Facts About The Lindbergh Kidnapping

At approximately 9:00pm, Charles A. Lindbergh was kidnapped from his nursery in his home. The child’s nanny, Betty Gow discovered that the baby was missing when she went to care for him. It was one of the most dreadful things the Lindbergh family would go through. Britannica exclaims, “A ladder was discovered some distance from the Lindbergh house, broken at a point where two sections were joined, and footprints were found leading into the woods at the edge of the property”(Kidnapping 1). There was no doubt that the baby had been kidnapped and there were loads of evidence to support it. At the crime scene, footprints were left along with the ladder, and a ransom note demanding $50,000 from the Lindbergh family in exchange for their baby back. Shortly after the

Condon placed an ad in a Bronx newspaper on March 8, 1932, offering to be a go-between for the kidnapper and the Lindberghs. The next day Condon received a note from the kidnapper saying they would allow him to be mediator. The next following weeks consisted of John writing columns under the name Jafsie and the kidnapper’s secret written messages at places around New York. On March 16 John received the baby’s sleeping outfit as proof they were the kidnapper and within two weeks the kidnapper demanded delivery of the ransom. On April 2, Condon, with Lindbergh in another car nearby, waited for the kidnapper. Condon met a man by the name of John at St. Raymond’s Cemetery in Bronx where he gave John the original ransom amount of $50,000 which was paid in gold certificates. The kidnapper said that Condon could find the baby on a boat called the Nelly unfortunately; they were never able to find the boat; in fact, there was no such thing as a boat named Nelly. Tragically, on May 12 the baby’s body was found decomposed less than five miles from the Lindbergh home in the woods. The baby died from a blow to the