The Cases That Haunt Us

by Mark Olshaker

  Two men in a blue-black sedan were reportedly asking around on Tuesday how to find the Lindbergh estate. The car was traced to a resident of Brooklyn, who said it had been stolen that day.

  In Trenton, police were told that at midnight, railroad brakemen had seen two men and a woman with a child on the platform, waiting for the New York–bound train and appearing nervous and agitated. These people were never identified.

  Schwarzkopf requested a list of everyone who had worked on the house, all to be checked out. He also asked for the names of all servants both in Hopewell and at Next Day Hill, to follow up the possibility of an inside job. No one could understand why the kidnapper or kidnappers had taken such risks rather than wait until everyone in the house would likely be asleep and the child’s disappearance would go unnoticed longer. That, and the fact that the dog had not barked, helped focus the chief ’s attention on the domestic staff.

  Yet at the same time, he had to acknowledge that the Lindbergh home was far from unknown outside the family. Its construction had been featured in magazines all over the country, with elaborate photos and floor plans. The house sat on one of the highest points in the state and would have been fairly visible, especially at night, to anyone secluded in the woods. And with only one road leading in and out, the family’s movements were easily monitored. That the offender had brought a chisel with him suggested he didn’t know the shutter could not be completely closed. Since the baby’s blanket was still essentially in place in the crib, it appeared that he had been pulled out by the head and therefore possibly handled roughly. There were no odors of chloroform, but that did not rule out the use of some chemical or drug to quiet or neutralize the child.

  TAKING CHARGE

  Lindbergh had built his career and reputation on controlling himself and whatever situation in which he found himself. With the life of his son at stake, he was not about to give up control here. And with his fame and influence, he had the clout to exert control and take charge, even in the face of a police investigation. Schwarzkopf, who deeply admired the aviation hero, essentially had to work around him.

  In consultation with Breckinridge, Lindbergh decided that the best chance of securing the return of the baby was to do what the kidnappers asked. But this was not an easy task. In the first few days after the abduction, thousands of pieces of mail were received at Hopewell. Three state police officers worked full-time sorting through it all looking for clues.

  It’s important to remember that during those Depression years, kidnapping had become a common criminal enterprise. There were even kidnapping syndicates in some of the major cities. Going back only two years—to 1930—four hundred abductions had been reported in Chicago alone. The day after Charlie Lindbergh disappeared, a boy in Niles, Ohio, was taken. That March, sixteen kidnappers were convicted and sent to prison. In fact, Anne’s younger sister had come close to being abducted in 1929.

  During the wait for further word from the kidnappers, several working theories were evolving. Lindbergh believed the offenders were professionals because of the absence of prints and the apparent knowledge of the house and the baby’s room. He suspected a gang was involved and wanted to get in touch with the underworld to see if a deal could be worked out.

  Because of the kidnappers’ apparent familiarity with the house and the location of the nursery, the construction of the ladder, and the relatively modest ransom request, Norman Schwarzkopf believed the offenders were local and nonprofessional.

  Lieutenant Arthur T. Keaton, Schwarzkopf ’s principal detective, wanted to pursue the possibility that the kidnapping had been an inside job, the work of domestic employees, since somehow the offenders knew that the family was not returning to the Morrow estate right after the weekend, as was their established custom, since the baby was ill. They had never before spent a Tuesday night in Hopewell.

  Charles and Anne expressed total faith in the family servants from the very beginning and never wavered in that faith.

  As with Lizzie Borden forty years earlier, Lindbergh raised some eyebrows by his seemingly overly stoic reaction to Charlie’s abduction. He was so unemotional, it was said, that either (a) he did not really love his son in the normal, human way, or (b) he had to have had something to do with the crime. The rumors began to resurface about the little boy being somehow defective, either mentally or physically, and that the perfectionist colonel couldn’t deal with this.

  I bring this up here primarily to shoot it down. First of all, there was absolutely no remotely creditable evidence to suggest anything was abnormal about the child. But more to the point, I have seen enough parents in times of terrible grief to know that emotional reaction to such horror is very individual. Some people let the floodgates open up; others maintain a quiet and icy control. Most are somewhere in the middle. But no reaction is “right” or “wrong.” Everyone who faces what must be the worst thing that can happen to a person copes as he or she must.

  One time when I was on the television program America’s Most Wanted, I was talking to host John Walsh about this subject as it related to a case they were currently featuring. Walsh, whose career as a pursuer of predators had its origins with the horrible murder of his young son Adam, put it succinctly: “Who are any of us to say how a person is supposed to react to something like this?”

  In the case of Lizzie Borden, the detachment reflected the mind-set of a calculating murderess. In the case of Charles Lindbergh, it reflected the personality of a man who had regularly faced death and gotten through the experience by not going to pieces. So each reaction means something different. If surface behavior were that easy to interpret, it would take little or no training and anyone could be a profiler.

  Anne did whatever she could to cope, relying heavily on the emotional support of her mother and confessing her fears to her own diary. Her father, Dwight, always a source of strength, had died in his sleep of a cerebral hemorrhage the previous October 31. Those around Anne worried that the stress and sleeplessness might threaten her pregnancy. In an attempt to do something constructive, on the morning after the abduction she wrote out the baby’s diet and offered it to the press. The diet appeared the following day on the front page of virtually every newspaper in America. Anne and Charles also published a statement in those same newspapers expressing their desire to make personal contact with the kidnappers or to communicate with them through any intermediaries they might designate. They said they would keep all pledges of secrecy and were only interested in getting their child back; that they would “not try to injure in any way those connected with the return of the child.”

  New Jersey attorney general William A. Stevens issued his own statement, empathizing with the Lindberghs’ anguish and desire to get their child back, but making it clear that the kidnappers were in no way being offered immunity.

  On March 2, a postcard arrived that said, “Baby safe. Instructions later. Act accordingly.” No red and blue circles were present, and the handwriting was different from that of the note found in the nursery, but police certainly took it seriously. However they were able to trace it to a mentally disturbed seventeen-year-old boy who wanted to see if it would get into the newspapers.

  THE DEMANDS

  On March 4, a second ransom communication arrived, scolding Lindbergh for involving the police, and upping the monetary demand to $70,000 because of the additional security and “administrative concerns” this imposed on the offenders. The same signature of interlocking circles appeared at the bottom of the note. It was handwritten in ink on both sides of the paper and had been mailed from Brooklyn, New York.

  Dear Sir. We have warned you note to make anyding public also notify the police now you have to take consequences—means we will holt the baby until everyding is quite. We can note make any appointments just now. We know very well what it means to us. It is rely necessary to make a world affair out of this, or to get your baby back as sun as possible to settle those affair in a quick way will be better for both seits. Don’t by af
raid about the baby two ladys keeping care of its day and night. She also will fed him according to the diet. Sintuere on all letters

  We are interested to send him back in gut health. And ransom was made aus for 50000 $ but now we have to take another person to it and probably have to keep the 25000 $ in 20$ bill 15000 $ in 10$ bills and 10000 in 5$ bills Don’t mark any bills or take them from one serial normer. We will form you latter were to deliver the mony. But we will note do so until the Police is out of the cace and the pappers are qute. The kidnaping we prepared for years so we are preparet for everyding.

  Thinking that this note might have been intercepted by the police, the offender sent another letter to Breckinridge’s office to be delivered to Lindbergh.

  Dear Sir: Dit you receive ouer letter from March 4.we sent the mail on one off the letter—near Boro Hall, Brooklyn. We know Police interfer with your privatmail. How can we come to any arrangements this way. in the future we will send ouer letters to Mr. Breckenbridge at 25 Broadway. We believe polise captured our letter and let note forwarded to you. We will note accept any go-between from your seid. We will arrangh theas later. There is no worry about the boy. He is very well and will be feed according to the diet. Best dank for information about it. We are interested to send your boy back in gut health.

  It is necessary to make a world-affair out of it, or to get your boy back as soon as possible. Why did you ignore ouer letter which we left in the room the baby would be back long ago. You would not get any result from Polise becace our kidnaping was planet for a year allredy. But we were afraid the boy would not be strong enough.

  Ouer ransom was made out for $50000$ but now we have to put another to it as properly have to hold the baby longer as we expected so it will be 70000$ 20000 in 50$ bills 25000 in 25$ bills 12000$ in 10$ bills and 10000 in 5$ bills. We warn you again not to mark any bills or take them from one ser.No. We will inform you latter how to deliver the mony but not before the polise is out of this cace and the pappers are quite.

  Now, despite what I just said about not everyone being able to be a profiler, I think you’ll agree that a couple of things come across loud and clear in these notes. The letter writer’s first language is not English; he is not American-born, even American-born illiterate. Though many of the basic words are badly misspelled, he got a lot of the hard ones right, which suggests he was using a dictionary. Rather than an illiterate American, the communications suggest a Germanic language speaker, as evidenced by such spellings as gut for good, and phonetic spellings such as ding instead of thing.

  So Lindbergh had to be wrong from the get-go—this was not the work of any organized crime organization in the United States. They wouldn’t be so sloppy on communicating something so directly related to their business. It’s just too “unprofessional.” Also, they would have asked for far more money and would have made a direct threat if their demand was not met.

  Could it be that more than one person was involved? Maybe, maybe not; we wouldn’t know that from the letters. The notes certainly appeared to have been written by one person, and none of the myriad of handwriting experts eventually brought into the case disagreed with that presumption. However, kidnappers often communicate as “we” even if there is only one to project more strength and organization than they actually have, and this one was clearly doing that in claiming that the crime had been “planet for a year allredy.”

  Despite what appears obvious from this perspective, Lindbergh decided to deal with the criminal underworld. Al Capone, who had been the king of organized crime in Chicago until brought down on tax evasion charges, was at the moment residing in Cook County Jail in preparation for transfer to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Capone—who had ruthlessly stamped out his competition, such as Hymie Weiss, and then had seven men in a North Side garage massacred on St. Valentine’s Day, 1929, while searching unsuccessfully for Weiss’s successor, George “Bugs” Moran—expressed himself outraged and morally offended that such a crime had taken place and personally offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the safe recovery of the child. He also told Hearst newspaper columnist Arthur Brisbane that he was pretty sure the mob had done it and he thought he could get the baby back—if he could be let out of jail long enough to accomplish the mission. Not surprisingly, the feds would have none of it.

  But Lindbergh believed in the mob connection and announced that a pair of bootleggers, Salvatore Spitale and Irving Bitz, would be authorized by him to deal with the kidnappers. Their associate Morris Rosner took over as Lindbergh’s “secretary” and on March 12 claimed that the baby was alive and negotiations were progressing well. He asked for $2,500 in personal expenses, which Lindbergh gave him. A little later, Spitale and Bitz unintentionally proved their underworld bona fides by getting arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy by federal Prohibition agents for a shipload of bootlegged booze that had come into a dock in Brooklyn. Their connection with Lindbergh, however, was enough to have the charges summarily dropped.

  Meanwhile, perhaps the strangest and most enigmatic figure of all entered the case.

  ENTER JAFSIE

  John F. Condon, seventy-two years of age with a distinguished white mustache and always neatly turned out in a dark suit and vest, was a retired physical education teacher and principal in the Bronx, a place he considered the most beautiful in the world. Though he was almost universally referred to as “Doctor,” we have found no specific reference to a Ph.D., and he was certainly not a medical doctor. Jim Fisher, an FBI special agent during my early years with the Bureau and now a professor and writer, describes Condon in his important book, The Lindbergh Case, as perceiving himself as a scholar-athlete. I would surmise from Condon’s subsequent behavior with both the media and law enforcement authorities that he must have been the kind of teacher who liked to stand up in front of the class and hear himself talk. He would pontificate at the drop of a hat. He was also deeply patriotic in an ingenuous, almost mawkish way. He was appalled by this crime against America’s greatest hero, thought it was a national disgrace, and wanted to do something to help. Just as likely, I think, he wanted to have some personal connection and self-importance in what was shaping up as the biggest story of the age.

  After reading about the role these cheap thugs Spitale and Bitz were playing, Condon wrote a letter to the Bronx Home News, which appeared in the March 8 edition, offering his own services as intermediary with the kidnappers and pledging $1,000 of his own hard-earned savings to add to the ransom. I think this one fact says a lot about that sense of selfimportance.

  Since the paper was hardly known outside the Bronx, no one in the investigation gave Condon’s offer much attention, if they knew of it at all. Certainly Lindbergh did not.

  The day after his letter appeared in print, Condon was out of his house until around ten in the evening. When he returned home, the first thing he did, as was his habit, was to sort through the day’s mail. One envelope was in a primitive handwriting. Inside was the following handwritten letter:

  dear Sir: If you are willing to act as go-between in the Lindbergh case please follow strictly instruction. Handel incloced letter personaly to Mr. Lindbergh. It will explain everyding. don’t tell anyone about it as soon we find out the press or Police is notifyd everyding are cancell and it will be a further delay. Affter you gett the mony from Mr. Lindbergh put these 3 words in the New-York American

  MONY IS REDY

  Affter notise we will give you further instruction. don’t be affrait we are not out fore your 1000$ keep it. Only act stricly. Be at home every night between 6-12 by this time you will hear from us.

  Inside the envelope was a smaller one bearing two lines in the same handwriting:

  Dear Sir: Please handel incloced letter to Colonel Lindbergh. It is in Mr. Lindbergh interest not to notify the Police.

  Despite the warning not to tell anyone, Condon didn’t feel he could exactly keep quiet about so momentous a development. For one thing, he concluded, he would have to get
this communication to his hero Colonel Lindbergh and he didn’t have a car. He decided to confide in his friend Al Reich, who did.

  Reich was a former prizefighter who now worked in real estate and was known to hang out at Max Rosenhain’s restaurant at 188th Street and the Grand Concourse. Condon took a trolley, but when he got to the restaurant, Reich wasn’t there. Not able to contain himself, Condon showed the letter to Rosenhain, who suggested he show it also to another friend of both men, Milton Gaglio, a clothing salesman who happened to be there at the time. Gaglio did have a car and agreed to drive Condon to Hopewell. The three discussed exactly how they should go about this, finally concluding that it would be best for Condon to call first and establish his credibility.

  Condon got through but was handed off from voice to voice until he got to someone who said he took all of Colonel Lindbergh’s calls. This was his personal secretary, Robert Thayer. Condon explained who he was, spewing out a long list of his academic credentials and teaching positions. At this point, accounts diverge. Thayer stated that he alone spoke with Condon. Condon, who was much given to pomposity and self-aggrandizement, claimed that he then spoke directly to Lindbergh. I tend to doubt this version, but in any event, Condon did read the letter, then was asked to open the accompanying envelope and read its contents aloud.

  Dear Sir, Mr. Condon may act as go-between. You may give him the 70000 $. make one packet the size will bee about—

  Condon explained that a drawing of a box indicated the size should be seven inches by six inches by fourteen inches, then continued reading: