The Sixteenth Rail

by Adam Schrager

Pope again objected, asking what type of wood Koehler was going to use. When he found out it was Ponderosa pine and not North Carolina pine as found in Rail 16, he suggested that unless the latter could be provided, a fair comparison could not be made.

  Wilentz was stumped. Koehler didn’t have another piece of North Carolina pine on hand, but he did have an idea. As the attorneys bickered back and forth before the judge, Koehler offered to plane the Ponderosa pine and compare it to the marks on the rungs “of this ladder and they are made of Ponderosa pine.”

  “And that is exactly the same type of wood as you have here?” Wilentz asked.

  “Yes.”

  Pope was unmoved, wanting more information.

  “Is the piece of wood upon which you propose to make the demonstration the same type, the same quality of wood that makes up these rungs of the ladder?”

  “Yes.”

  “No different,” Wilentz pressed.

  “No.”

  “No trick about this, is there?”

  “No.”

  “The same type of wood?”

  “Yes.”

  “The same type of grain?”

  “Yes.”

  “The same strength?”

  “Approximately.” Koehler remained a stickler for the truth, and he could not say absolutely without measurement whether the wood for his demonstration would be the same strength as the ladder rungs.

  “Of course you don’t know whether it came as a part of the same tree, do you?”

  “No, not of the same tree.”

  “Ponderosa pine, it is, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “The rungs in the ladder are part of Ponderosa pine?” Wilentz was firing questions quickly at Koehler now.

  “Yes.”

  “Will a demonstration of the plane upon the piece which you propose to use have the same force and effect as if you used it upon the very rungs of the ladder?”

  “It will.”

  “Have you the plane and will you give us a demonstration?”

  “Yes. In order to make an impression of those plane marks, I employ a very simple method that I learned when I was a youngster. I used to put a piece of paper over a coin and rub a pencil back and forth over the paper and get an impression of the coin on the paper. I can do that same thing but putting a piece of paper over the plane surface, rubbing a pencil back and forth, and getting an impression of these marks made by the hand plane. Before I do that however I will take this piece of wood before I plane it and see what we get so as to have something for comparison.

  “Now I will mark this piece of paper before planing in court.”

  Wilentz suggested the court stenographer mark it, and Koehler agreed before turning to Justice Trenchard with a most unusual request.

  “If it is all right, your Honor, I would like to make the demonstration here,” he said pointing to the judge’s bench. “This seems to be a substantial thing to work on.”

  Trenchard shrugged his shoulders and said, “All right, so far as I am concerned.”

  “Now before planing the top edge of this piece of wood, I will make some marks on there with a pencil to be sure that we can see that the plane takes something off,” Koehler said, before putting his weight into the plane and lodging the board against Trenchard’s bench for balance.

  “On this one and you can see that all the blue marks have been removed. That means that the planer took off a complete shaving all the way across the piece of wood.” He was directly talking to the jury, and Case nodded knowingly. “I will now proceed to make an impression of the marks made at that point.”

  Reporters noted that Case’s face showed “approval” as Koehler turned the judge’s bench into an improvised workshop. Hauptmann, meanwhile, “watching him intently with his sunken eyes, gives an audible snort that is akin to laughing out loud.”

  With a blue pencil, Koehler rubbed the paper he’d put over the edge of the board, to gain a visible imprint. Then he showed the jury the difference between the two pieces of paper, the before-and-after demonstration.

  “Now I will next proceed to make a similar impression of the hand plane marks on one of the rungs of the ladder.”

  He picked Rung 10, even though he could have used any of the rungs in the kidnap ladder. All had been planed with the same planer. He completed the first part of his experiment, and it was time for Wilentz once again to ask questions.

  “Now as I understand it, then, you have these three pieces; one is S-234, that is the impression of the piece of wood you used for demonstration purposes. The next is S-235, the impression from the same piece of wood after it had been planed by the plane in evidence.”

  “Yes,” Koehler said.

  “Now, S-237, the impression from the rung of the ladder.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now will you please proceed with your explanation and demonstration.”

  “Now I have those three impressions fastened to one card,” he said. “This white portion here was made on the block of wood before planing. This piece in the middle was made on the piece of wood after I planed it here and this impression was taken off from one of the rungs of the ladder, rung Number 10.

  “Now if you will look along there, right along there,” he continued, using the blue pencil to guide the jurors’ eyes, “you can see a number of lines on this impression from the ladder rung which coincide exactly with similar lines of these impressions made on the wood which I have planed. Look along it in a diagonal manner that way.”

  “How far do they correspond?” Wilentz asked about the samples of the board planed in court and the one from the ladder rung.

  “All the way.”

  The pre-plane sample of Ponderosa pine showed no similarities.

  Pope once again rose to object, “unless it be shown that the Ponderosa pine used in the demonstration came from the same forest or the same section of the country that the Ponderosa pine which is in the ladder.”

  At that, Koehler interjected, not waiting for his lawyer or the judge.

  “Well, it undoubtedly—” he started before catching himself. “Shall I answer that?”

  “Did they come from the same section?” asked Wilentz.

  “It undoubtedly came from the section where Ponderosa pine grows.”

  “Where does Ponderosa pine grow?”

  “It grows in the Western States.”

  “None in the Eastern States?”

  “No.”

  “None in the Southern States?”

  “No.”

  “What States do you call the Western States?”

  “From the Great Plains westward.”

  “Tell us something about Ponderosa pine.”

  “Ponderosa pine is one of the most common species of pine—in fact, it is the most common species of pine in this country. It grows throughout the forested area from the Great Plains westward to the Pacific Ocean. It is a relatively soft grade of pine and is used extensively in the East and all through the country for a great many purposes.”

  A few questions and answers later, Trenchard interjected.

  “Do you desire to press it any further, Mr. Pope?”

  When defense counsel answered yes, Trenchard promptly overruled his objection.

  From there, Wilentz and Koehler walked the jury through how the marks from Hauptmann’s plane did not just match Rung 10. There were identical markings on Rail 16 and Rung 8 as well. They produced photos to show the jurors those markings.

  When the court called for a five-minute recess, the New Jersey senator got up and Koehler went over to sit next to Ethelyn. He reached over and held her hand.

  “It was not at all like him to do anything like that in public but I was glad I was there for he seemed to feel the need of something to hold,” Ethelyn wrote home. “Of course
no reporters bothered him while he was talking to his wife.”

  When court reconvened, Wilentz wrapped up that line of questioning.

  “Tell me please, what plane it was that was used to plane the rungs 8 and 10 and rail number 16.”

  “This plane here,” Koehler said, pointing to the one taken from Hauptmann’s garage.

  When Wilentz asked Koehler to identify which plane was then used on a piece of wood found in Hauptmann’s garage, Pope rose again.

  “He can’t do that,” he said. “He can only guess at it.”

  “He can’t guess at it,” Wilentz quickly replied. “He gives us his expert knowledge.”

  “Unless he was there and saw or knew he can’t do anything but guess at it,” Pope said exasperated. “He may give an opinion, that is all.”

  One more time, Trenchard shot him down. “That is what he is giving,” the judge said.

  The prosecution then moved to the chisel, State’s Exhibit S-210, found at the kidnap scene and the lack of a similar instrument found in Hauptmann’s tool chest.

  “Can you tell whether or not that chisel was used in the construction of the ladder, which is in evidence as S-2111, and, if you can, will you tell us about it.”

  “I can tell whether that size was used,” Koehler responded carefully.

  “Whether that size?” Wilentz asked.

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Tell us what size chisel was used in the construction of that ladder and what part of a chisel of that size was used, if it was.”

  Pope continued to stand up from his chair for his objections as he had throughout the testimony. “If he wants to express his opinion as to whether this identical chisel was used, why, perhaps his opinion may be expressed, but to say that an ordinary three-quarter inch chisel was used to make the ladder doesn’t connect it with this chisel in any way,” he said.

  “Well, it may be a circumstance for the consideration of the jury,” Trenchard weighed in.

  “Well, if this chisel were found in Hauptmann’s garage it might be a circumstance, but it was found some forty miles away from there,” Pope continued to press on.

  “Yes,” Trenchard said. “And it was found, was it not, under the southwest window of this nursery?”

  “Somewhere on the Lindbergh property, I don’t remember where,” Pope pleaded. “It is an ordinary three-quarter inch chisel.”

  “Where the ransom note was left, which has been traced to this defendant,” Trenchard said, growing weary with Pope’s insistence.

  “We don’t agree to that,” Pope asserted.

  “I know you don’t,” Trenchard said, “but I am telling you what the evidence tends to show. Therefore I think that these pieces of circumstances must be given over to the jury to consider. That is my ruling in the matter.”

  “What sized chisel was used in the construction of this ladder, if you know?” Wilentz started again.

  “A three-quarter inch chisel was used in chiseling out recesses for the rungs.”

  Wilentz called for someone with the court to open Hauptmann’s tool chest before continuing his questioning. He asked Koehler if he knew what size chisels should be found in a carpenter’s chest.

  “As a rule a good carpenter’s tool chest should contain a quarter inch chisel, half inch chisel, three quarter inch chisel, one inch and one and a half, and possibly two-inch chisel.”

  “Tell us what size chisels there are there?” Wilentz asked in reference to Hauptmann’s tool chest.

  “There is a quarter inch chisel, a half inch chisel, and an inch and a half chisel.”

  Wilentz had one more point to make, a circumstantial one, but one he hoped would leave an impression with the jury.

  “Will you take a look at the quarter inch chisel which is a part of the exhibit heretofore entered and take a look at the three quarter inch and let me know whether or not they are the same make, same type of chisels.”

  “Yes, they are,” replied Koehler.

  “What kind of chisels are they?”

  “They are Buck chisels, so-called Buck chisels made by Buck Brothers and the pattern is the same on the two. The milling on the ferrule is identical on the two, the general pattern is the same.”

  “Between the quarter-inch chisel and the three-quarter inch chisel?”

  “Yes.”

  Point made.

  “All right sir. Now you told us, I think, that a three-quarter inch chisel was used to construct this ladder?”

  “Yes sir,” Koehler replied, at which point he broke out more photographs.

  “This is the picture of one of the recesses for the rungs in this rail 16,” Koehler walked slowly along the jury box to show the members after the first photo was introduced as evidence. He explained what they were looking at:

  These recesses were chiseled out and this shows a mark made by the chisel, one side of the chisel went down there and then there is a right angle turn here. Here is a parallel line on this side. This is the corner of the recess right here, so the line extends, or the mark made by the chisel extends from almost the middle of the rung, not quite the middle of the recess, I mean, over to the very edge of the recess. Now I superimposed a chisel on there of approximately, that seemed to be approximately that size, I took a three-quarter inch chisel, by superimposing that over that mark and this picture shows it better than the other one and this mark right here, one side you see of the chisel lines up with this edge of the cut and this other side lines up with the edge of it or the corner of the recess. It couldn’t have been a wider chisel. Now, this corner of the recess would have prevented that. That three-quarter of an inch chisel, in other words, fits perfectly into that mark made by that chisel.

  “Of course, you don’t know what three-quarter inch chisel made the mark?”

  “No.”

  “Your testimony is that a three-quarter inch chisel did it?”

  “Yes.”

  Then Wilentz asked Koehler to use the chisel as he held the ladder to show the jurors up close what he was talking about.

  “I want you to walk along nice and slowly and indicate to each juror, I will hold it, now one at a time, and I wish you jurors in back would please lean forward,” Wilentz said as he held the ladder.

  Case jumped up and leaned over juror number 2, Rosie Pill, to see how the chisel matched the grooves in question.

  The demonstration completed, Wilentz turned to Koehler’s tracking of Rails 12 and 13. He had Koehler explain how he had become involved in the case and how he had tracked some of the wood in the kidnap ladder to the National Lumber and Millwork Company in the Bronx months before Hauptmann was ever arrested.

  “Will you tell us how you traced it?”

  “I traced it by means of the planer marks made on the lumber when it was planed at the planing mill.”

  “You mean the machine planer marks?”

  “Yes.” He described how he’d visited Senator Dorn in McCormick, South Carolina, and traced one of the company’s shipments to the Bronx yard.

  “How did you know, how could you know and how did you know that the defect which was shown on the ladder and which defect you say you also found in lumber in the Bronx lumber yard,” Wilentz said, voicing the thought of the entire courtroom at that moment. “How did you know that these planer marks were made by the planer you found in the Dorn Company mill?”

  “That is a long story,” Koehler said.

  “We want the long story. Let’s have it.”

  “I think I had better explain to the jury first what I mean by planer marks,” Koehler said.

  “Yes sir.”

  “I have some drawings here which illustrate how a planer makes marks as it dresses lumber,” he began. “I believe the jury is not familiar with the way these machine planers work, so I have a diagrammatic drawing here of certain essential f
eatures of a machine planer. This shows,” he said as he began pointing once again to an exhibit, “a piece of lumber in here which is being planed. Above this board there is a cutter head, which has knives set into it. There are eight knives shown in this cutter head. Some have six, some four, ten, even twelve. That cutter head revolves as the lumber goes through it, and these knives come around and cut a shaving off the surface of the lumber. There is another cutter head on the lower side with knives set in it, and as that cutter head revolves these knives plane the bottom side of the lumber.”

  “How many knives in that?” Wilentz wanted to know.

  “There are eight knives in that one,” Koehler answered, “but that is not necessary in every case. There may be more or less. These two rollers are called the feed rollers. The lumber goes through between these rollers, and is shoved through the machine by them, and the speed at which these feed rollers revolve determines the speed at which the lumber goes through the planer. Now on most planers the speed of the feed rollers can be changed, to a high speed or medium or low speed, to different rates of speed, but the speed of these cutter heads is always the same.”

  After officially entering the diagrams into evidence, the “long story” continued:

  Since those knives go around in a circle, each knife makes a circular cut out of the board. Those cutters are so small we don’t ordinarily notice that, but yet that is the case, and as a result, a board which is planed by a machine planer has a wavy appearance. Now if those knives are all in good condition and functioning properly, each one, all of those waves are of the same size.

  Suppose one of the knives has a defect in it, like is shown here in knife No. 7, a nick every time that knife comes around it makes a mark there where that nick is. The other knives don’t have such a nick in them, so we can tell how often that knife comes around and below this cutter head I have a diagrammatic drawing of a piece of lumber which shows the circular cuts on the surface and also shows a mark in every cut, marked No. 7, that is, each time this defect comes around. There are eight cuts from one to the other. Here is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—in other words, every eighth cut like that shows that defect.”