Bruno Richard Hauptmann (November 26, 1899 – April 3, 1936) was a German-American carpenter and criminal who was convicted of the abduction and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The Lindbergh kidnapping became known as the "crime of the century". He was executed in 1936 by electric chair at the Trenton State Prison. Both Hauptmann and his wife, Anna Hauptmann, proclaimed his innocence. In recent years, Hauptmann's guilt has been questioned by authors and researchers, and law enforcement behavior in the case has been widely criticized.
Background Bruno Richard Hauptmann was born on November 26, 1899, in Kamenz, a town near Dresden in the Kingdom of Saxony, which was a state of the German Empire. He was the youngest of five children. Neither Hauptmann nor his family or friends used the name Bruno, although prosecutors in the Lindbergh kidnapping trial insisted on referring to him by that name. At age 11, Hauptmann joined the Boy Scouts ().Hauptmann, Richard The Story of My Life, Autobiography: Unedited & Uncorrected (Translated). New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives, May 4, 1935. He attended public school during the day while attending trade school () at night, studying carpentry for the first year, then switching to machine building () for the next two years.Huddleson, Dr James H. Report to Mr James M. Fawcett: Examination of Bruno Richard Hauptmann; p.1, October 3, 1934. New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives.
Hauptmann's father died in 1917. That same year, Hauptmann learned that his brother, Herman, had been killed fighting in France in World War I. Not long after that, Hauptmann was informed that another brother, Max, had also been killed while fighting in Russia. Shortly thereafter, Hauptmann was conscripted into the German Army and assigned to an artillery battery.
Upon receiving his orders, Hauptmann was sent to Bautzen but was transferred to the 103rd Infantry Replacement Regiment upon his arrival. In 1918, he was assigned to the 12th Machine Gun Company at Königsbrück. Hauptmann later claimed that he was deployed to western France with the 177th Regiment of Machine Gunners in either August or September 1918, then fought in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel.Hauptmann, Bruno Richard. Statement. December 6, 1934. New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives. Hauptmann also claimed that he was gassed in September or October 1918, and that he was struck in the helmet by shrapnel from shelling, knocking him out so that he was left for dead. When Hauptmann came to, he crawled back to safety and was back on duty that evening.Huddleson, Dr James H. Report to Mr James M. Fawcett: Examination of Bruno Richard Hauptmann; pp. 2–3, October 3, 1934. New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives.
After the war, Hauptmann and a friend used a pistol to rob two women transporting food.Record Number 1 A 95/19 against Fritz Petzold and accomplice, County Court at Bautzen, June 17, 1919 His other charges include burgling a mayor's house with the use of a ladder. Released after three years in prison, Hauptmann was arrested three months later on suspicion of additional burglaries.Richard ("Bruno") Hauptmann Biography, Famous American Trials, Richard Hauptmann (Lindbergh Kidnapping) Trial by Douglas Linder, 2000 Famous Trials – UMKC School of Law – Prof. Douglas Linder – Biography of ("Bruno") Richard Hauptmann Hauptmann illegally entered the United States by stowing away on an ocean liner. Landing in New York City in November 1923, the 24-year-old Hauptmann was protected by a member of the established German community and worked as a carpenter. He married a German waitress, Anna Schoeffler (1898–1994), in 1925 and became a father eight years later.The concise encyclopedia of crime and criminals. Hawthorn Books, 1961, p. 134 Hauptmann was known to be very secretive; Anna did not know his first name was Bruno until his arrest.
Lindbergh kidnapping
Crime and investigation On the evening of March1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr., 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh, was kidnapped from Highfields, New Jersey; a homemade ladder was found under the window of the child's room. A ransom note demanded $50,000 (equivalent to $ in ). John F. Condon delivered the requested money, but the infant's body was found on May 12 in woods from the family's home. The death was ascribed to a blow to the head, which some have theorized occurred accidentally during the abduction."Federal Sleuth Believes Bruno Wasn't Alone". The Washington Post. January 28, 1935The North American Review, Vol. 237, No. 1, January 1934, p. 55 The ransom bills became increasingly used, and NYPD officer James J. Finn began to map the places where the bills were used. Upon receiving a new report of a location, Finn would quickly interview whoever had been given the bill.
On September15, 1934, a bank teller realized that the serial number on a $10 gold certificate deposited by a gas station was on the list of Lindbergh ransom bills.Horn, William F. Cpl. New Jersey State Police Report. Investigation concerning a recovered $10.00 U.S. gold certificate which is part of the Lindbergh Ransom Money; this report also concerns the arrest of one Richard Bruno Hauptmann, charged with Extortion in connection with the $50, Thousand Lindbergh Ransom Money. September25, 1934. New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives.Note: Gold certificates were rapidly being withdrawn from circulation and were becoming rare On the bill's margin, the attendant, who found the certificate suspicious, had written the license plate number of the customer's car, which turned out to be Hauptmann's. He was placed under surveillance by the New York City Police Department, New Jersey State Police, and the FBI. On September19, Hauptmann realized that he was being watched and attempted to escape, speeding and running through red lights. Hauptmann was arrested by Finn after finding himself blocked by a truck on Park Avenue just north of Tremont Avenue in the Bronx.
Trial Hauptmann's trial was dubbed the "Trial of the Century",Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: while he was named "The Most Hated Man in the World". Evidence against Hauptmann included $14,600 of the ransom money having been found in his garage, testimony alleging handwriting and spelling similarities to that found on the ransom notes, testimony that lumber used in constructing the ladder probably originated in Hauptmann's house,Report of Examination of Ladder for the New Jersey State Police: Summary of Observations and Conclusions; U.S. Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin. March 4, 1933. Condon's address and telephone number having been found written on the inside of one of Hauptmann's closets, and what appeared to be a hand-drawn sketch of a ladder found in one of Hauptmann's notebooks."The State of New Jersey vs. Bruno Richard Hauptmann," Hunterdon County Court of Oyer and Termeer; vol. 5, p. 2606, 1935. New Jersey State Law Library. Experts retained by the defense were never called to testify.Farr, Julia. Letter from Julia Farr to Lloyd Fisher; New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives, April 11, 1935.
The trial began on January3, 1935, and lasted until February13.FBI.gov: Lindberg Kidnapping During the trial, Hauptmann was identified as the man who received the ransom money, the man who had spent some of the ransom gold certificates, and as a man seen near the Lindbergh home on the day of the kidnapping. He had been absent from work on the day of the ransom payment and had quit his job two days later. Hauptmann's attorney, Edward J. Reilly, argued that the evidence against Hauptmann was entirely circumstantial, as no reliable witness had placed Hauptmann at the scene of the crime, nor were his fingerprints found on the ladder, the ransom notes, or anywhere in the nursery."The State of New Jersey vs. Bruno Richard Hauptmann," Hunterdon County Court of Oyer and Termeer; vol. 11 pp. 4687–88, 1935. New Jersey State Law Library. However, Hauptmann was convicted and immediately sentenced to death. His appeals failed, though his execution was stayed twice while New Jersey Governor Harold G. Hoffman reviewed the case.
Execution On April 3, 1936, Hauptmann was executed in the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison.Bleam, I. C. Prison Clerk, New Jersey State Prison. Death House Menu, "Last meal served to Bruno Richard Hauptmann, #17400, April 3, 1936". 1600 File. New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives. Reporters present said that he made no statement.Runyon, Damon "Bruno Dies in Chair". The New York American. April 4, 1936Folliard, Edward "Witness to an Execution". The Washington Post. July 17, 1972. Hauptmann's spiritual advisor said that Hauptmann told him, before being taken from his cell, "" ("I am absolutely innocent of the crimes I am accused of").Hoffman, Harold Giles. The Crime – The Case – The Challenge (What Was Wrong with the Lindbergh Case?), Original Manuscript: Unedited & Uncorrected, circa 1937. New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives. Hauptmann's widow, Anna, had his body cremated. Two Lutheran pastors conducted a private memorial service in German. A crowd of some 2,000 gathered outside.
Guilt questioned Several books have been written proclaiming Hauptmann's innocence. In 1974, Anthony Scaduto wrote Scapegoat, which took the position that Hauptmann was framed and that the police withheld and fabricated evidence. This led to further investigation, and in 1985, Scottish journalist Ludovic Kennedy published The Airman and the Carpenter, in which he argued that Hauptmann had not kidnapped and murdered Lindbergh Jr. These and other books criticize the police for allowing the crime scenes to become contaminated, Lindbergh and his associates for interfering with the investigation, Hauptmann's trial lawyers for ineffectively representing him, and the reliability of the witnesses and physical evidence presented at the trial. Kennedy in particular questioned much of the evidence, such as the origin of the ladder and the testimony of many of the witnesses. Skeptics pointed to various items of evidence that they claim was misrepresented at the trial, such as a scrawled phone number on a board in his closet, which was the number of the man who delivered the ransom, John F. Condon. According to some accounts, a reporter admitted he had written the number himself.The crime of the Century: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax, p. 164. (Gregory Ahlgren, Stephen Monier) They also claim that police and investigators intimidated witnesses, planted or falsified evidence, and ignored exculpatory evidence.
Another point of contention was that neither Lindbergh nor the go-between who delivered the ransom, Condon, initially identified Hauptmann as the recipient.An Account of the Trial of Bruno Hauptmann In her book about another high-profile trial of the period, that of "trunk murderess" Winnie Ruth Judd, investigative reporter Jana Bommersbach argued that as was the case with Judd's trial, the press created such an atmosphere of prejudice against Hauptmann that he could not have received a fair trial. According to Bommersbach, crime reporters of the time often acted as "judge and jury", covering cases in a manner that would have been considered "supermarket sleaze" by today's standards.
Widow's campaign