The 'true crime' fever fuels a macabre theory about the tragic end of Charles Lindbergh's baby

The kidnapping and murder of the baby of famous pilot Charles Lindbergh occupies a special place in the sea of ​​crimes that have shocked the United States.

The little boy, 20 months old, disappeared on March 1, 1932 from the crib in which he slept at the family residence in Hopewell, New Jersey.

A new and macabre theory gains strength 92 years after the event.

This has been produced by a retired judge from California, who has become a successful crime novel author and who is testing an alternative resolution of the case.

Additionally, she claims that German immigrant Bruno Hauptmann, a New York carpenter who was executed by electric chair for the crime in 1936, is innocent.

“The wrong man was executed.

My hope is that Hauptmann will be posthumously exonerated.

And I'm not the only one who hopes it," Lise Pearlman told the

San Francisco Chronicle

in January .

The former judge, who lives in Oakland, published her book

Suspect No.1 in 2020.

This

analyzes alleged failures of the prosecution during the trial and provides context to the report that the coroner's office prepared in 1932. The 550-page text includes a new analysis by a renowned pathologist involved in other high-impact cases in American justice.

The publication has become, especially as a result of the interview with the

Chronicle

, a small sensation in the very active community of

true crime

fans .

Authors of the genre and judicial experts have praised the investigation, calling it “well documented,” “powerfully argued,” and “very plausible.”

Lowell Jensen, a retired federal judge who served in the Attorney General's Office, calls it a “definitive” book on the Lindbergh saga.

Bruno Hauptmann, right, was arrested and later executed as the person primarily responsible for the murder of the Lindbergh baby.ASSOCIATED PRESS

The feat of the pilot, the first to cross the Atlantic alone and non-stop flying the famous

Spirit of Saint Louis

in 1927, has always had a leading place in American history.

However, its dark side has also been extensively documented.

The Plot Against America

, by Philip Roth, imagined an alternative America where the ideas of Lindbergh, a Nazi German sympathizer and white supremacist, were adopted by the majority.

The rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh

, a 2020 biography of Candace Fleming aimed at younger readers, recalls that the hero led incendiary rallies in which he called journalists “dishonest parasites” and demanded the closure of borders to prevent the arrival to the country of “alien blood (a derogatory way of calling non-white foreigners).”

Pearlman's central theory is that the death of the baby, Charles Augustus, is the responsibility of his father.

He, the author speculates, may have lent his son to the French scientist Alexis Carrel to carry out scientific experiments with his organs.

The former judge points out that the European biologist's team removed the thyroid and part of the carotid artery from the minor, who was less than two years old.

“These were removed and remained viable to be transplanted for 30 days.

We believe that the minor died on the operating room table,” says Pearlman.

The writer imagines that Lindbergh fabricated the story of the kidnapping to hide his tracks.

Carrel, winner of a Nobel Prize in 1912, and the pilot believed in eugenics, the philosophy of race improvement through genetic manipulation, a concept embraced by Nazism.

“I believe Lindbergh was present during the operation,” Pearlman tells the

Chronicle

.

In her investigation, the former judge reviewed essays written by the French biologist and examined dozens of photographs of the baby, who had a larger than normal head and enjoyed poor health in her short life.

The body of little Charles Lindbergh was found on May 12, more than two months after the disappearance, in a state of decomposition, in a field near the family home.

The remains were cremated without an autopsy being performed.

According to Pearlman, Lindbergh is the number one suspect and the one who managed to escape justice until his death in 1974. Two years after the crime, the police captured Bruno Hauptmann when he used a bill at a gas station that had been part of the rescue.

In his defense, the man claimed that he obtained the money, about $13,500, from a friend who returned to Germany.

A handwriting analysis carried out by the FBI of Edgar J. Hoover determined that the handwriting of the letter demanding payment of the $50,000 and that of Hauptmann were not the same.

Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh testifies from the stand in Hauptmann's trial for the disappearance and murder of his son.ASSOCIATED PRESS

The trial against the German carpenter was called “the trial of the century.”

The judicial expert argues in her book that the case put together by the prosecution was flawed.

The authorities did not follow many of the lines of investigation opened by the police, the prosecution did not allow the defense to study an extensive report of 90,000 pages and, according to Pearlman herself, a dozen witnesses presented by prosecutors lied from the stand, which that made the German immigrant the scapegoat for a tragedy.

Suspect No.1

has not only become a sensation in the niche of fans of the genre.

Her author has also defended her research to criminology professionals.

Pearlman was invited last year by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences to its annual meeting to present her findings.

The author assured specialists that key forensic evidence was suppressed and other physical evidence was altered by the New Jersey police to make Hauptmann fit the profile of the most wanted man.

The publication has motivated a lawyer to file a lawsuit so that New Jersey allows independent experts to analyze the evidence kept in the case.

A judge last year considered the complaint inadmissible, but the decision has been appealed.

Pearlman's arguments have been compelling enough that the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that reviews court cases, is considering whether to take up the cause to clear Hauptmann's memory.

Other experts in the case, however, take the judge's work with skepticism and assure that it is almost impossible to prove her theory almost a century later.

Newspapers of the time described the scene of the crime, committed while Colonel Lindbergh, his wife and their babysitter were at home.

A trail of muddy footprints led from the crib to the open window, according to The New York Times

archive

.

When the babysitter notified the parents that the baby was missing, the pilot called the police chief directly.

The agents determined that the kidnapper was barefoot or wearing socks, since there were no shoe marks on the floor.

The footprints led to a wooded area, where a second, smaller pair of footprints appeared, which made investigators think that a woman was involved.

In the forest, the search party found a wooden ladder.

The pilot refused to speak to the reporters who were present.

The theories surrounding the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby have led to dozens of interpretations and theories, some of them far-fetched.

In the 1980s, for example, two men separately claimed to be the missing minor and that he was never murdered.

As the years went by, new revisions would come to the evidence collected by the FBI and New Jersey police officers.

A 1993 book called

Crime of the Century: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax

already claimed that the alleged kidnapping was actually a hoax and that the child's father was involved in the hoax.

Pearlman has added another icing on the cake to a mountain of versions.

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