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The Lindbergh Kidnapping

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The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping
Jeff Harris
5/19/2015

There are three main parts that make up our criminal justice system in America, the police, courts, and corrections. The Lindbergh baby, Charles Lindbergh Jr., was kidnapped from his bed sometime between the hours of 7:30pm and 10pm on March 1, 1932. (www.History.com). He was suffering from a cold and was left to drift off to sleep by his nanny, Betty Gow, with the window open. (www.clickamericana.com). When his father came to check on him and found him gone, he found a note demanding a $50,000 ransom. Three days later, another ransom note was found demanding $70,000. March 9, 1932 a man named John F. Condon, a retired teacher, claimed to have made contact with the kidnappers. He placed an ad in the Bronx Home News offering to be an intermediary. Mr. Condon alleged to have met with the kidnapper in several graveyards. He used the alias “Jafsie” and he dubbed the kidnapper “Graveyard John.” (www.pbs.org). The ransom was delivered on April 2, 1932 and the parents were told they could find the child on a boat off the Massachusetts coast called Nelly. The baby was not there. Finally, on May 12, 1932 the baby was found less than a mile from the New Jersey mansion. He had been dead from a fractured skull since the night he was taken. The case became a murder case at this point.
Many people were involved in the investigation but few clues were found. Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf was the official lead investigator. The police mistakenly allowed the father to do most of the investigating. Footprints were trampled and evidence was handled by many people rendering it worthless. (www.History.com). The case went cold until 1934 when a gold certificate was accepted by a gas station attendant. This man marked down the person’s license plate number and gave it to police because the use of gold certificates was uncommon at

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