In March 1932, twenty month old Charles Lindbergh Jr, son of aviator Charles Lindbergh, was taken from his nursery in Hopewell, New Jersey, via a homemade ladder left beneath the window. A ransom of 50,000 dollars in gold certificates was paid, but the child’s body was found in nearby woods weeks later.
On September 19, 1934, police arrested Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German born carpenter, after one of the marked gold certificates surfaced at a petrol station and was traced back to him. Searchers found thousands of dollars of the ransom money hidden in his garage, and timber from the ladder was matched to a board missing from his attic floor.
Hauptmann was tried at Flemington, New Jersey, convicted of murder, and executed in the electric chair at Trenton State Prison in April 1936.
Hauptmann maintained his innocence to the end, reportedly refusing an offer to commute his sentence in exchange for a confession, and went to his death still denying any role in the kidnapping.
