walked the jury through the events of the night of the kidnapping as he imagined them (Roensch 28). He reminded the jurors to listen carefully to all the evidence before making up their minds about the case. He described how Hauptmann used a ladder to climb up to the second-floor nursery at the Lindbergh home. The wood used for the ladder was the same as the rafters in Hauptmann’s home. He also had some of the marked money in his possession. Finally the 23 grand jurors unanimously voted to indict Hauptmann for the murder of the Lindbergh baby. At 8:44 on the evening of April 3, 1936 in the New Jersey State Prison, two-thousand volts of electricity were sent through Richard Hauptmann’s body (“An”). Hauptmann claimed he did not commit the murder (Roensch 55). Thus the trial until this day sparks debate. Justice is the fairness of how someone or something is treated, whether good or bad. There is clear evidence that Richard Hauptmann kidnapped and murdered Charles Lindbergh III. The evidence that was found included a ladder made from the rafters of his house and he had a portion of the “marked” money. Justice in this case was served. Hauptmann got what he deserved for doing the things he did.