THE DISAPPEARANCE of Charles Lindbergh Jr. set off a media frenzy across the country. Not only was everyone desperate for the latest information about the baby snatching, but they also feared that the crime, if left unsolved, would set off an epidemic of kidnappings. Here are some highlights from TIME's coverage of that 1932 crime and it's repercussions:
The last person known to have seen 20-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was his nurse, a dark-haired, light footed little Scotch girl of 26 named Betty Gow.
From Snatchers on Sourland Mt.
Mar. 14, 1932
Two weeks of March had run out. But still the curly-headed baby for whom all police and all good citizens of the nation were on anxious lookout, was a lost child. The strain told on the bereaved mother, soon to become a mother again.
From On Sourland Mountain (Cont'd)
Mar. 21, 1932
Across the Raritan River from Highland Park, N.J., someone tried to break into the nursery of Diane Johnson, seven weeks, whose father is vice president of Johnson & Johnson.
From On Sourland Mountain (Cont'd)
Mar. 28, 1932
Prime development last week was an announcement by three substantial citizens of Norfolk, Va. that they were in communication with the kidnappers.
From On Sourland Mountain (Cont'd)
Apr. 4, 1932
A ransom of $50,000 was paid to the kidnappers, properly identified as such, upon their agreement to notify Col. Lindbergh as to the exact whereabouts of the baby. The baby was not found at the point designated. Several days were permitted to elapse to give the kidnappers every opportunity to keep their agreement.
From On Sourland Mountain (Cont'd)
Apr. 18, 1932
Last week the case passed into its third month with the child still missing, the abductors still uncaught....The scum of early reportorial confusion—result of keen newspaper competition and official impatience with the Press—had begun to be skimmed off the story. Facts hitherto obscured by haste and hysteria were clear.
From "A Hard Case"
May. 2, 1932
If a Negro from Marshall's Corner N.J. had not decided to get out of his truck and relieve himself in the woods a mile from Hopewell last week, a half-dozen accredited negotiators and a hemisphere's police would still be looking for kidnapped, murdered Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.
From "Never-to-be-Forgotten"
May. 23, 1932
Because of the publicity police were loath to 'rubber-hose' Prisoner Hauptmann's story out of him. But the gentler method of keeping him awake, nagging him with questions for 48 hours brought small results.
From 4U-13-41
Oct. 1, 1934
Disguised in a brown cap and smoked glasses, the nation's No. 1 hero sat among a half-dozen detectives while another young man was brought in. He was unshaven, collarless, haggard Bruno Richard Hauptmann, indicted for extortion, suspected of kidnapping and murder.
From Evidence
Oct. 8, 1934
On June 17, 1932, Congress passed the Lindbergh Law making kidnapping across state lines a Federal felony. This act pitted the U. S. Government directly against the virulent 'snatch' racket for the first time.
From Lindbergh Law and After
Oct. 29, 1934
Nurse Gow is of no real importance to defense or prosecution. But the thick conspiratorial atmosphere enveloping her voyage to the U. S. typified the whole course of the incredible crime and its fabulous aftermath.
From At Flemington
Dec. 31, 1934
Bruno Richard Hauptmann, manacled between two guards, managed to walk from the Flemington courtroom after the death sentence had been passed on him last week. But as he was being led into his cell his knees gave way.
From Hauptmann to Chair
Feb. 25, 1935
Last week newshawks and amateur numerologists had fun with these numbers: ...At 9:13 p.m. on March 1, 1932, Charles A. Lindbergh, unaware that his small son was being kidnapped, heard what might have been a ladder falling outside his Hopewell, N. J. home....Bruno Richard Hauptmann was resentenced last week (Dec. 13) to die in the electric chair sometime during the week of Jan. 13.
From Thirteen
Dec. 23, 1935
The Lindbergh Case ended on Sept. 19, 1934 when Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested in The Bronx, N. Y. for possession of Lindbergh ransom bills. The Hauptmann Case ended in Trenton, N. J. last week when Hauptmann paid with his life for the murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.
From The Hoffman Case
Apr. 13, 1936
To millions of decent U. S. citizens the Flemington trial seemed more like a nightmare, and fortnight ago, after long study, a committee of 18 leading U. S. editors, publishers and lawyers agreed that it was 'the most spectacular and depressing example of improper publicity and professional misconduct ever presented to the people of the United States."
From After Flemington
Oct. 4, 1937
Congress' reaction to the 1932 kidnap-murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby son was shock, rage and a stiff law....Last week, on the basis of the jury verdict last clause, the Supreme Court struck down the Lindbergh law's death-penalty provision.
From No Death for Kidnapers
Apr. 19, 1968
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