90 Years Later: Revisting the Lindbergh Kidnapping Case

Nearly ninety years ago, the kidnapping of the baby son of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh occurred in Hopewell, New Jersey. So heinous was the act, and its tragic outcome when the baby was found dead after the ransom was paid, that the case would later come to be known in the collective public mind as “The Crime of the Century.” The ensuing investigation took over 2 years and involved, among other things, the forensic analysis of handwriting. The testimony provided at trial by eight forensic document examiners identified German immigrant Bruno Hauptmann as the writer of the ransom notes and other communications. The trial also involved testimony about wood identification by a wood expert, the first of its kind to make headline news. The case, investigation, evidence, and testimony are reviewed and summarized here in the hope it will provide an interesting retrospective for the experts of today.