00:00:04
In March 1932, the whole world was captivated and terrified by the kidnapping of 20-month-old Charles
00:00:12
Lindbergh Jr. the baby son of the famed aviator. >> And there's a chance that somebody might
00:00:19
notice one of the posters who'd recognize little Charles Lindbergh and so furnish a valuable clue.
00:00:25
>> He was mysteriously taken from his nursery on the second floor of the family's home in New Jersey while his
00:00:32
parents were downstairs. >> Meanwhile, the child is still gone and the parents are suffering tortures that
00:00:39
only fathers and mothers can suffer. >> Little Lindy's disappearance, along with
00:00:44
the discovery of his body, the arrest and prosecution of Bruno Hauptmann, was the original true crime story of the
00:00:52
modern media age, yielding countless theories about what really happened to the baby
00:00:59
of the most famous man in America. I'm CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod and welcome to a special episode of the 48
00:01:08
Hours podcast. I'm joined today by Free Press Senior Editor and Writer Jonas Sarakho who's out with a new six-part
00:01:15
podcast series about the kidnapping called The Lindbergh Conspiracy and we welcome in
00:01:22
Jonas Sarakho. >> Thank you. Thanks for having me. >> Great for you to be here. 94 years since
00:01:28
this kidnapping. So much news has developed and unfolded since then. So why this? Why does the Lindbergh
00:01:37
kidnapping still claim so much interest? >> Um because it's a 94-year-old mystery
00:01:47
that many people feel has never been solved. I think there's two other aspects to it, though. Um one is
00:01:55
it's the original true crime story. I mean, it really is and we're a culture that's obsessed with true crime now. And
00:02:03
secondly, I think it gives a snapshot of a different America. >> Mhm. >> A more innocent country where a man like
00:02:13
Charles Lindbergh could be almost godlike in in the admiration Americans had for him, which doesn't
00:02:20
really exist anymore. >> Lindbergh was the first person to prove that flight could be more than um
00:02:29
daredevils or um war machines. >> Lucky Lindy, the first man to fly alone across the Atlantic.
00:02:37
>> It was an American hero kind of thing. It was like only an American could have
00:02:41
done this. >> But in terms of Lindbergh as this enormous world hero, he's also a deeply flawed man.
00:02:51
>> He was a um believer in eugenics. As as many upper class white people were at the time.
00:02:58
>> Which is the sort of selective breeding to promote certain traits. >> And he made trips to Germany
00:03:06
before the war and um they gave him some medal at one point. And he became part of the America First
00:03:14
movement, which was an effort to persuade the country not to go to war. He was also He also was shown to be during this
00:03:24
period of his life >> anti-Semitic. All right, so take us to March 1st, 1932. By Hopewell, New
00:03:31
Jersey, what happens? >> Well, it was a Tuesday night. The Lindberghs were never at Hopewell,
00:03:37
which was really their weekend retreat on a Tuesday night. >> And Charles Lindbergh was married to
00:03:42
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who was an heiress and >> That's right. Very wealthy. They spent a
00:03:47
lot of their time in Englewood. Dwight Morrow, her father, who was a financier and a diplomat, uh lived in Englewood.
00:03:55
They would spend the week in Englewood and then they would go Hopewell for the for the weekend. But the baby had a
00:04:00
cold. And Anne was feeling pretty run down, too. So, nursemaid Betty Gow, she puts the
00:04:05
baby to bed at 10:00. Betty Gow goes upstairs, opens the door, looks into the baby's bedroom, he's gone. Anne would
00:04:13
later write, "At first I thought maybe Charles was playing a prank." Believe it or not, believe it or not, he
00:04:20
had once before hid the baby for 20 minutes from Anne and Betty as a prank. He did weird things.
00:04:28
>> He's bizarre. >> Yeah. >> But that's the first thought. Maybe he's playing a prank.
00:04:33
>> Maybe he's playing a prank. So, they go downstairs, Betty and Anne, and they say, "Charles, the baby's missing."
00:04:42
And he runs up the stairs and even before he gets in the room, he says, "They've kidnapped our baby."
00:04:49
Now, here's another little quirky thing. When Anne and Betty were in the room, they did not see an envelope.
00:04:56
When Charles gets in the room, now maybe it was there and they just didn't notice
00:04:59
it cuz then they were panicked. Charles gets in the room and he sees an envelope,
00:05:06
which is obviously the ransom note. So, he takes the ransom note and uh he says, "Don't open it. We're going to let
00:05:14
the police do that." He takes a gun, he takes a rifle, he runs outside, um can't find anything. He sees a ladder
00:05:21
that has been dragged 60 or 75 ft away. Um and then they call the police. >> So, quick question about the ransom note
00:05:33
because I I know there was some reporting not only didn't they see the ransom note, but then they found it on the
00:05:38
window sill. Is that right? >> Windows open, ransom note's on the sill. >> Windy night.
00:05:45
>> Windy night. >> Yeah. >> I mean >> So, you just So, you just stumbled on You've just hit upon
00:05:52
the first of many many many oddities. >> Mhm. >> Strange [clears throat] things that
00:05:58
happen that don't add up. And this is part of the reason the case so fixates people because once you start to dig in,
00:06:06
it's like, "Oh my god, that happened. Oh my god, that happened. Oh my god, that happened." I'll tell you the next one.
00:06:11
They could find no fingerprints anywhere in the room. Anywhere. On the walls. >> All right.
00:06:19
>> On the On the On the drawers. On the bed. No fingerprints. >> So, what kind of evidence was there?
00:06:26
>> The ransom note, obviously. >> Okay, so they had the rans- There was the ransom note.
00:06:31
There were footprints at the base of the of the window. >> Okay. That's probably helpful.
00:06:40
>> It would be if somebody took a mold, but nobody did. Because um the two cops that came were local cops.
00:06:49
They By the time the state police showed up, the grounds had been trampled to death
00:06:53
by journalists. Somebody had leaked the fact that the Lindbergh baby had been kidnapped, and
00:07:01
journalists just swarmed all over the place. >> Now, the New Jersey state police at that
00:07:05
point, uh run by and this is a sort of famous last name in American history, Schwarzkopf.
00:07:12
>> For famous first name, too. >> Norman Schwarzkopf. >> Father of Stormin' Norman. And it turns
00:07:17
out he worships the ground Charles Lindbergh walks on. So, not only does he not investigate the
00:07:25
possibility that the parents could be involved, he lets Lindbergh manage the investigation of his own child.
00:07:35
>> So, you have one of the people involved as as the parent of this victim dictating to all the
00:07:45
investigators what they can and can't do. You mentioned the note, the ransom note.
00:07:51
Whether whether it's legit or not, what does it say? >> In very broken English, it says, "Give us $50,000 and you'll get
00:08:02
your baby back." >> Broken English. >> Well, it was written It was clearly written by somebody who did not speak um
00:08:10
for whom English was not their first language. So, it had misspellings and not just vocabulary problems, but um
00:08:16
grammar problems. But then >> [gasps] >> Lindbergh then went on to make a series
00:08:21
of idiotic decisions. >> Well, take me through them though in terms of the decisions he made that
00:08:26
Sure. you might be critical of. >> Well, um the first decision he made was to give
00:08:32
the ransom note or a version of it at you know to uh a couple of mobsters because the mob thought uh
00:08:42
>> Because we needed another element to make it even weirder. >> Yeah. So, uh because the mob was known to kidnap
00:08:49
people once in a while. Um although as one of our experts on the podcast says, you know, this was such He said, "If the
00:08:57
mob had done it, it would be a professional kidnapping. This was This was clearly not a professional
00:09:01
kidnapping." But once the ransom note was out there, anybody could copy it. It It also had a
00:09:07
little red mark. And then future ransom notes also had the little red mark, so >> Sure. Well, then the whole thing's
00:09:13
compromised at that point. >> So, they could have been anybody. Extortionists, mobsters.
00:09:20
>> Let me ask you about Dr. John Condon. >> Jafsie, as he was known. Yeah. >> How does he get involved?
00:09:28
>> So, uh >> Who is he? >> Uh He writes a letter to his local paper, the Bronx Home News.
00:09:38
And he basically says he's a very pompous, full of himself, 70-plus year guy. And he basically says, "I'm going to add
00:09:49
a thousand dollars to the ransom money that I will contribute for myself." And And the kidnappers
00:09:57
put a note in the Bronx Home News saying basically, "Huh, get in touch with us." But what
00:10:03
happens is because the kidnappers give Jafsie a letter to give to Lindbergh, Lindbergh reads the letter and says,
00:10:15
"Okay, you obviously have some contact with these guys or this guy, so you're going
00:10:21
to be my intermediary." >> So Lindbergh's all in with Jafsie. >> So Lindbergh becomes all in with Jafsie.
00:10:26
That's exactly what happens. >> And they end up or Jafsie at least ends up having meetings with these guys?
00:10:35
>> Well, with somebody. He has two meetings in two different cemeteries. >> Jafsie's conducting all of his business
00:10:44
in cemeteries. >> Yes, that's right. In the first meeting, supposedly, and and by the way, I should
00:10:49
just say for the record, Jafsie is a major bullshitter. But he's the only person that you have
00:10:55
who's on record, so you have to at some point assume he's not completely making it up.
00:11:01
So he has his first meeting with the kidnapper, they have a long discussion. Jafsie says, "You got to prove to me
00:11:07
that you have the baby. You have to send me the um uh the baby's um uh nightgown that he
00:11:14
had the night he was kidnapped." Um he sent the nightgown to the Lindberghs. Um so that happens. So then uh Jafsie
00:11:21
meets again at a second cemetery in the in the Bronx. And this time Lindbergh goes with him, but Lindbergh stays in
00:11:28
the car. And um Jafsie has the the ransom money in a box. >> How much? >> 50,000.
00:11:39
As he's going to meet um the kidnap the kidnapper or extortioner, whoever he was. The guy says, "Hey
00:11:46
doctor." And even though Lindbergh is sort of around the corner in a car, Lindbergh
00:11:52
claims to have heard that and that and also claims that it was in a German accent.
00:11:58
He takes the 50,000. He disappears. >> Now, wait a minute. This claim was intriguing to you.
00:12:05
>> Well, we tried to replicate it. I I I sat in a car in the same position that Lindbergh was in and and Poppy, my
00:12:11
producer, was um at the cemetery and we couldn't get in there, so you have to stand outside. So, she was actually
00:12:17
closer than than Jafsy would have been. And so, she yells out, "Hey doctor." And
00:12:24
I couldn't hear a thing. I even even with the no traffic. >> Is this So, it it essentially
00:12:32
undercuts this part of Lindbergh's story that he heard somebody in a German with
00:12:36
a German accent >> say, "Hey doctor." >> from the cemetery. >> Right. >> So, all of this is unfolding. I'm sure
00:12:44
folks are looking for little Lindy's either the baby alive or >> Right. >> sadly a body and eventually
00:12:53
a body is >> A body is found 6 weeks later. >> Where? >> In the woods about 4 miles from
00:13:01
um the house in Hopewell. And the only reason it was found is because a um a truck driver had to take a leak
00:13:12
and walked into the woods and saw this uh this partially decomposed body. And they the coroner basically concluded
00:13:20
that that he had died from blunt force trauma. >> Let's talk about Bruno Richard
00:13:27
Hauptmann. >> Right. >> So, one of the great three-named notorious people in American history,
00:13:34
John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Bruno Richard Hauptmann. >> Yeah. >> Who is he?
00:13:39
>> He is a itinerant carpenter, an immigrant who's been in the US for about a decade.
00:13:47
The first time he came, um, illegally, he got caught and sent back. The second time he he managed to sneak through.
00:13:55
Um, >> But this is no Boy Scout. This is somebody who has a record. >> He He's been He was jailed in in
00:14:01
Germany. He didn't have a record in the US. Um, he he he seemed to be making an honest living. Uh, his wife worked at a
00:14:07
bakery. She made an honest living. They had a child. Um, they rented a house in the Bronx.
00:14:14
Needless to say, uh, yeah, rented a house in the Bronx. >> the Bronx. >> Yeah, that was uh
00:14:19
um, >> Why did he very quickly become the sole suspect? >> Well, because he had ransom money on him.
00:14:28
There was a certain kind of money called gold certificates that was about to go out of circulation.
00:14:33
The Treasury Department knew this, and so they insisted that a whole bunch of the ransom money be made in gold in gold
00:14:39
certificates, knowing that if somebody tried to to pass it off, >> it would be a tell.
00:14:45
>> It would be a tell. So, 2 years later, um, Hauptmann goes to a gas station, gives
00:14:53
the gas station attendant a bill and and uh >> And a gold certificate. >> certificate. And the the attendant
00:14:59
writes down the the plate number on the gold certificate. >> That is traced >> That is traced to Hauptmann.
00:15:08
They go into his house, and they do a search, and they find $14,000 worth of the $50,000 ransom.
00:15:17
>> So, that's a smoking gun. >> Well, it is and it isn't. It is and [laughter] it isn't.
00:15:22
Depends on who you ask. Hauptmann had a friend and business partner named Isidor
00:15:26
Fisch. He says Isidor Fisch gave him this box and said, "Please store this for me. I'm
00:15:33
going to go to Germany right now." So, he takes it home, he puts it up. Isidor Fisch does go to Germany and then Isidor
00:15:39
Fisch dies of tuberculosis. At which point Hauptmann says, "Okay, he's dead now. I'm going to take a look
00:15:44
at what's in here. Oh, wow, there's money in here. I'm going to take it." >> Were there any other suspects who were
00:15:50
ever seriously considered as having taken part in the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr.?
00:15:56
>> No. Here's the thing. Up until the moment they caught Hauptmann, they were all they had always assumed it was more
00:16:03
than one person. Because for the logically >> Because how are you going to pull all of
00:16:08
that off if if you don't have more than one person? >> Right. But once they got Hauptmann, it was like
00:16:16
we're done. >> You know, it's it's interesting to hear you say this, Joe, about the idea cuz
00:16:21
cuz what the the prosecution's case essentially relied on was that Bruno Richard Hauptmann, acting alone, drove
00:16:29
from the Bronx on a random night with no idea or he he really should have had no
00:16:36
capacity to have any confidence about it that the baby was going to be there, the
00:16:40
window was going to be open >> And how did he know which window led to the baby's room? How did
00:16:47
he know that was the only window in the house that could that could not be locked shut? So, could could Hauptmann
00:16:53
have been involved as part of a gang or something? Absolutely. Absolutely. But could he have done it by himself? I I
00:17:00
just find that implausible. >> And yet, Bruno Richard Hauptmann is tried and it is the trial of the
00:17:06
century. >> Right. So, don't forget this was called the crime of the century and once the
00:17:10
trial happened, it was the trial of the century. Now, I want to ask you something.
00:17:13
>> Yeah. >> So, rumor has it that you had uh your your relatives, your ancestors lived uh
00:17:21
>> So, growing up my grandfather and grandmother lived in Flemington, New Jersey.
00:17:28
And for years, in the 1930s, they had Axelrod's Pharmacy on Main Street across from the Hunterdon County
00:17:37
Courthouse. My grandfather had a lunch counter and I can remember as a kid him telling me stories of Damon Runyon
00:17:45
coming in. Walter Winchell would set up shop in my grandfather's pharmacy, Axelrod's Pharmacy on Main Street,
00:17:52
commandeer the phone, and Winchell was really establishing himself for the first time as this sort of he became
00:17:58
this monster media figure, but he put himself on the map with his reporting from the Hauptmann trial.
00:18:04
>> Right. Someone else from Flemington who was a source for our um he said, "You know, it's a town of 3,000
00:18:10
people. And the first week of the trial, there were 50,000 people there." He said, "The cars were backed up for like
00:18:18
10 miles." >> So, inside the courtroom, what was going on that that shaped and influenced the
00:18:30
proceedings? Because, if I understand you correctly, there is no way Bruno Richard Hauptmann had a fair trial.
00:18:38
>> That is correct. Uh by today's standards, it was an absolute travesty. And the fact of the matter is, even by
00:18:44
the standards of the 1930s, it was an unfair trial. >> How so? >> Um well, to start with, um
00:18:52
let's just take let's just take something simple like handwriting. So, obviously, um the prosecution is
00:18:58
going to have handwriting experts who are going to say that the handwriting is the same as Hauptmann's.
00:19:04
But Hauptmann says, when the police got him in the room, they said, "Okay." They
00:19:08
didn't just say, "Write some stuff." They said, "Look at this note." And they showed him the ransom note.
00:19:13
"We want you to write this exactly the same way that this that this ransom note is.
00:19:19
Exactly the same way. Same spelling, same, you know, you know, curvatures." >> Try to copy it.
00:19:26
>> Try to copy it. Then he gets into trial and they say, "Well, well, look, look, it's the same.
00:19:31
It's the same." Um >> Didn't he have a lawyer? >> Oh, he had a terrible lawyer. >> [sighs and gasps]
00:19:38
>> We had a lawyer on our show who said he became a lawyer because when he read about the Lindbergh
00:19:44
trial, and he was like 14 years old, he said, "You know, I could have done better than this." But, having said
00:19:49
that, it wasn't just the defense, it was also the prosecution. Um The handwriting analysis is just one
00:19:56
example. Um >> I understand there was something critically important about the ladder
00:20:02
>> Uh >> itself. >> Yes. Well, that is in dispute to this day. Um >> What was it?
00:20:07
>> Well, the prosecution said as definitive proof that Hauptmann did it, that a piece of wood
00:20:15
from his attic had been cut out and made part of the ladder. It is a handmade ladder. It was not a
00:20:24
ladder you go into Home Depot and buy. >> You've seen the ladder? >> Oh, yeah, it's at the New Jersey State
00:20:28
Police Museum. Yeah, anybody can see it. You can see it. It's um It's a really interesting ladder. I know
00:20:36
that's going to sound weird. It's an unusual ladder. >> But, this became a big >> Yes.
00:20:41
>> important piece of evidence for the jury to >> Right. And and this is this is some of
00:20:46
the stuff that I just find so unbelievable. That attic had been looked at, you know, dozen a dozen times
00:20:55
by by investigators after after Hauptmann was arrested. The home that the Hauptmanns were living
00:21:04
in was taken over by a police lieutenant who moved in. He He was living in the house
00:21:13
>> in the house. >> Yes. And he's the one who comes to them and says, "Hey, look at this hole in the
00:21:20
attic." So, um let me give you the denouement, as they say. >> Please. >> David Wilentz, the prosecutor, gets up
00:21:31
and he's going through his closing statement and he says, "And then, Hauptmann took a instrument and he hit
00:21:37
the baby over the head and crushed his skull." Now, there had not been one word of testimony
00:21:46
to this effect. The testimony had always been, "Well, the baby must have fallen and
00:21:53
cracked his head on the ground." To bring up a new allegation in a in a in a closing argument, that is
00:22:05
like against every rule in the book. Yet, neither the defense attorney nor the judge
00:22:14
said, >> Hang on here. >> You know, we we can't allow this. >> Did Hauptmann take the stand himself?
00:22:20
>> He did. >> Did he help himself? >> Yeah, not really. He kind of got chewed up. They caught him in a lie about the
00:22:27
gold certificates. His lack of language skills, you know, hurt him badly. His lawyer hurt him badly.
00:22:35
Um >> His lawyer was being hurt paid for by Hearst, the Hearst newspaper chain. I mean,
00:22:42
>> which had a vested >> which had a vested interest in wanting a salacious trial, which they certainly
00:22:48
got. >> Did he >> Wow. I didn't I've never heard that before that Did the defense lawyer
00:22:54
write for Hearst or >> No, they were paying Anna Anna Hauptmann for her quote unquote exclusive story.
00:23:03
So, in the least surprising verdict imaginable, Bruno Richard Hauptmann is found guilty.
00:23:08
>> That's right. And this is '35, correct? >> He [snorts] is executed in 1936. The Lindberghs as a couple, this whole
00:23:18
thing just engenders some sympathy for them, I would imagine to be fair, right? But they take off.
00:23:26
>> Well, yeah, they take off that for England for a while because, you know, um they want to get away from the press,
00:23:33
basically. They'd like to be a little more anonymous. It's I mean Charles Lindbergh hated the press. He'd
00:23:40
been dealing with it since his since he flew to Paris. >> In fact, we have a a clip from
00:23:46
[clears throat] Anne Lindbergh talking to Morley Safer in a 60 Minutes interview.
00:23:50
>> He really couldn't bear invasions on his privacy. Now, there I think there was something irrational.
00:23:58
He had an irrational feeling about the news. About new news newsmen. He felt they intruded on him. I don't
00:24:07
think he was quite rational. He had reasons not to be. I mean, we were terribly pursued and at the time of the baby's
00:24:15
kidnapping, the newsmen, some of them behaved absolutely terribly. Broke into the
00:24:22
morgue and took pictures of the baby and he never forgave them. >> You hear Anne Lindbergh describe
00:24:27
how much Charles Lindbergh hated the media. What did What does it What does that leave you?
00:24:34
>> I have some sympathy for him, to be honest. I mean, you know, so it's one thing to be, you know,
00:24:41
chased by the media cuz you did something amazing, you know, and and uh but there's another thing to be chased
00:24:48
by the media because your kid was kidnapped and killed. >> But it's only after this that he becomes
00:24:53
a less sympathetic figure. >> Very very true. Very true. As Hitler begins [clears throat] invading
00:25:00
Poland and other countries in Europe and he is the leading spokesman for the America First movement.
00:25:08
>> Did it cost Lindbergh in terms of popularity? >> It it sure it sure did. >> What a complicated man.
00:25:15
>> Totally. >> The complications don't end there either. >> Yes. Well, that's true.
00:25:21
He dies at the age of 74 in Hawaii. Very tiny funeral. 15 people, something like that.
00:25:31
And it comes out years later, many years later, that he has fathered seven children in
00:25:40
Germany with three different women. >> None of whom are his wife. >> None of whom are his wife. Two sisters.
00:25:47
First of all, he had he has five other children. He had five other children with Anne.
00:25:51
But then he, you know, he's always spent a lot of time in Germany. And so he fathered seven children
00:25:57
with three women, two two sisters and his secretary. And um and basically a German magazine at some
00:26:06
point um in the late '90s, early 2000s, breaks the story. They do DNA testing and they're his.
00:26:14
They're real. It's real. It's for real. >> He had adopted a a new name, a double
00:26:21
>> Yes. >> Carrot Kent? >> Carrot Kent. Like Clark Kent. Like the German version of of of Clark Kent.
00:26:28
>> I mean, the story just keeps If you're into bizarre, this just keeps the story
00:26:33
that keeps giving and giving and giving. >> Now, let me ask you this. It may not have been part of American
00:26:39
culture in the 1930s to think about conspiracy theories. But certainly after the Kennedy
00:26:47
assassination and certainly part of our modern life is, you know, you can't have two people
00:26:53
looking at the sky and agreeing it's blue. There's always some sort of other angle to be considered.
00:27:00
Were there any conspiracy theories about the Lindbergh kidnapping or did any develop later?
00:27:08
>> As you said, Kennedy assassination, RFK, Martin Luther King, Warren Commission,
00:27:14
um uh CIA uh secrets exposed on and on and on and Americans uh start to lose faith
00:27:21
in institutions and start to lose faith in government. >> [sighs and gasps] >> And so
00:27:28
around the around the late '70s, early '80s, books start to be written for the first
00:27:33
time that uh look at the trial and uh can make conjectures about what really happened.
00:27:47
And as America itself has become more conspiratorial, so has the belief in the Lindbergh
00:27:55
theories grown and grown and grown to the point that one of the people in our podcast said
00:28:03
you know, I think more people today believe Lindbergh has something to do with it than think Hauptmann had
00:28:08
something to do with it. What would the rationale be for that? >> So there there's a lot of theories that
00:28:14
that the child uh had rickets and had various other physical problems. >> Yeah, I'd read some delayed speech if if
00:28:21
there there were issues uh never proven. >> Correct. >> But this was uh sort of talked about later that Brett
00:28:30
>> that Lindbergh as a eugenicist could not abide. Let me add one other thing to
00:28:34
that. Uh uh Anne Lindbergh wrote a uh she published her diaries and letters from that era.
00:28:42
And in the diaries and letters about her son when he was alive and he's babbling and talking and playing
00:28:50
with his dad and playing with his mom and playing with Betty Gow. And you just read that and you just you
00:28:56
just like, "No, there's nothing wrong with this kid." I found it very hard to believe.
00:29:02
>> Is there a conspiracy theory that you encountered in your research that resonated, that perhaps true?
00:29:09
>> what resonates to me is the idea that more than one person did it. Whether Hauptmann was involved or
00:29:16
somebody else. I you know, there are there's one guy out there that that has a a name of a different person that he
00:29:23
believes did it. We don't need to get into that. It's too complicated. What I believe is that somebody inside the the
00:29:30
Lindbergh household was involved. >> Was there any part of this investigation that involved
00:29:36
DNA? >> They didn't have DNA back then. DNA didn't come till the late '80s, but there's a lawyer who is suing um the New
00:29:44
Jersey State Police Museum to have DNA tested on the ransom notes cuz the stamps probably still have DNA and the
00:29:51
envelopes the way you lick the envelopes probably still has DNA. New Jersey is resisting this like crazy.
00:29:59
Um but an an appeal >> Why? >> They say it'll damage the evidence. I don't really think that's the reason to
00:30:07
be honest. >> Can you imagine if there was DNA testing and it ruled out Richard Hauptmann.
00:30:14
>> Right. The point is that there is an appeal ongoing right now and we'll see what happens.
00:30:20
>> All right. So, sum up for for everyone listening, watching your series, your investigation in into
00:30:31
the Lindbergh kidnapping. The takeaway for you that you feel sort of most relevant for the day
00:30:39
in which we live is what? I connect it more than anything with the America we live in today.
00:30:48
That it teaches you so much about the judicial system. It teaches you so much about how we're
00:30:55
mired in conspiracies. Um it teaches you what the country was like back then versus what it's like
00:31:01
today. Um and it's a damn good story. I I I you know, this is what you and I live for.
00:31:10
>> Jonah Lehrer with a damn good story. Thanks for being here. >> Thanks for having me.
00:31:14
>> The Lindbergh Conspiracy's podcast is currently available wherever you get your podcasts.