CRIME: On Sour land Mountain (Cont'd)

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CRIME

The cold wind which, on the night of March 1, banged shutters and rattled windows at the lonely New Jersey home of Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh, had died down last week. 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. Physicians attended her, but still she was seen with her mother and sister going about her robbed house, managing, helping, hoping. At Hopewell, where the Press kept constant contact with the State police, new factual developments were only a thin trickle amid the welter of rumor, false report and fantasy which piled up from day to day.

Facts. It was announced that the original ransom demand (not yet made public) was found some hours after the child's disappearance was discovered, and not, as originally reported, when Col. & Mrs. Lindbergh first rushed with Nurse Betty Gow into the nursery. And both parents were not downstairs when Nurse Gow found the crib empty. Mrs. Lindbergh was on the second floor taking a bath. Learning that Mrs. Lindbergh did not have the baby, Nurse Gow went downstairs to see if the child was with his father (who calls him "it'').

Also during the week, Henry ("Red") Johnson, a friend of Nurse Gow's who had difficulty explaining his movements on the kidnapping night, passed beyond suspicion. He was, however, held for the immigration authorities when it was found that his real name was Henrik Finn Johnsen and that he had illegally entered the U. S. by jumping ship in Brooklyn several years ago.