Transcript of The Kidnapping of Charlie Lindbergh (Part 1) New

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alayna, and this is Morbid.

You guys, who is excited to go to our live show? Radio City. Radio City Music Hall in New York City. We'll see you there. Or you're a square.

Exactly. Go get your tickets. Go to Ticketmaster.

Go to Ticketmaster. That is the only place that we're going to lead you because there are other sites unfortunately where people can scoop up tickets and sell them for prices that we did not appreciate. Yeah, we did not approve the prices.

If they look crazy to you, yeah, if they look nuts to you, wasn't us. So one me, one me.

Much like Shaggy, it wasn't me.

But it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

Maybe we'll do a kickline, you don't know.

We are absolutely doing a kick line. Yeah, absolutely.

Why'd you shake your head at that?

I'm positive.

I'll be sitting in a chair.

I'll do one from a chair.

Yeah, yeah, Mikey, you're going from a chair, but Debbie's already bringing her tap shoes.

Yeah, she's ready to go.

Exactly.

So let's go, girls.

Let's fucking do it. Um, we also have— we have a lot of fun stuff going on.

We just did—

we just recorded our bonus episode for March.

It was so fun, guys. You're gonna love it.

We had a special guest on. I think we already told you.

It was our book club.

Our book club.

We covered Postmortem by none other than Patricia Cornwell.

The Patricia.

Our girl Patricia.

It's such a fun book.

So it's the beginning of the Kay Scarpetta series.

Loved it.

With the show coming out, this is a great place to start because the show covers this book. It's the first book. Or at least partially does. So definitely a cool place to look.

And it's in paperback.

It can fit in your back pocket.

It's a fittable.

It's a fittable book in your back pocket, and it's a good one to start with.

We had Chef Riley Meehan on, and we talked about all things Patricia, and all things postmortem, and all things delicious food.

It's a really good episode. I think you got, it's like, I love the bonus episodes 'cause we can be a little more loosey and silly.

It was. Fun.

It was fun.

And we filmed that one. That one's on, on actual video.

Yes.

So you're gonna get to watch it as well.

We're gonna try to do that every now and again.

Yeah, we're gonna do it as much as we possibly can.

It's easier with like bonus episodes because like, you know, the content is a little more—

yeah, palatable, for a little looser.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, and also if you're looking for more books to, uh, satisfy your craving for knowledge—

yeah, I like know this girl who wrote a few books.

Do you know her? I do.

And you can get The Butcher Butcher Legacy at butcherlegacy.com.

It was a really nice opportunity for you to not say, "I am her." Well, I thought that was implied, but— Oh, it is, but I wish you had stood on business with it.

I am her. Thank you.

Stand on the business.

Go get it.

Go get it. Go pre-order it. It's coming out August 11th. It's pretty—

You know who thinks it's great?

Tell me. Patricia Cornwell. I knew that too. So I'm going to be insufferable about that for the rest of my life. As you should be. Yep, gonna do that. So Patricia read it and she liked it. She thinks, she thinks Kay and Wren could be BFFs.

She thinks that it's the bee's knees.

I can lay down and pass over to the other side now. I won't, but I could.

A lot to do, so don't do that, please.

So there's that. And you can, you know, when the paperback comes out, which it won't come out for a little while, you can stick that in your back pocket with Postmortem.

Oh my God, you guys have a lot going on in your pockets.

So many back pockets.

You guys are gonna need those, those like, uh, utility pants.

You really are Get some cargo pants.

Yeah, they're trendy.

Tons of books in there.

Yeah, just throw them in there.

Yeah, if you're a mood reader, that's the dream.

Yeah, you just, you never know what you want.

So let's go.

I am a mood reader. I'm a mood reader.

I get that.

Yep. Uh, just, just throwing this out there since we're talking about books, uh, I just finished Memorials by Richard Chizmar, um, who also likes The Butcher Legacy. And, uh, another one, another one.

I love Richard Chizmar and Memorials blew my fucking socks off.

Wow. Go read that book. Okay, go read that book. Go read that book.

Okay.

I finished— I finished, uh, listening to it on the way home the other day, and, uh, I was in the car by myself, and at one point I went, holy shit, out loud. Yeah, go read that book.

I'm telling you, it's an awesome book.

It's like Appalachia horror.

Oh, fuck.

He does suburban horror as— I mean, on the front cover, Stephen King blurbed his book and said no one does suburban horror like Richard Chizmar, and I fully agree with my friend Stephen. Wow, what a feather in your cap.

What a— what a—

for Stephen to say that. Can you imagine?

No, like, I don't think Stephen would say that.

Good for Richard.

So I can't put my— I can't put— I can't put Richard's shoes on in that one.

I think not in that one.

I'm not sure. I'm not quite sure what Stephen would say about me.

But maybe someday we'll find out.

Steven, tell us. Steven, let us know.

Tell us about us. Steven, come on the show.

Hey, Steven.

But yeah, so, but he's right. So if you're looking for like a cool suburban horror with some Appalachia shit in it that's gonna literally make you scream at the end. Yes.

I'm telling you, Memorials by Richard Chizmar.

I love that. Really good.

I just finished it, so I just wanted to tell you all.

Just wanted to tell you about it.

And you know what else I wanna tell you? Yeah, we're gonna talk about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping today. Oh shit, one of our most requested cases.

Yeah, people have been dying for this one like since we started the show.

Yeah, and I'm shocked that we just never covered it.

Yeah, that's actually very surprising. For some reason I think I thought we had, but I know we haven't.

We, we definitely covered it on like Crime Countdown and stuff, so I think we talked about it.

And I think we talked about it like very briefly when we did the, um, was it the Sumner children?

Yeah, I think we definitely have mentioned it.

It's come up.

Yeah, I mean, if you talk about true crime, it comes up.

Yeah, it's a big case.

It's one of the biggest kidnapping cases and one of the big cases really in American history. But just, we just want to be clear here that like, I guess there has been some things that have come out about Charles Lindbergh that have definitely tarnished his once like all-American spotless reputation, I would say. So I just want to be clear that like, that sucks, that he's not great.

Yeah, he's pretty fucking terrible. But we just wanted to cover the case because one, you guys have requested it forever for years, and two, it's a fascinating case about a baby, right?

It's not about— it's really not about Charles.

Stolen out of their crib.

Yeah, it's not about—

at the end of the day, it's about what happened to his son. Yeah. So, um, but yeah, we just wanted to make that— that has come to our attention through like researching this and like we just wanted to mention it. So he's definitely got a tarnished reputation for sure.

Yeah.

Um, which I wasn't aware of until recently.

Same.

Um, but yeah, we're gonna—

it's a crazy case.

The more you know.

And we will be getting a little more into probably his tarnished reputation in part 2, I would say, when we're talking about like theories and shit.

Okay, cool. So we will like touch upon it more, but we just wanted to put that out there.

All right. Yeah, so let's go.

Show me to me, Rachel. Am I dumb or is this Unsolved?

No, it's solved.

Oh, it is solved.

There's somebody that was caught, but there is some mystery surrounding it though. Okay. So that's something interesting. And the whole thing is just very spooky the way it all happened and still doesn't make a lot of sense.

Yeah. I knew there was like weird elements to this case.

There's definitely weird elements to it. So we're gonna start with who Charles Lindbergh was because the whole thing around this is that Charles Lindbergh was a very well-known man. Yeah. So Charles Augustus Lindbergh, He was born February 4th, 1902. What is he?

Is he a Pisces? I gotta get better. If my teacher's listening right now, she's like, are you fucking kidding?

I gotta get better at this.

February 4th. People don't want me to get better at it.

They like hearing you say that.

Aquarius.

Aquarius. I'm so bad at that stuff. So he's an Aquarius. Uh, he was born in Detroit, Michigan. He was the only child born to Evangeline and Charles Lindbergh Senior.

Names were just better back then.

Evangeline and Charles had Charles Jr. Oh my God, Evangeline.

I would never fuck with a bitch named Evangeline.

Oh, what a name.

Yeah, it just makes me think of Princess and the Frog when Raimel is singing about his Evangeline.

Oh, I still haven't seen that the whole way through.

We gotta watch it.

I know, I do wanna watch it 'cause the girls say that I'm like one of the characters.

You're Lottie.

Yeah, yeah, I'll take it.

Lottie is awesome.

I know her.

Yeah, Lottie's the best. But he grew up on a small farm in rural Little Falls, Minnesota. And Lindbergh remembered his childhood as pretty idyllic. Nice. Had a pretty great childhood.

With a mom named Evangeline.

How could it not be? He said, "I spent hours lying on my back in high Timothy and redtop hidden from passerby. White cumulus clouds drift overhead, staring into the sky." Damn.

Yeah. That's fucking poetic as hell.

But however charming and beautiful those early years were, it's not like they didn't have some difficulty in them. In 1905, when Charles was just 3 years old, the family farm burned to the ground. Book. Um, 3 years later, his parents separated— Evangeline and Charles—

which was very uncommon, I feel like.

Yeah.

And Charles would end up living the rest of his childhood with his mother.

Okay. Did he see his dad?

He did.

Um, so he— they relocated to Washington, DC after the divorce, so he really only saw his dad kind of like sporadically, which definitely probably had like an influence on how he parented later. Yeah. Um, but For most of his adult life, Charles Lindbergh was an American icon. That's part of this case. Like, he— people know who he is. He was an American icon, but he's a tarnished American icon now with what we know, things that have come out over time. He was an aviation guy, but— guy, that's the technical term for it. Yeah, of course. Aviation guy, aviator.

Uh, he, he had this ability to take control of his own narrative.

Okay. Which I think a lot of people that are successful, for better or worse, in life, they do have that. They are able to take control of their own narrative. Yeah. And could frame themselves a certain way. So he would frame himself as very heroic. He was just really good at kind of putting that out there.

That's also very Aquarian in nature.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

I mean, reporters, the American people, they're all very happy to accept this narrative as well.

And it's not that he, like, lied about his past or, you know, like, anything like that, but Given the choice between, like, just bland reality and, like, a little embellishment, he probably picked a little embellishment.

Like Gatsby.

He kind of— he had a very Gatsby-esque way about him. I think he kind of overstate the facts. He would minimize inconvenient truths. Like, for example, when speaking of his family life after his parents' divorce, he wrote, "They continued to care for each other, although they were seldom together." And it's possible that that's how he remembered things, that they cared for each other. They just weren't together a lot. But historian Stanley Shapiro kind of challenges that for part of his history. Okay. He said his father was a stern man imbued with righteous populism. The parental expectations placed upon young Lindbergh were severe. So this, like, idyllic parent kind of situation, like, father— it might not have been, like, totally true, but who knows? That's what he believed.

Yeah. Well, it's also like, you got to listen to the actual—

it's his reality, right? So regardless of how they treated one another on the occasions that they were together. His parents' attitudes and expectations of their son were definitely at odds. Yeah. In the eyes of Evangeline, Charles could do absolutely no wrong. Just perfect child. Kind of like, like showered him with attention and affection. Like, it's a little child. And, uh, so Shapiro wrote, she lavished attention on Charles, leaving little room in his adolescent life for anything else.

Yeah, that's rough.

Charles Sr., on the other hand, was very rigid in his beliefs and how he presented himself to the world. He was a U.S. congressman from 1907 to 1917. Wow. And he stressed that his sons— and I don't think this is a terribly bad outlook—

he—

so he really wanted his son to embody the principles of stoicism. Okay. Like, be unshakable.

Yeah.

And he encouraged him to be, among other things, thrifty, self-sufficient, and intensely private. Which I think he learned from his own career in politics. He was a congressman. He's like, this is what I've got.

I don't think those are necessarily bad.

I think he was probably a little overbearing with it.

So yeah, the last one could be shaky.

Yeah. But according to Shapiro, the conflicting messages that he got from his parents left him like in this like weird paradox of like not understanding what he was supposed to be.

Because those are two very opposite ends of the spectrum.

His mom's like, you're a star, you're the best. Everybody should know how amazing you are. And his dad's like, be so fucking private and stoic. And he's like, what?

He's like, can I find a middle ground perhaps?

So he had this, like, deep desire for fame because he was like, I can achieve it. Yeah, I know it. And he wanted recognition as well, but he also wanted to demand privacy for himself, which can be tough.

Yeah.

So as a result of his father's career in politics and his mother's desire to provide her son for literally everything she could, any opportunity, Charles spent his youth bouncing from one school to another, eventually attending more than a dozen before graduating from Little Falls High School in 1918. From there, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied engineering.

Oh wow, smart guy.

But he dropped out in the middle of his sophomore year because he wanted to pursue an interest in aviation. Okay, which ended up being a good plan. Yeah, after leaving the University of Wisconsin, he enrolled at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation's flying school in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Imagine just going to flying school.

Yeah, just becoming an aviator and being an aviator.

Like, I'm going to talk about it, was like such a badass thing. Oh yeah, I had such a, like, a mystique to it. Yeah. Uh, but he started learning the basics of aircraft maintenance and would eventually learn how to pilot an airplane. Uh, it's at this time that his heroic biography starts to take shape. Like, this is where it all kind of begins. In 1924, after just 2 years in Nebraska, he enlisted in the National Guard and eventually became captain of the Missouri National Guard. From there, he continued his aviation career. He took a job with the Postal Service where he would fly mail back and forth between St. Louis, St. Louis, and Chicago. Yeah. Now, although air travel is very commonplace today, like you look up in the sky right now, it's not going so well, but it's not— it's not going swimmingly right now. It's very common. There was a time when the possibility of traveling by airplane was completely off limits to anyone outside of the military.

That's crazy.

Yeah. It wasn't until 1914 that commercial air travel was made available to the public. And even then it was so expensive that it prohibited most people from being able to. And it was very, very limited in where you could actually travel by plane. I'm sure.

Yeah.

Those restrictions and the truly— I mean, even now flying is remarkable. It's magic.

I try not to think about it too much when I'm in the air, but I'm on land. I think about it a lot.

It's remarkable. And especially then it made air travel at that time especially seem so exciting and adventurous to the American public. Like it really was that like, I'm like, we're just flying through the sky. So the role of the aviator was romantic, it was dangerous, it was— and it was commanding respect. This is kind of hot.

Yeah, I mean, truly, you're flying, you're flying, you're flying a goddamn plane, you're soaring, you're flying.

Uh, the amount of pilots I follow, not because they're hot, but because, like, I should be clear about that, men and women, uh, but not because they're hot. They're— hey, they're all, they're all hot in some way because they're flying a plane through the sky. So that's pretty amazing. That's a hot But I love following pilots because they make me feel better about flying.

Yeah.

And like, kudos to them for taking a second to make me feel better about flying.

Honestly.

But to a man like Charles Lindbergh, with his deep interest in mechanical engineering and, you know, this desperate need for fame and recognition.

This is perfect.

It wasn't a surprise that he was drawn to this field.

No.

In the 1920s and '30s, as aviation technology was advancing, air shows and flying competitions just exploded in popularity.

Papa loves an air show.

He does.

Loves an air show.

Loves it.

Hurts my neck.

I've been to so many air shows.

Me too.

As a kid. And while some air shows focused on aviators and others performing like super daring stunts.

Yeah, it's very cool.

Wing walking, barnstorming. Barnstorming, I looked it up, is they would like fly to like a field like they would essentially just land in a field or like a barn, like a barn field kind of thing. And they would start and then they would take off and start doing these like crazy stunts, like just like storming the barn kind of thing. Like it was named like that.

That shit used to be so cool.

It was like—

Was wing walking like while it was flying? Yeah. Shut up.

Oh yeah. Wing walking is crazy if you look at videos.

What?

Yeah, it's nuts. I want to see that. So other competitions. So they would do like these daring stunts, but other competitions focused on the more technical aspects of aviation. Like long-distance flights that emphasized the potential of flying, like what could be the future. It was during this time as a pilot for the Postal Service that Lindbergh became interested in these flying competitions and eventually became convinced he could fucking win one. Let's fucking go. Get me in there. In the mid-1920s, a winning pilot would not just walk away with a large sum of money, he would also earn insane respect and admiration and fame all over the world. In 1927, Charles was determined to enter this one particular competition. It was being promoted by Raymond Orteig, the French-American hotel magnate. Orteig was offering $25,000, and this is in 1927, to the first pilot to successfully complete a nonstop flight across the Atlantic from New York to Paris.

Scary.

Now, that spring, Lindbergh found financial backing from several businessmen and St. Louis, St. Louis. And on May 27th, 1927, he took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York.

Long Island.

In the decades since Lindbergh's successful flight, this story has been told and retold so many times. According to Stanley Shapiro, no opposing version can prevail against it. So it's just— this was a badass.

Is what it is.

Yeah.

The facts are pretty difficult to dispute. He did it.

Like, he—

and the whole thing is so, like, romantic and dangerous. And as a mystique to it that it also gives you a little insight into how he just rocketed to fame after this. Now, at the time, Charles was 25 years old. So as Shapiro points out, he looked much younger than that as well. Like, he had a very youthful appearance, and he was frequently referred to in the press as a boy, not a man, which I'm like, he's 25.

Yeah, let's call him a man.

Let's not refer to him like— let's not infantilize him.

Yeah, that's a little weird.

Um, and Lindbergh was young, obviously, but 25 is still a grown man.

Yeah.

And he was conventionally handsome, and he He was also said to have lived a very chaste life. He avoided drinking. Oh. He didn't smoke. And he wasn't, like, a womanizer. Basically, in, like, pretty simple terms, he was, like, an ideal role model for young Americans of the time. And the fact that he would take on such, like, a magical, incredible, remarkable, dangerous journey like that—

Yeah.

Everyone saw it as this perfect metaphor for, like, the indomitable American spirit of the time, you know what I mean? Like, because that was a time when it was like you're really looking for those kind of symbols.

And Lindbergh's receipt of the prize made him an instant celebrity.

And when he landed in Paris at the end of the whole thing, a crowd of more than 150,000 people lifted him out of the cockpit of the plane. Wow.

Yeah, that would be overwhelming.

He basically just like crowd-surfed over like, over like a tarmac.

Hello, Paris!

The Spirit of St. Louis— St. Louis was the name of his plane— and it reportedly carried— they carried him on their shoulders for almost 30 minutes.

Here's a picture.

Yeah, see, almost 30 minutes. According to Shapiro, it was the romance of Lindbergh's, quote, boy hero. And Shapiro points out that a lot of, like, the Lindbergh romance kind of thing resides in his underdog status. Yeah, he certainly did not have the credentials of his competitors or their elaborate expensive organizations. That outsider status pretty much inspired much of the newspaper coverage, because again, like, he was just this— just this random guy, you know? Like, he's just entering it, like you said, and he had to get backing from like a bunch of other people to do this, right? So to a certain extent, Charles Lindbergh had always believed all the overwhelming praise and adulation that had been heaped on him by his mother, which is like a good thing in a way. Like, you want Well, yeah, that's the whole reason his mom did that. The whole reason is to raise a confident, self-assured kid. Yeah, absolutely. And of course he had a little bit of an overinflated self-esteem thing going on.

Yeah, it happens.

But honestly, like stupid confidence sometimes will get you really far.

I think so.

Like, you know, like sometimes I have stupid confidence.

And look at you.

Sometimes I have incredible imposter syndrome. I am never neutral. Well, I think totally imposter syndrome. Or stupid confidence.

I think a lot of successful people have that.

The very same makeup.

Like there's not a middle ground.

Yeah.

Like I'm never just coasting. It makes sense. Like especially that he didn't have a middle ground because like we were just saying, like his mom really boosted him and his dad not like didn't not boost him or give him—

But was like stoic, be private. Yeah.

But was telling him the opposite thing.

Yeah. It makes so much sense. Yeah. But his successful flight across the Atlantic and the newfound fame that came with it it really only strengthened his belief that he was special and he was destined for great things. Which, if I fly across the Atlantic, I'd be insufferable. Now, in the wake of his flight, Charles signed endorsement deals. Like that was like a thing. Wow. With Mobil Oil, vacuum oil.

I love advertising just always being a thing.

Yes, always.

Throughout.

Always an endorsement. And a lot of other companies and sold the exclusive rights to his story to the New York Times for over $1 million. Wow. Yeah.

Which now would be like insane money.

Outrageous.

I mean, $1 million is insane money anyways, but it would be astronomical.

Now, in December 1927, he accompanied his financial advisor, Dwight Morrow, on a trip to— which is such a financial advisor name.

I know. I almost said that.

Yeah. Yeah. He went with him on a trip to Mexico that would change his life in a lot of ways. At the time, Dwight Morrow was an executive with JPMorgan.

Oh, I've heard of him.

Yeah.

Ever heard of him?

You don't touch the Morgan letters.

That's the New York Housewives. That's a great one. You should watch it.

Watch that.

Absolutely. So good.

But he—

so he was an executive with JPMorgan and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. And when they landed in Mexico, Lindbergh and Morrow were greeted by a crowd of over 150,000 enthusiastic people.

It's like the original Beatles.

Yeah. All hoping to get a look at this American hero. And among them was Morrow's daughter, Anne, who'd arrived a few days earlier. Now, Anne took an immediate liking to Charles, of course.

Yeah, duh.

But he did to her as well. Now, at the time, Anne was attending Smith College and wanted to be a writer.

Hell yeah.

And she was like, I'm not focused on marriage. Like, I'm looking to get my career going.

Oh honey, we love a career.

We love her. And the same could be said for Charles, who after winning that prize, the Ortigue Prize, he received more than 100,000 marriage proposals. That's 100,000 marriage proposals.

Women, I love you. We have to get to know a man before we propose marriage.

We don't know him.

He could be so many different things.

Exactly.

And some of them could be fantastic and some of them not so much. And that's why we date.

Yeah, we can't just propose marriage to Charles Lindbergh after he wins a prize.

No, that's a little cuckoo.

Yeah. But, uh, he later wrote in his autobiography, I had always taken for granted that someday I would marry and have a family of my own, but I had not thought much of it.

I mean, he's 25.

Yeah. He said, in fact, I had never been enough interested in any girl to even ask her to go on a date.

Wow.

I think he was just so focused on his own shit, he just wasn't— he was like Anne. Yeah, Anne was focused on her shit and she was like, I got time, I don't need to worry about that. Yeah, he was the same way. He was like, I'm not worried about that, let's go. Now, despite what seems like their respective disinterest in romance at this point, they hit it off immediately.

Like, sometimes the universe—

for each other.

Well, that's the thing, I think your universe, sometimes the universe, leads you to your person like that.

I think that's what it was when you're ready, brought them together. And soon they were dating exclusively. And Anne later wrote in her diary, the man I was to marry believed in me and what I could do, and consequently I found I could do more than I realized. On May 27, 1929, they married in a small, simple ceremony. It was at her family's estate in New Jersey. A little over a year later, the couple's first child, Charles Jr., was born on Anne's 24th birthday.

Stop it.

June 22, 1930. So to everyone on the outside looking in, they appeared to be living the American dream. So the Lindberghs were already one of the nation's most famous couples by the time Charles Jr. was born.

Makes sense.

And his birth was just one more reason for them to, you know, America's favorite couple at this point, to appear on newspapers, all like covers around the globe. Everywhere they went, reporters weren't far behind, snapping photos, reporting on their activities, no matter how mundane they were. It was very much the paparazzi like, your—

he's not adhering to that rule his dad taught him.

No.

So when Charles and Anne began construction on their new home in Hopewell, New Jersey, not far from Anne's parents in Englewood, the press couldn't get enough of it. Oh, let people live private lives.

Like, truly, let people's homes be private.

And when they have a kid, they're like, kids, leave them alone. Now, built on 339 acres—

I'm sorry, what?

339 acres. I can't even conceive of that. Like, just a forest.

I thought, I thought 2 was a lot. Yeah, damn, acreage is a lot. Acreage is so expensive. Do you know how much acreage costs?

Yeah, acreage is serious.

339 acres. Fucking A.

And it was a remote, remote land in a forested area of Hopewell, so it was very remote, very away from which, like, love but hate. It's, it's a double-edged sword. Um, the Lindbergh House was to be kind of a compound where Anne and Charles could grow their family and live out the rest of their days together.

And among other things, there was plenty of room for a literal runway, plane runway.

They had over 300 acres.

There was, there was plenty of room for it. And he intended to build one.

He was going to have a runway.

It just breaks my heart because like you wish that they got to live out like their actual parenting dream. Like obviously it just—

because you just never like— now you just don't know. What it would have been like. What would that— what would that kid's life have been?

Yeah.

And then their life as a family have been.

And you're left just asking those exact questions forever.

It's just a bummer. Yeah, like a real bummer. It's a tragedy. Um, it also— this place had limited, like, access to, like, like, cars coming in, which was great for privacy. Yeah, it was that quiet.

Fun little, uh—

but construction on the house began in summer of 1930 and was pretty complete when Charles and Anne decided begin staying at the house overnight in February of 1932. At first, they would only spend their weekends at the house in Inglewood, but were otherwise living with Anne's parents at their house nearby. And March 1st, which was a Tuesday, was the first weekday the family spent the night at the new house. Okay, this kidnapping happens on the first weekday that they spent at this house. They had not spent a weekday there before.

That's interesting.

Now, a few days earlier, Charles Jr., the bébé, had been sick with a light cold, and by the morning of March 1st, it looked like Anne had gotten the cold because, of course, she's always— Assuming she would need some help with the baby, Anne called their nursemaid Betty Gow and asked her to come to the Inglewood estate that morning. So Betty spent the day helping Anne around the house, and around 7:30 PM, she started getting Charles Jr. ready for bed. That night, Betty dressed Charles Jr. in a flannel shirt that she'd made for the afternoon, diapers, rubber pants, and a one-piece Dr.

Denton sleep suit.

So cute.

And also, rubber pants, question mark? They were a thing, I guess, really, back then. Yeah, like rubber sheets but like rubber pants. But pants, I feel like no leakage would probably be so fucking uncomfortable. Absolutely. I'm sure it was awful.

Yeah.

Uh, but thanks.

I'm not saying she did anything.

Yeah, they just had no idea.

I'm just like, holy fuck.

But Anne also placed thumb guards on each thumb to prevent Charles from sucking his thumb. That was the thing. Really? And she wrapped strings around the guards and secured them to the sleeves of the outfit so they wouldn't fall off. Oh yeah, that was like— it's very interesting how they would put babies to sleep then.

Yeah, well, it honestly— it's changed so much and so frequently from like then to now, because like with SIDS and everything, like so different.

Because then once he was placed in the crib, he was covered with a blanket that Betty then pinned to the mattress with two large safety pins.

Oh, that's interesting.

Which like keeps them in place. Yeah, they can't like roll around and they can't smother themselves. Exactly. Now she was doing the damn thing. She did the damn thing. Now although it was still pretty cold outside, Anne cracked the window just a little bit just before leaving the room to let some fresh air circulate. Cold because he had a cold.

She was burping the room.

Yeah, she was burping. That's—

that's weird.

Just told me about burping the room. That's weird.

We were literally just talking about it this morning.

And what is it?

It's a—

oh, what was it?

It's a German word. Lüften.

And it's, uh, it means like airing out the house.

Yeah, like you just like open up the windows and let the house burp. Yeah, you literally let the house—

I like that. So that's what she was doing, letting the room burp.

Yeah.

Now Charles arrived, like, like Big Charles arrived home that evening. Big Charles, he came home around 8:30, 8:30 PM, and after he had attended a meeting at Pan American Airways, the offices in New York, earlier in the day, he's doing big things. Um, he had been scheduled to appear as the guest of honor at a dinner held by New York University that evening, but because of an issue with scheduling, he decided he was too overbooked. And he was like— so he skipped the dinner and he was like, I just want to go home.

Well, it's nice that he just wanted to be with his family.

His kid's sick, he's just like, you know, and his wife is sick now. Um, after coming home, he had dinner with Anne while the handful of staff in the house, including Betty, the nursemaid, retired to their homes for the evening.

Okay.

Now, Anne and Charles finished dinner a little after 9 PM, and they were sitting in the living room together when Charles heard a noise he later described as the top slats of an orange box falling off a chair, which I assumed to be in the kitchen. Okay, so I'm assuming he's just thinking like a box of oranges, like a— oh, oh, oh, like a wooden box, like a crate. He was saying like the top slat falling off.

I'm real dumb in this moment. I was picturing an orange-colored box. I was like, what the— was that like—

how did he know that?

I was like, he hears colors. What does that sound like?

But he asked Anne whether she heard the sound, and she was like, no, I didn't hear anything.

Okay.

Um, and this is where I'm just a complete crazy person, because I— if I hear a slight noise— and I'm not saying he did anything wrong, let me be clear about this. I'm just saying I am sick. Uh, if I'm just saying I have a fucking problem, the amount of times that my kids, when they go to sleep, they always have books in their bed. And one of my kids loves to draw before bed or like color. And so she'll have like, you know, markers or like a pad of paper in her bed or like a coloring book. And without fail, they will slide off the bed at some point and slam on the ground. And it makes the same sound every time. And we know that's what it is. And Jon always knows. He's like, that is just their book falling off. I have to run upstairs and check.

Oh yeah.

Something in my brain is like, don't let that be the one time something happened.

No, it's true.

And even though it's like it's a sickness, but whatever.

I think that's actually OCD.

Is it?

I think that's a form of OCD.

Interesting. Yeah, because I literally am like, if I don't go up there and check, it's going to be the one time that something happened that I didn't check.

That's literally the definition of OCD.

Interesting. Yeah, you should have that checked out. I'm learning a lot of things about myself lately. Um, but yeah, you might— that's one of those things.

There's a, there's a form of OCD that's related to becoming a parent.

Um, oh yeah, that makes sense.

Sheena Shay got it from— oh, okay. I'm not laughing, I'm just saying like that I'm relating it back to Vanderpump Rules.

Yeah, of course.

Um, but yeah, I wonder if you have that.

That'd be interesting. I should talk to my doctor about it.

I mean, sometimes moms are just like—

exactly, you're just insane.

Yeah, in a good way, and as you should be.

Yeah, like it's like full-on, like you feel crazy.

Yeah, no, oftentimes when they stay at my house, I can't sleep.

Yeah, it's, it literally is one of those things. Yeah, like, I'm—

look at me just saying oftentimes. Oftentimes, the way I introduced that.

Yeah, wow, I liked that. I feel better than everybody right now.

Oftentimes.

You know what, oftentimes I might say scarce, but I also say oftentimes. You might, but you know what, it's okay.

But anyway, we let you live.

Thank you. Cheers. Cheers to living.

I picked up my drink at the perfect time.

Cheers to scarce. Cheers to scarsing and to St. Louis. St. Louis-ing.

Cheers. We literally both—

are we all right right now?

We're not.

Hello?

We're drinking our little—

because we're having—

and our Olipop having sodie pop. Oh, I can do it.

Uh, so yeah, so you know, that was a weird break. Here's the sound. That was just me letting you guys know that I'm like a cuckoo nut man.

I get it.

I run upstairs and it's always their book on the floor. Yeah. Um, but so Anne was like, yeah, I didn't hear anything. So again, that's also him being like, oh, maybe I just heard something I didn't. Yeah. And they've got an entire staff in the house, so like noises are probably pretty common in the house at night. Now, about an hour later, as Charles and Anne were getting ready to bed— for bed, Betty decided to check on the baby one final time before going to bed herself.

So she lived in the house?

Yeah, she lived in the house. Watch the kid. So yeah, she was like, you know what, I'm going to bed. Like, it was like a live-in staff, like you said. And but she was like, I'm just going to check on the baby one more time. She checked on him about 45 minutes after putting him in the crib, but she was like, he was sleeping soundly, but he's been sick lately. So like, I just want to do another check. So the lights were off. The room was pretty dark when she went in there like she left it. And as soon as she walked through the door, she was like, wow, it's a lot colder in here than I thought it would be. And she's like, so she's like, maybe, I don't know, like, I didn't think I had opened it very wide. And she looks and the window is open wider than she remembered leaving it, which—

my heart is beating out of my chest right now.

The pit in my stomach that I feel in that one sentence of like, it was open wider than she left it, yeah, is deep.

I also can't imagine how— I don't, I don't know how this all shakes out, so let me just say I can't imagine how this poor woman felt.

In this moment because she did nothing wrong.

She did nothing wrong, but that's not your child, so you're immediately like—

the guilt would be like, you must feel at fault. Yeah, unbelievable. So she goes to close the window and she's like, that's— and I, I think— and actually, I shouldn't have said she realized that it was much, um, wider than she had left it. She actually didn't realize it. She just went to close the window. Oh, and she said at the time it didn't register to her, but it was wider. She's like, but I just didn't click at first because I think your brain doesn't want to believe it. Yeah, but feeling the cold, she immediately was like, something's weird. It shouldn't be this cold in here. So after closing the window, she turns around to the crib and she was going to turn on a heater in the room. But in her eyes are like adjusting to the dark at this point. And so she said, I couldn't really see into the crib very well because again, my eyes are adjusting. And she's like, but so it didn't really strike her as odd that she couldn't see him right away. But she said what struck her is she couldn't hear him breathing.

Okay, like little baby rats. And also he's sick, so they're probably—

probably— so she's like, so I reached my hand into the crib, and she said she could feel the covers that she had placed over him, but there was no baby. Oh, fuck. So she—

this is my worst fucking—

it's awful. So she's trying not to panic because she's like, okay, so she's like, maybe the parents— exactly, I'm gonna go down to Anne and Charles. Maybe Anne took the baby into her room.

Yeah, you don't want to go worst-case scenario.

Yeah. So she calls out to Anne and she's like, hey, do you have the baby? And Anne anxiously replied, no, I don't. So now concerned, Betty went downstairs to see if Charles Sr. had the baby while Anne double-checked the nursery. But within moments, it was clear that he was not there. As Anne and Betty tore through the house looking for the baby, Charles ran upstairs into the nursery to double-check himself. Everything appeared perfectly normal in the baby's room except for the fact that there was no baby in there. In the crib, he said the blanket was still secured to the mattress with safety pins, like someone— and he said the impression of the baby's head was still in the pillow. Oh, and he said it was as though someone had carefully lifted him out of the crib, trying not to disturb anything. So he realizes now, my son's been taken.

Yep.

And so he went to the adjoining room and he grabbed his rifle from the closet. Hell yeah, motherfucker. With Anne and Betty following close behind him. And when they returned to the nursery again, he noticed the small white envelope resting on the windowsill. Stop. That Betty hadn't seen.

Oh, motherfucker.

I hate this.

There was nothing written on the outside of the envelope, but inside there was a note. And it said, dear sir, have $50,000 ready. $2,500 in $20 bills, $1,500 in $10 bills, and $10,000 in $5 bills. After 2 to 4 days, we will inform you where to— where to deliver the money. It's all spelled wrong, by the way. Uh, we warn you for making anything public or for the police. The child is in good care. Indication for all letters are signature and 3 holes. What? No idea. Now, by that time, the entire household was awake. All the staff was awake and alert to what was going on. Charles took one final look around the nursery, but nothing was out of the ordinary other than that letter. So he instructed everyone to remain as calm as possible, and he insisted no one touch anything in this nursery.

Smart.

Then he went to the phone and called his lawyer, Colonel Henry Breckenridge, from the— and then he called the New Jersey State Police. So when Lieutenants Dunn and Bornmann received the call from Lindbergh, the two officers' first instinct was that this is a prank. This is not Charles Lindbergh. Like, this is someone calling to do this.

But that's a bad first instinct.

When they hung up, they called the number back and it was the Lindbergh house that answered. So they were like, fuck. Uh, after providing the officers with all the information, Charles hung up the phone and went outside, rifle in hand, to search for his son. Now, in the yard, just underneath the nursery window, Lindbergh and one of the, uh, one of the staff, Ollie Wheatley, found what would be the most important piece of evidence in the case. It was a handmade wooden ladder that was clearly used by the kidnapper to reach the boy's window.

So creepy.

A few feet away, there was a broken piece of wood that appeared to have come off the ladder, probably when the kidnapper was climbing down from the window. Finding nothing else of note in the area outside the house, they went back inside to wait for the police. Now, around 10:30 PM, Hopewell police officers Harry Wolfe and Charles Williamson arrived at the Lindbergh home and briefly questioned Charles and, and the staff, and then they did a preliminary search of the house. From the moment the officers arrived, Charles' dominating personality was pretty evident, which of course he's in a state of panic.

Yeah, that's his son, his only child.

Yeah, by that point he was one of the biggest celebrities in the world, and he'd become accustomed to taking control of every situation he was in, particularly those involving his family and his privacy.

That was also like his role back then, you know, trained.

So rather than allow the officers to go about their business as they saw fit, he followed them around the house and, as he had with his staff, demanded that the officers not touch anything in the nursery until experts came. Which I can't— I don't— I don't think I wouldn't do that. And I'm not saying it's a good thing to do.

I'm just saying it's understandable.

He's a parent.

Like, you You could never say I would just sit there quietly.

Like, obviously it's better to let the experts do what they do best. Of course, I'm not saying you should involve yourself. I'm just saying, like, I can't get too mad at a parent for just wanting to be like, what's going on?

And I think I would do the same thing.

I just— I don't know what I would do, and I can't say I wouldn't do that. But again, I'm not saying it's right or wrong.

No, it's just parent shit. Honestly, I get it.

Now, after nearly 100 years, it's unclear what Wolf and Williamson did and didn't notice. We still don't know, but it's almost certain they took note of the ladder in the yard and the small number of footprints leading away from the house. But whoever had taken the baby appeared to have placed cloth over their shoes or had gone barefoot and placed bags over their feet, which would make it impossible to measure their feet. Wow. Which is like pretty—

just the fact that somebody thought of that. Yeah, that's like mastermind shit.

Those are essentially the two things that we found out that they found, that we just don't know what other evidence they if anything they came up with. They did, though, suggest that whoever the kidnapper was, there was a strong possibility that this was not their first criminal act. Okay. Now, other than the ladder and footprints leading away from the house in a southward direction, again, there was little evidence that we know of to speak in the house. Um, neither the ladder nor the ransom note had any fingerprints either on it, probably wearing— aside from the noise Charles heard from what he thought was the kitchen while they were eating dinner. No one in the house heard any other sounds. As far as the investigators could tell, the kidnapper had probably parked their vehicle a ways away from the house and walked through the woods to get to the house, which means they obviously traced that route at least one other time.

Yep.

And then they climbed into the nursery through the window that Betty had left open through no fault of her own, then gently lifted the sleeping baby from the crib and went out of there, out the way they came in, which like The fact that the baby didn't cry or make any sound. Yeah, must have— they were very gentle. Yeah, with what they did.

Obviously, it's also just so horrifying to think that somebody or a group of people were 100% casing that house. Yeah, that is the part of home invasions that scares me the most. Like, it's all so scary. Yeah, but for some reason, like, the thought of a person casing you. Yeah, while you are just going about your daily life and they are learning your daily life while you have no fucking idea.

That's why switch up your routine. Switch up your routine.

That's why I leave my house at a different time every day.

Like, switch up your routines however you can. Switch it up. It just is.

But it's so sad that also they did switch up their routine.

That's the part that really gets you here.

Yeah, is they weren't supposed to be there, really.

Yeah, which we will go into for sure. This is going to be a multi-parter because it's very involved. But, and also the noise that Charles heard when he was— that was the rung of the ladder breaking.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So he's sitting there having dinner with his wife, hears a noise, and it was somebody stealing his baby. Yeah, like, that is unthinkable.

No, it truly is. And to go back and realize, like, oh, that's what—

that's what I thought was just innocuous was a life-changing, most, like, fucking malignant thing I can think of. Yeah. So the limited evidence found at the scene supported the theory of how the kidnapping unfolded, but there was one very important question that wasn't really answered yet. Until that night, like we were just talking about, Charles and Anne only stayed at the house on weekends. So how was it that the kidnapper knew they would be there that evening when they hadn't been there on a weeknight any other time before that? In the month or two leading up to this whole thing, the only people living at the house full-time were a number, like a small number of staff. And if the kidnapper had cased the house, like we were just saying, or been watching for a number of days or weeks, they would have seen activity and might have interpreted that as indication that the family had moved in. But it's also possible they simply got lucky that night and had been completely unaware that this is the first weeknight that Charles and Anne were staying there.

Or I just wonder too, like, were they being followed and were people listening to their conversations and that they were planning on—

well, there's a third possibility that's pretty troubling, is that the kidnappers had someone on the inside. Yeah. Informing them of the couple's comings and goings.

Because it is just like, sure, you could have gotten lucky, but that's a lucky one. It's like, if you are casing that house and you know that they're not there, like, why would you come on a Tuesday? It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

That's the thing. Well, the other— that whole thing of like, if they got lucky, is, is one that says they weren't casing the house, they just showed up on a random night to kidnap this kid and happened to hit the night.

And I just don't feel like that could happen. Sure, like, it could.

It's a pretty remote possibility.

And well, and it's just like the fact that they thought this person had done things in the past.

Exactly. And it's this question, the how did this happen, how did they know they would be there, that hasn't been answered yet. Yeah, still.

And this is—

we still don't know how this happened. So when the news of the kidnapping hit the papers the next day, the public was just shocked to learn of Charles Jr.'s disappearance.

Yeah, because maybe also, like, was kidnapping really a thing back then?

It was definitely not a new phenomenon in the United States at this point.

But look at me leading you into your next sentence. You really did.

But this was the first time that, like, the real first time that they saw, like, the child of a celebrity, like a high profile— yeah, somebody that, like, everyone knew, right?

All over the country.

That's what I meant.

That's exactly what you meant.

All over the country, entire front pages were occupied with coverage of the kidnapping and just like various stories about the investigation. New Jersey Director of Public Safety William Egan called out the entire state police in the area, and officers conducted a house-to-house search, but they didn't find anything that way. Uh, several miles away from the house, investigators found an abandoned sedan that they thought maybe was related to the kidnapping, but like the crime scene itself, it didn't have anything in the car to really identify a suspect, even if it was connected.

It's still spooky.

That's the thing, like, it could be connected, but they just didn't leave anything behind.

Yeah. Um, but they did discover something about the car. It had been stolen on the afternoon of the kidnapping from an address in Brooklyn.

Okay, so that's sus.

Yeah, which did lead investigators to conclude the car, quote, may have been used by the kidnappers in their flight from the Lindbergh home.

That's smart wording. They said maybe, maybe not.

They said let's hedge our bets. Maybe 50/50, maybe not. There's two possibilities here. It was either used by the kidnappers or it wasn't, or it wasn't, period. And that's where we are in our investigation. Okay, so everybody said, oh good, great, yeah, awesome, that's helpful. Aside from the various details of the crime, what is pretty evident about the heavy coverage of it is the extent to which Charles Lindbergh attempted to use his power and influence to control the investigation from the start. According to historian Lloyd Gardner, Lindbergh had a very deep distrust of the authorities and doubted their ability to actually solve this case to his satisfaction. Like, for example, like the morning after the kidnapping, New Jersey Governor Harry Moore coordinated with the state legislature to offer a $25,000 reward for Charles Jr.'s, um, safe return. When Lindbergh learned of the reward, he immediately shut it down, saying, quote, such action should be deferred for the time being while initial efforts to capture the abductors were being made. So he didn't want that award going out because he was like, we should capture the people first. And it's like, no, no, we know that.

It's to capture them. And also, I think the most important thing here is to find your baby.

Yeah, that's it.

That, that's number one.

It feels like counterintuitive.

Well, that's what that reward does. The reward is to find your baby or find information about where your baby is.

It's—

yeah, we want to find who did this, but that truly would have been secondary to me.

I guess like, like on one hand, maybe he was just like, what if that leads to false tips or something?

But which, of course it is.

But also like, you wouldn't get the reward unless it was a real—

that's the thing, it's part of the course and that stuff. Yeah, but why wouldn't you want to just open it up to C if anybody has a tip.

I don't really understand that.

Well, as promised in the initial ransom note, more communications from the kidnappers did arrive in the days after that followed.

That's so eerie.

On March 6th, a second note arrived in the mail, postmarked 2 days earlier from Brooklyn. In it, the kidnappers increased their demand to $70,000.

Jesus.

The note said, dear sir, we have warned you not to make anything public, also notify the police. Now you have to take consequences. Means we will have to hold the baby until everything is quiet. We cannot make any appointment just now. We know very well what it means to us.

It is—

is it really necessary to make a world affair out of this, or to get your baby back as soon as possible? To settle those affairs in a quick way will be better for both. Don't be afraid about the baby keeping care of us day and night. We also will feed him according to the diet. We are interested to send him back in gut health.

But they meant good.

Hello. And ransom was made, uh, for $50,000, but now we have to take another person to it and probably have to keep the baby for a longer time than we expected. So the amount will be $70,000— $20,000 in $50 bills, $25,000 in $20 bills, and $15,000 in $10 bills, and $1,000— or excuse me, $10,000 in $5 bills.

Okay.

Don't mark any bills or take them from one serial number.

I'm assuming number.

Yeah.

We will inform you later where to deliver the money, but we will not do so until the police is out of the case and the papers are quiet. The kidnapping is prepared. We prepared in years, so we are prepared for everything.

I'm sorry, but this is like an OG drunk text.

Yeah, it literally is like, yeah.

Hello?

Did they receive this at like 3 a.m.?

There's a reason that they that, that it comes off like, what is happening?

And, uh, okay, like it was purposeful. I perhaps—

now, 2 days later, a 3rd note was received at the office of Lindbergh's lawyer, and it was lamenting the fact that they had not received a response, and they were reminding the family not to involve the police in their negotiations. It said, dear sir, did you receive our letter from March 4th? We sent the mail on one off the letter. Near Borough Hall, Brooklyn. We know police interfere with your private mail. How can we come to any arrangements this way? In the future, we will send our letters to Mr. Breckenridge at 25 Broadway. Otherwise, the note was nearly a word-for-word duplicate of the letter received the day before.

The drunk text.

Yeah, the drunk text. Now, in total, Lindbergh received a dozen ransom notes, all appearing to be written by the same person. But only those sent directly to Lindbergh contained the unusual signature and 3 holes referenced in the first note.

Okay.

Each note was clearly rife with misspellings and like what seemed to be poor grammar.

But were they like coded?

Well, it indicated that the writer maybe had some like limited formal education, especially at the time.

Oh, okay.

But it wasn't poor grammar and spelling alone that stood out. The notes also had an unusual syntax to them. Like the writer was not a native English speaker.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so that might be why, like, it seems like it's not making sense how an English speaker would say it. Okay, because it would make sense for someone that is not an English—

it's like translating.

I see.

If it's being, like, directly translated.

Right.

Now, on the day the third ransom note was received by Lindbergh's lawyer, a strange, quote, open letter appeared in the Bronx Home News. In which the writer, a retired Bronx school principal, Dr. John Condon, offered the kidnappers $1,000 if the kidnappers turned the baby over to a Catholic priest.

But they want $70K.

Yeah, so Condon said, I offer all I can scrape together. Oh, so a loving mother may again have her child, and Colonel Lindbergh may know that the American people are grateful for the honor bestowed upon them by his pluck and daring. Okay.

I kind of love that. But he was just like, I want to help.

That's nice. We love a good samaritan.

Yeah.

So the next day, Condon received a letter at his address in New York, believed to be by the kidnapper. It said, Dear sir, if you are willing to act as go-between in the Lindbergh case, please follow strictly instruction. Handle, handle enclosed letter personally to Mr. Lindbergh. It will explain everything. Don't tell anyone about it. As soon as we find out the press or police is notified, everything are canceled and it will be a further delay.

Okay.

So the letter instructed Condon to coordinate with Lindbergh to get the money together. And once he had done that, he was to post a notice in the classified section of the New York American only saying money is ready.

Okay.

Now, according to author Richard Cahill, like, boom, just boom. According to author Richard Cahill, the single most fascinating person involved in the Lindbergh kidnapping was Dr. John F. Condon.

Really?

In fact, like, Condon appeared to come out of nowhere at a pretty crucial moment in the investigation. And while the timing is almost suspiciously convenient, right, his desire to be, like, of some assistance to the family was by all accounts genuine.

He's just a good guy.

He was a very patriotic man, especially at a time when, like, being patriotic was like, you know, it was just like a different thing, you know what I mean?

Like, I feel like it carried so much weight back then.

Um, and he had a very like sincere love for like teaching children, helping children.

He—

his teaching extended beyond his retirement and motivated him to become an active leader in his community. Like, he was just a good guy.

Yeah, it sounds like it.

And like many Americans, Condon had been inspired by Charles Lindbergh's achievements in aviation and was devastated to learn of the snapping of his baby, right?

It was that, like, patriotism and patriotism—

excuse me— and his commitment for the well-being of children that he really spent his life with that led him to write the letter in the first place. Oh, it's unclear what, if honestly anything, he expected in return for his services. He never said he just wanted it back, but it's really— it's pretty unlikely that he expected to find himself at the center of the literal crime of the century, is what it is called. So while Condon's open letter appeared in the Bronx Home News on March 8th, it caught the attention of the New Jersey State Police but was ultimately dismissed as insignificant. Because after all, Charles Lindbergh received countless letters year-round from adoring fans, and those letters only increased when the news of the kidnapping broke. But when Condon received a reply from the kidnappers, they were kind of forced to take the offer more seriously. So the letter sent to Condon was the second ransom note to be received by someone other than Charles Lindbergh, the first being the letter sent to, uh, Henry Breckenridge, his lawyer. Like the letter received by, uh, Breckenridge, Condon's letter didn't include the three-hole design used by the kidnapper to indicate their authenticity, but nevertheless, the letter was determined to be authentic by the authorities.

Okay. Um, and on the evening of March 9th, Condon found himself on the telephone with Charles Lindbergh, which must have been wild.

Yeah.

Now, to everyone's surprise, Lindbergh agreed to allow Condon to act as a go-between.

Okay.

On March 10th, Charles provided Condon with the $70,000 demanded by the kidnapper, and Condon started the negotiation with the kidnappers through newspaper classifieds. He identified himself with the code name Jaffsy.

Mm-hmm.

Two days later, another letter arrived at Condon's home, delivered by local cab driver Joseph Perrone. According to Joseph, the letter had been given to him by an anonymous man who paid him to deliver it. But he could remember very, like, like, little about the man. The note directed Condon to a vacant lot where he found yet another note, which instructed him to place the money in a box and plan to bring it with him to Woodlawn Cemetery. Oh, not a cemetery.

Yeah.

Once there, he was to follow the fence in the direction of 233rd Street, where he would be met by a man referred to only as John.

That's—

isn't this spooky?

Yeah, I would. And this is just like a random dude who's just trying to help.

Like, this guy's just like, what the fuck?

But you didn't think you were gonna do all this?

No, he was like, I'm just trying to help, man.

So the letters from the kidnapper didn't specify when the meeting would take place, and in the days that followed, Condon continued communicating through the newspapers, trying not only to pin down a date and time he was supposed to do this, but also to secure some proof from the letter writers that they were in fact the kidnapper. Snappers and not just like setting him up, right? To that end, on March 16th, a 7th ransom note arrived at Condon's address, and that included the Dr. Denton sleeping suit that Betty Gough had put Charles Jr. in before putting him to bed that night.

Oh, that's awful.

That sends me into orbit. Yeah, the idea of the little sleeping suit.

No, because I just remember putting my babies into those little sleep sacks. Oh, I just— getting that would be the enemy.

Smells like baby.

Oh, the suit was passed along to Lindbergh, who confirmed that it was his son's suit.

Oh, that's fucking bleak.

So it's important to point out that all of the negotiations between John Condon and the kidnappers and John Condon and the Lindberghs were happening outside the official investigation.

Oh, okay. This was like a whole side quest, which you can understand because they're being told, yeah, don't involve the authorities.

I get Lindbergh's desperate need to be in control of the situation and his distrust of the police and them saying, don't involve the police. It kind of led him to undertake his own investigation.

Yeah.

And it was coordinated by and executed by his lawyers and a lot of, like, private investigators.

So. All right. So there's—

there were professionals involved. Now, according to historian Lloyd Gardner, the fact that Lindbergh kept the ransom notes and the plan to meet with the kidnappers from police would become one of the primary reasons that suspicions would later fall on Lindbergh himself.

Interesting, because like once they found that out, they were like, what the fuck's going on?

Why didn't you involve us?

Yeah, I mean, I get what you get.

I—

you see both sides of that pretty easily.

You absolutely can.

Yeah, because you can see why authorities would look at that and go, what the fuck? Excuse me, what? You didn't want to find your kid by involving us? Like, what the fuck?

Right.

But then you get like when That's how I can't imagine how that feels.

Don't involve the police. Yeah.

Now, finally, after weeks of waiting, Condon received a note from the kidnappers on April 1st instructing him to have the money ready for the exchange the next evening.

Imagine Anne right now and like obviously Charles too, like weeks with your baby, your little baby, like a big brand new giant house, just like waiting for your baby's return with that nursery just sitting there empty. I can't.

Like, I can't.

Oh, so the next afternoon, the 11th ransom note was delivered to Condon's home by an anonymous cab driver who said he'd been given the note by a man that he didn't know and paid to deliver it, just like the first. The note provided directions to a greenhouse on East Tremont Street in the Bronx, where Condon found the 12th and final note. The 12th and final note said, cross the street and walk to the next corner and follow Whittemore Avenue to the sound. Take the money with you. Come alone and walk. I will meet you. So Condon did as he was instructed, and that evening he found himself in the cemetery waiting to meet that man known as John. After a few minutes of waiting, he was flagged down by a man waving a handkerchief whom he assumed to be his contact.

Yeah.

Later, he would describe the man as being of average height and weight with large ears and a pointy chin. The only distinctive feature That he noticed was that the man had a large lump at the base of his left thumb that appeared to be some kind of like physical imperfection. Okay, so in exchange for the money, Condon was given the last written communication anyone would receive from the kidnappers, instructing him where to go to find Charles Lindbergh Jr. They said the boy is on the boat Nellie. It is a small boat, 28 feet long. Two persons are on the boat. They are innocent. You will find the boat between Horse Neck Beach and Gay Head near Elizabeth Island. Uh, talking about Massachusetts.

I was just gonna say, wait a second, Horse Neck?

Uh, so Condon raced home and immediately gave the information to Lindbergh. After a month of just anxiety and heartbreak, it seemed like the ordeal was finally going to come to an end.

Also, imagine missing— like, obviously we know what happens here, but they think they're getting their baby. Yeah, it's like— and you're like, oh my God, I missed out on a month of first child's life.

And what kind of trauma are they gonna have?

Yeah, from this.

Now Lindbergh made arrangements with the U.S. Navy to borrow a seaplane, and he— yeah, he and Breckenridge flew to Martha's Vineyard.

Imagine just dialing up the Navy and being like, hey, can I borrow a plane?

I gotta go to Martha's Vineyard. So they went to Massachusetts to retrieve his son. Once they reached the area around Martha's Vineyard, the man, uh, they scanned the water below looking for the boat supposedly named Nellie. But found nothing. After a brief break to refuel, they went up again and continued the search until the sun went down, but they never found any boat. That evening, when it was clear that there was no boat to be found, Lindbergh and Breckenridge returned to Long Island. From there, and they took a car to the Lindbergh estate in Hopewell. So the failure to find their baby in Martha's Vineyard caused John Condon tremendous guilt and anxiety. Oh, I'm sure. He had idolized Charles Lindbergh and genuinely believed that by just helping and acting as a go-between, he could rescue his little boy and be a hero to him.

Right.

But now it looked like his efforts had just been for nothing. Not only had they not rescued Charles Jr., but he had also lost them the ransom money.

Oh, fuck.

Or that's how he felt.

Right, right.

In the days that followed, Condon placed another ad in the Bronx Home News that read in all caps, What is wrong? Have you crossed me? Please, better directions, Jaffsy. Unfortunately, his plea received no reply from the kidnapper. Now, weeks passed with no word and no progress in the official and unofficial investigations. Then on May 12th, the mystery of Charles Lindbergh Jr.'s whereabouts was pretty tragically solved, not by police, but by a stranger completely unconnected to the case. That afternoon, New Jersey truck driver William Allen was driving a load of lumber to a location in Hopewell, and about 4.5 miles from the Lindbergh house, you know, he went into the woods, just ducked in to relieve himself before going back into his car. He hadn't made it more than 50 or 60 feet into the woods when he made a terrible discovery. A few feet in front of him, covered in dirt and debris, was the child's skull.

Oh God.

Not certain what he was looking at at first, he ducked his head down for a closer look, and he said he saw a small foot.

Oh.

So he raced to the nearest police station and reported what he had found, then accompanied several officers and Hunterdon County Coroner William Swayze back to the gravesite. The body of the little boy was laying on its side and was badly decomposed. It had been picked up by animals and scavengers.

So the whole time that Condon was communicating with the quote-unquote kidnappers.

This baby was. And they're talking about how they're being— he's healthy and they're feeding him his diet and everything's fine.

I know, like, I know that the authorities at the time, or like the unofficial authorities, believed that they were actual communications. Do people widely believe that they were?

We'll get into that. Okay, for sure. Okay.

Um, but yeah, they, they— it was this, this poor little body was badly decomposed, but there was no denying it was the body of a baby.

Because of the position that the remains had been left, which was the face was pointed towards the ground. The only good thing was that investigators were able to photograph the child's face, which was mostly intact because it was faced towards the ground. After comparing the photographs to those of Charles Lindbergh Jr. provided by the family, inspectors from the state police identified the body of that as that of Charles Lindbergh Jr. But before making the identification official Detectives took the small scraps of clothing found with the body to the Lindbergh house, where Lindbergh and Betty Gow both confirmed that they were a match for the clothing the baby was wearing the night he disappeared. The disappearance of Charles Lindbergh Jr. was now a murder investigation.

Oh man.

And we are going to stop there.

Yeah, for part 2. That was a lot. Um, we're gonna get into the hunt for the killer, we're gonna get into theories, we're gonna get into mysteries, things that still make us say, huh, about this case. All of it.

Because it's not over.

I guess not.

It doesn't end there.

I know.

I don't know all the theories. I, I like, obviously I know this case, but I don't know.

It's a while.

All the nitty-gritty.

That's the thing with this case.

There's a lot.

Yeah, there's a lot going on.

Yeah.

And so we will get into it in part 2.

All right, I'm interested. But yeah, definitely a good place to stop.

That was sad. Yeah, it really is. That poor baby.

Yeah. All right.

Do you have a fun fact for us?

There were active volcanoes on the moon when dinosaurs were alive.

Fuck yeah.

Hell yeah.

Hell yeah, brother.

That's metal as fuck.

The only appropriate reaction to that fact. Yeah, that fact. That fact.

That fact was so fun.

That fact was fun. Volcanoes on the moon. Oh my God.

Dinosaurs, which, by the way, another fun fact.

You should check out that show on Netflix called Dinosaurs.

I should.

Okay, sick.

So good.

Let's go, go watch that, guys.

I'mma—

the kids love it. All right, well, we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it weird.

But not so weird that you don't give yourself a little palate cleanser by checking out the show Dinosaurs on Netflix.

Do it, it's fun.

Not even an ad. Elena just likes it with her children.

Dinosaurs.

Bye. Moo.

Back to mama! What?

That was from the show Dinosaurs.

Oh, it's not the same one. I know, it's totally different, but I still think that— I still think that made sense.