Some odd 20 years later after Charles Lindbergh’s baby was accidentally found dead, heavily
decomposed, by a
truck driver named William Allen, out in the woods to relieve himself in May, 1932; numerous people have claimed that they are “the real Lindbergh baby”.
Even before this, there has been a lot of speculation as to how the child died. By most people it is believed that the child was indeed kidnapped by unknown men – the same men who cheated
Charles Lindbergh for 50,000 dollars by telling him where who could find the child. The negotiation for this amount of money was done by Dr.
John Cordon. A doctor who placed ads in a
Bronx newspaper seeking contact with the kidnappers, and not long afterwards received the pajamas in the mail - along with a ransom note - the baby was wearing on the day of the kidnapping. Dr. Condon met twice with the kidnapper during the negotiation, and it was Dr. Condon who gave the mysterious stranger the 50.000 dollars for
false information. Both meetings took place in
cemeteries.
Some people theorize that Charles Lindbergh accidentally killed the baby himself.
It should be said, that a German named Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of the kidnapping, and was later sentenced to death by
electrocution. Even today people still debate the fairness of "the trial of the century", and whether Bruno was indeed the kidnapper - it is believed by some, that Bruno Hauptmann was innocent of the crime, but a victim of the
media circus surrounding the case. The evidence against Bruno were a ransom note found on his pocket upon arrest, and 14.000 dollars in his garage. Bruno himself denied any involvement in the kidnapping.
After the lengthy trial, Charles Lindbergh and his wife moved to England for some peace and quiet.
The theory Charles Lindbergh accidently killing his own son origin in a statement made by Charles Lindbergh’s
wife, who said that her husband had “hidden his child in a
garbage dumpster 2 months earlier as a "
joke" to scare her” (the source of this quote is from a letter Charles Lindbergh's wife wrote to her mother-in-law on the night of the kidnapping). However, the theory never really caught on due to lack of evidence.
Charles Lindbergh personally gave orders to the baby’s cremation immediately after it was found, autopsied and verified to be his son. The body was identified by the clothes it wore and a birth defect causing the Lindbergh's baby's toes to overlap.
Charles Lindbergh also made a personal appearance at the
crematorium to make sure it was done properly. Furthermore he scattered his son’s
ashes from an airplane in August 1932 (the same month when his wife gave birth to their second child).
Throughout the entire case a media cirus arose around the Lindbergh family, as one strange ransom note after another surfaced.
The press exaggerated the facts of the case to attract readers, and eventually this took it's toll on Charles Lindbergh.
The mysterious nature and extensive media-covering of the kidnapping case, the quick cremation of the body and the unauthorized autopsy by a illegitimate doctor, have led some people to believe that the body found was not the “real” Lindbergh baby, but a poor
parentless child, with the same birth defect, taken from the streets and placed as a
decoy.
A few people, however, claim that “they are the real Lindbergh baby”
for a) the publicity and b) claim the heritage of the Lindbergh family and thus gain instant wealth.
Harold Olsen and Charles Lindbergh (not the father, someone else who took the name of the child) are the two most aggressive claim-seekers, both matching up physically.
Mr. Lindbergh says that his feet were wrapped to correct a turned foot much like the kidnapped baby was said to have.
Mr. Olson said he is allergic to milk, which as a baby could have rendered him unable to digest milk, in turn leading to a vitamin D deficiency. One treatment is the vitamin Viosterol, which the kidnapped baby was taking at the time of the kidnapping.
Grandpa Simpson also claims to be the real Lindbergh baby in episode #136 ("Grandpa:
Alright! I admit it, I *am* the Lindbergh baby. Waah! Waah! Googoo. I miss my fly-fly dada!)
Whether one of these men really is the Charles Lindbergh Jr. cannot be determined at this time. There were fingerprints (taken off a ball) of the baby's fingers, but when Harold Olson tried 21 years ago to get into the then-closed New Jersey files on the case, it was found that the baby's fingerprints had "disappeared."
Many years later, people joke about this on the internet. – many proclaiming themselves to be the real Lindbergh baby: thus telling everyone else on #counter-strike-is-cool, that they know enough “
history-class” to make a literate joke worthy of
Fraiser Crane
The Truth is probably that Charles Lindbergh just wanted to rid himself of the entire case and move on. While it may have been rather
silly of him to conclude the
autopsy of his son so utterly fast, it can all put down to a
father's grief. Worn out after the many newspaperarticles about himself and his son, one can easily understand why he wanted it over and done with as soon as possible.
As to the identity of the body found in the woods by William Allen in May 1932, most people believe that it really is the Lindbergh baby, and since the only hard evidence that it's not the real Lindbergh baby is a group of people all claiming to be the real deal, I guess it will remain a mystery to those who want it to be, and a closed case to those who don't really care.
However, with more and more people doubting the guilt of Bruno Hauptmann, or if not that then whether the death of the baby was done by his hands or another man working with him, the real question is this:
"
Who really killed the Lindbergh baby?"