The Sixteenth Rail

Home > Nonfiction > The Sixteenth Rail > Page 1
The Sixteenth Rail Page 1

by Adam Schrager




  “The Sixteenth Rail is a compelling read about one of the most notorious crimes of the last century. Adam Schrager digs into the roots of forensics with a gripping tale of a USDA xylotomist who uses his deep knowledge of wood to finger the suspect. In a world where CSI solves crimes by the dozen every night, here is a true tale of a real, mild-mannered guy and his amazing knowledge of all things wood. It is a great story about the unpredictable relevancy of obscure knowledge.”

  —Kirk Johnson, Sant Director, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

  “Industry rightfully spends millions of dollars to stimulate innovation. They should spend some of those millions distributing this book. The modest Arthur Koehler was perhaps the greatest detective innovator of the 20th Century.”

  —Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper

  “This exceptionally well written book is a must for anyone interested in the Lindbergh Kidnapping and the history of forensic science. Adam Schrager has done a masterful job by providing new information in what is perhaps the greatest forensic case in history.”

  —Paul Dowling, Creator and Executive Producer of Forensic Files

  “A well-researched, well-written account of Arthur Koehler, the wood expert who has been called “the father of forensics” and his exacting study of the ladder in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. The Sixteenth Rail explains how forensic science began expansion into new scientific realms beyond fingerprints and bullet markings. A thoroughly engaging account of the times and the trial.”

  —Dr. Shirley Graham, Curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden

  “A dedicated government employee of the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory, Arthur Koehler, uses keen forensic skills with wood to help solve one of the 20th Century’s greatest crimes. The author masterfully depicts how Koehler, who knew that the wood from trees never really dies, deploys the tenacity of a great detective to make the ladder used in the kidnap of Charles Lindbergh’s son eventually point to Bruno Hauptmann. The reader is continually captivated by the incredible force and unflinching will Arthur Koehler brings to his scientific craft to coax compelling clues from the ‘rails and styles’ to help solve one of America’s most horrific crimes.”

  —Michael T. Rains, Acting Director, Forest Product Laboratory

  “I have never read a book so well researched or with as much depth into the forensic issues of a criminal case. The background on Arthur Koehler, “Slim” Lindbergh, and the other characters made it such an enjoyable read - which is not typically the case when science is such a large factor in a book. For those of us who have a keen, or even passing, interest in criminal justice cases and particularly forensic science, The Sixteenth Rail is a must read. Arthur Koehler is now on my list of American heroes. I will want to get my hands on more copies to gift my fellow Police friends.”

  —Colonel Mark Trostel, former head of the Colorado State Patrol

  “The Sixteenth Rail is a riveting chronicle of the investigation and trial that dominated American public life for over two years in the early 1930s -- and the “xylotomist” (“expert on the identification of wood”) at the center of that case, Arthur Koehler. In my 12 years as a federal prosecutor, I never encountered a witness remotely like Koehler; he combines unquestioned expertise, precision, and drama. Adam Schrager weaves a compelling tale of forensic science, criminal law, and American history. This incredible true story reads like a novel.”

  —Anthony Barkow, former Federal prosecutor

  “As Arthur Koehler’s granddaughter I grew up hearing his story and knew how it ended. Yet I raced through Mr. Schrager’s suspenseful and perceptive book, eager to see how it all unfolded: the farm boy turned world-renowned forensic scientist, his meticulous investigations, and the dramatic courtroom testimony. Schrager’s portrait feels true to the intelligent, conscientious, outdoors-loving man I knew--and I even learned some surprising things about my own grandfather!”

  —Nikki Koehler Guza, Arthur Koehler’s granddaughter

  Text © 2013 Adam Schrager

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review—without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Schrager, Adam.

  Sixteenth rail : the evidence, the scientist, and the Lindbergh kidnapping / Adam Schrager.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-55591-716-6

  1. Lindbergh, Charles Augustus, 1930-1932--Kidnapping, 1932. 2. Koehler, Arthur. 3. Kidnapping--New Jersey--Hopewell. 4. Criminal investigation--United States--History--20th century. 5. Forensic sciences--United States--History--20th century. I. Title.

  HV6603.L5S37 2013

  364.15’4092--dc23

  2013003985

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Design by Jack Lenzo

  Fulcrum Publishing

  4690 Table Mountain Dr., Ste. 100

  Golden, CO 80403

  800-992-2908 • 303-277-1623

  www.fulcrumbooks.com

  To Harper, Clark, and Payton

  The journey is the reward.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Introduction

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  Epilogue

  Endnotes

  Prologue

  My three older sisters, Julie, Sarina, and Abbey, would assert the roots of this project date back to my “G-man” fixation during the summer of 1977.

  We were driving to the West Coast from the Chicago area, and my reading material for the trip included FBI tales of heroism and ingenuity. My fascination with crime fighting and J. Edgar Hoover was matched only by my love of the Chicago Cubs and outfielder José Cardenal.

  Roughly six years earlier, a man known as D. B. Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient Boeing 727 plane and parachuted out somewhere between Seattle and Portland with a $200,000 ransom. He was described as roughly six feet tall, in his mid-forties, and was last seen wearing a dark suit with a white shirt and black tie.

  For the three weeks of our trip, every day—multiple times per hour, at times—this seven-year-old aspiring special agent implored his parents and sisters to call the police anytime we saw a man in a dark suit. The fact that in the five-plus years since the crime he had likely changed outfits at least once was clearly lost on me.

  Because my sisters weren’t interested in solving crimes, I occupied myself on that trip out west by reading. I distinctly remember learning about the kidnapping of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. and how the subsequent investigation including forensic science sparked a modernizing of the FBI.

  So some thirty-five years later, when a colleague of mine at Wisconsin Public Television mentioned to me that the ladder used in the Lindbergh kidnapping was here in Madison, at the US Forest Products Laboratory, I immediately picked up the phone to learn more.

  It turned out the ladder at FPL was only a replica, but the story of Arthur Koehler, who once studied parts of the original ladder there and became, in the words of journalists, “the Sherlock Holmes of our era,” was new to me.

  In fact, Koehler knew far more about botany than Sherlock Hol
mes did, as I learned from Holmes expert Resa Haile in Janesville, Wisconsin. She provided me with detailed information about how the world’s most famous detective fared in the world of botany. This project would not have gotten off the ground without the help of Rebecca Wallace and Julie Blankenburg at the Forest Products Lab. I greatly appreciate their efforts to find all things Koehler-related in the files there. Their colleague, Dr. Rick Green, challenged me from the get-go to ask questions, dig deeper, and probe further. I hope the efforts displayed here meet his high standards of approval.

  Former FPL employees Dr. Regis Miller, Robert Kurtenacker, and Diana Smith were also extremely helpful. The personnel files of the lab employees at the center of this case were provided by Ashley Mattingly, an archivist with the National Archives and Records Administration. Family members, including John Marshall Cuno and Yvonna Cuno, supplemented those findings with personal details.

  My family is a great support system, serving as early readers and as constant listeners throughout the process. My parents, Joyce and Leonard Schrager; my in-laws, Geneva and Bill Jokerst; and my aunt, June Sochen, a former college history professor and author, deserve particular thanks.

  Honestly, there was a time, with three kids under six, that I didn’t think I would finish this project. That’s only because I did not want to miss a moment with my constant sources of joy, our three children, Harper, Clark and Payton. Realistically, though, without the help of my wife and best friend, Cathy, this book would not be a reality. What can you say to the person who makes you better? “Thank you” simply doesn’t seem like enough.

  My friends Rob Witwer, Will Steinberg, Bob Delaporte, Phil Yau, Josh Mitzen, Rebecca Fitzgerald, Tony Barkow, Adam Benson, Jim Wilson, Christy Tetzler, Eli Stokols, and Eleanor Atkeson have listened to me drone on about this story for a while, as have numerous colleagues, particularly Ryan Ward and Bruce Johnson.

  The executive producer of my unit, Christine Sloan-Miller, whose father worked to preserve Wisconsin’s great outdoors during his career with the Department of Natural Resources, recognized the value of this story and allowed me to pursue it in my free time. I thank her for that.

  My former Colorado colleague Dan Weaver provided some background on his home state of South Carolina. Another former colleague, Nicole Vap, helped me track down an interview subject in Australia.

  When it came to researching the criminal case against Bruno Hauptmann, Michael Melsky, Dr. Lloyd Gardner, Jim Fisher, Kelvin Keraga, and Kevin Klein provided invaluable insights. One of the nation’s preeminent archivists, Fred MacDonald, sent me video of the crime scene, of the courthouse in Flemington, New Jersey, and more, bringing the years 1932 to 1935 to life for me.

  My neighbor here in Madison, Elizabeth Kingston, opened up her house, where Arthur Koehler used to live, and let me hang out in what was Koehler’s study one afternoon to see what vibes I might be able to feel.

  The soundtrack I listened to while writing was once again supplied by the KBCO Studio C Channel. I may have moved out of Colorado, but it’s nice to know there’s a still a great song available to me at any time online. Jennifer Ryan, Melanie Roth, and Jack Lenzo at Fulcrum Publishing, also located in Colorado, have been a joy to work with.

  Unlike many authors today, I am fortunate to be able to contact my publisher directly. Sam Scinta approved this project on one of the many calls he’s received from me that start with me saying, “I’ve got an idea.” His confidence in me supersedes my own, and I am forever indebted to him for that faith.

  On Sam’s request and with Terry Frei’s strongest of recommendations in mind, I met Kate Thompson for coffee and a conversation about this project before she ever laid eyes on anything I’d written. She has since hooked me on the Avett Brothers and endowed me with a better appreciation of the Chicago Manual of Style, even if I do find that guidebook archaic and unwieldy. I’ve always believed the best editors make writers and authors out of storytellers. I knew going into this that Arthur Koehler’s story was a fantastic one, and if it’s told well in the subsequent pages, a great deal of credit goes to Kate.

  There is no one who studies the Lindbergh case without paying homage to Mark Falzini, the archivist at the New Jersey State Police Museum. He oversees the 250,000-plus documents, exhibits, and artifacts associated with the case, and he’s forgotten far more about this case than I will ever know. I cannot say enough about how much help he provided me, but more importantly, in Mark I’ve found a new friend who’s generous with his time, intelligent, funny, a terrific author himself, and a heckuva bagpiper in his free time.

  Finally, there could be no book about Arthur Koehler without the aid of his son, George Koehler. He and his wife, Margie, could not have been more gracious, opening up their home and their private records to me in the process. As the caretakers of Arthur’s letters to his wife and to his brothers and parents for decades, they have shared more than I could have imagined. I truly hope I have treated their family story with the respect it deserves. They have my sincere gratitude and admiration.

  It’s a long way from a family driving trip to a biography about the father of forensic botany. But as Arthur Koehler would often say, “Go as far as you can see, and then see how far you can go.”

  Introduction

  To Arthur Koehler, no detail was too small. He lived in a world of microscopes and ultraviolet rays, centimeters and millimeters.

  And on September 20, 1934, while he focused through his silver-framed hexagonal glasses, he found the column inches of his paper woefully lacking.

  “Ding bust it,” he murmured with a furrowed brow as he scoured the three-cent extra edition of the Wisconsin State Journal. It was as close to an expletive as the nondemonstrative scientist would utter.

  Koehler’s official title was xylotomist, US Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin. He was the federal government’s first-ever xylotomist, translated from Greek as a “cutter of wood.” For all intents and purposes, he was the country’s preeminent expert on wood identification. He studied under his microscope up to three thousand slivers of wood annually for the government, labeling and chronicling his findings.

  Xylotomy was so unknown, the Associated Press sarcastically reported in 1912, that the US Civil Service Commission was spending all of its time “explaining the meaning of the term” after it posted the position Koehler eventually obtained. But Koehler had known what it meant, had met the qualifications of a mastery of both systematic and structural botany, and for the last two decades had served as the only xylotomist in the country, at the world’s foremost laboratory on the topic, where he oversaw the Section of Silvicultural Relations.

  The Wisconsin native wrote the book on wood, literally. The Properties and Uses of Wood had come out in 1924, published by New York house McGraw-Hill and distributed worldwide through its London office. “We are prone to think of timber in its various forms as a gradually passing material of construction and manufacture,” he wrote.

  On every hand we see evidences of steel, stone or concrete being used in place of wood. However, the fact remains that the annual consumption of timber in this country has decreased very little during the last two decades. . . .

  This book deals with facts about the characteristics and properties of wood which can be applied by the forester in selecting the more useful kinds of timber to grow, and by the lumberman, manufacturer, dealer and consumer in promoting the more efficient utilization of forest products.

  As he sat in his living room that Thursday night, still dressed in his work clothes of a gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie, he studied the paper as intently as he would a piece of black locust from the spire of an eighteenth-century Pennsylvania church or a Sitka spruce used to make a famous violin or a thousand-year-old sample of cypress found during the excavation of a Washington, DC, hotel sent to his Wisconsin laboratory for identification.

  “Lindbergh Kidnapping Suspe
ct Arrested, $35,000 of Ransom Money Recovered,” blared the newspaper headline. “EXTRA! Alien Nabbed in Effort to Pass $10 Bill.”

  Like millions worldwide, Koehler found the kidnapping of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. riveting. It was, after all, the violation of “America’s best-loved couple” and the country’s most famous child. One Movietone newsreel announcer had soberly called the search for the culprit or culprits in the spring of 1932 “the greatest manhunt in history.” Another called it “the most atrocious crime in America’s history.”

  The three sections of the ladder left at the Lindbergh estate. It was used to climb into the 2nd floor nursery of the home to abduct “the world’s baby,” Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. (Courtesy: Dr. Regis Miller/Forest Products Laboratory)

  When Lindbergh Sr. became the first person to successfully fly across the Atlantic Ocean, he had earned more than the $25,000 prize. No one in the world—no government leader, no religious figure, no athlete—was as famous as Lindbergh. His presence anywhere drew thousands of spectators, dignitaries, and common folks alike. His every move was chronicled, his every expression analyzed, his every word parsed and reported.

  But unlike most of those following the news story, Koehler’s fascination with Charles and Anne Lindbergh’s situation was rooted not in their fame but in the instrument used to carry out the crime. The three-section telescopic ladder used in the kidnapping was made of wood, Koehler’s real passion.

  Aside from a chisel, a wooden dowel, and a ransom note, the ladder was the only physical evidence left at the scene of the crime. Ransom money had been delivered, but the crime remained unsolved. The public was angry, especially after the baby was found dead in a shallow grave not far from the Lindbergh estate a couple of months after his disappearance. “There can be no immunity now,” moviegoers in the summer of 1932 heard on the newsreel before their picture started. “It is up to America to find the perpetrator of this crime or it is to be America’s shame forever.”

 

‹ Prev