The Kidnapping of Charlie Lindbergh (Part 1)

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. You guys, who is excited to go to our live show? Radio City. Radio City Music Hall in New York City. 7th. We'll see you there or you're a square. Exactly. Go get your tickets. Go to Ticketmaster. Go to Ticketmaster. That is the only place that we're going to lead you because there are other sites, unfortunately, where people can scoop up tickets and sell them for prices that we did not approve. We did not approve the prices if they look crazy to you. Yeah, if they look nuts to you, well, no. One me. Much like Shaggy, it wasn't me. But it's going to be fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. Maybe we'll do a kick line. You don't know. We are absolutely doing a kick line. yeah absolutely why'd you shake your head at that i'm positive i'll be sitting in a chair i'll do one from a chair yeah yeah mikey you're doing from a chair but debbie's already bringing her tap shoes yeah she's ready to go exactly so let's go girls let's fucking do it um we also have we have a lot of fun stuff going on we just did we just recorded our bonus episode for march it was so fun guys you're gonna love it we had a special guest on i think we i think we already told you It was our book club. Our book club. We covered Postmortem by none other than Patricia Cornwell. The Patricia. Our girl Patricia. It's such a fun book. So it's the beginning of the Case Carpetta series. Loved it. With the show coming out, this is a great place to start because the show covers this book. It's the first book, or at least partially does. So definitely a cool place to look. And it's in paperback. It can fit in your back pocket. it's a it's a it's a fittable she it's a fittable book in your back pocket and it's a good one to start with we had chef riley mehan on and we talked about all things patricia and all things post-mortem and all things delicious food it's a really good episode i think you got it's like i love the bonus episodes because we can be a little more lucy and silly it was fun it was fun and we filmed that one that one's on on actual video yes so you're gonna get to watch it as well we're gonna try to do that every now and again yeah we're gonna do it as much as we possibly can it's easier with like bonus episodes because like you know the content is a little more yeah it's a little for a little looser yeah exactly you know and also if you're looking for more books to uh satisfy your craving for knowledge yeah i like know this girl who wrote a few books do you know her i do and you can get the butcher legacy at butcherlegacy.com it was a really nice opportunity for you to sit for you to not say i am her uh well i thought that was implied but oh it is but i wish you had stood on business with it i am her thank you stand on the business go get go get it go get it go pre-order it it's coming out august 11th it's pretty you know who thinks it's great tell me patricia cornwell i knew that so uh i'm gonna be insufferable about that for the rest of my life as you should be yep gonna do that so patricia read it and she liked it. She thinks, she thinks Kay and Ren could be BFFs. She thinks that it's the bee's knees. I can lay down and pass over to the other side now. I won't, but I could. I have a lot to do, so don't do that, please. So there's that. And you can, you know, when the paperback comes out, which it won't come out for a little while, you can stick that in your back pocket with postmortem. Oh my God, you guys have a lot going on in your pockets. So many back pockets. You guys are going to need those utility pants. You really are. Get some cargo pants. They're trendy. And you can stick tons of books in there. Yeah, just throw them in there. Yeah, if you're a mood reader, that's the dream. Yeah, you just always have something. You never know what you want. So let's go. I am a mood reader. I'm a mood reader. I get that. Yep. Just throwing this out there since we're talking about books. I just finished Memorials by Richard Chismar, who also likes The Butcher Legacy. Another one. Another one. I love Richard Chismar and Memorials blew my fucking socks off. Wow. Go read that book. Okay. Go read that book. Go read that book. Okay. I finished listening to it on the way home the other day and I was in the car by myself and at one point I went, holy shit, out loud. Go read that book. I love that. I'm telling you it's an awesome book. It's like Appalachia horror. Oh, fuck. He does suburban horror as, I mean, on the front cover, Stephen King blurbed his book and said no one does suburban horror like Richard Chismar, and I fully agree with my friend Stephen. Wow. What a feather in your cap. What a feather. For Stephen to say that. Can you imagine? No. I don't think Stephen would say that about me, though, so I can't put my, I can't put Richard's shoes on in that one. Not in that one. I'm not sure. I'm not quite sure what Stephen would say about me. But maybe someday we'll find out. Steven, tell us. Steven, let us know. Tell us about us. Steven, come on the show. Hey, Steven. But yeah, but he's right. So if you're looking for like a cool suburban horror with some Appalachia shit in it, that's going to literally make you scream at the end. Yes. I'm telling you, Memorials by Richard Chismar. I love that. Really good. I just finished it. So I just wanted to tell you all. I just wanted to tell you about it. And you know what else I want to tell you? Yeah. We're going to talk about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. today oh shit one of our most requested cases people have been dying for this one like since we started the show yeah and i'm shocked that we just never covered yeah that's actually very surprising for some reason i think i thought we had but i know we haven't we we definitely covered it on like crime countdown and stuff so i think we talked about it and i think we talked about it like very briefly when we did the um was it the sumner children yeah i think we definitely have mentioned it it's come up yeah i mean if you talk about true crime it comes up yeah it's a big cases one of the biggest kidnapping cases and one of the big cases really in american history um but just we just want to be clear here that like i guess there there has been some things that have come out about charles lindberg that have definitely tarnished his uh his once like all american spotless reputation i would say um so i just want to be clear that like that sucks that he's not great yeah he's pretty fucking terrible but we just wanted to cover the case because one you guys have requested it forever for years and two it's a fascinating case about a baby right it's not about it's really not about charles yeah it's not about at the end of the day it's about what happened to his son yeah so um but yeah we just wanted to make that that has come to our attention through like researching this and like we just wanted to mention it so it's he's definitely got a tarnished reputation for sure yeah um which i wasn't aware of until recently same um but yeah we're gonna it's a crazy case the more you know and we will be getting a little more into probably his tarnished reputation in part two i would say when we're talking about like theories and shit okay cool so we will like touch upon it more but we just wanted to put that out there all right yeah so let's go show me to me rachel am i dumb or is this unsolved? No, it's solved. Oh, it is solved. There's somebody that was caught. But there is some mystery surrounding it though. Okay. So that's something interesting. And the whole thing is just very spooky the way it all happened and still doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah. I knew there was like weird elements. There's definitely weird elements to it. So we're going to start with who Charles Lindbergh was because the whole thing around this is that Charles Lindbergh was a very well-known man. Yeah. So Charles Augustus Lindbergh. He was born February 4th, 1902. What is he? Is he a Pisces? I got to get better at this. If my teacher's listening right now, she's like, are you fucking kidding me? I got to get better at this. February 4th. People don't want me to get better at it. They like hearing you say the thing. Aquarius. Aquarius. I'm so bad at that stuff. So he's an Aquarius. He was born in Detroit, Michigan. He was the only child born to Evangeline and Charles Lindbergh Sr. Names were just better back then. Evangeline and Charles had Charles Jr. Oh my God, Evangeline. I would never fuck with a bitch named Evangeline. Oh, what a name. Yeah. It just makes me think of Princess and the Frog when Ramo is singing about his Evangeline. Oh, I still haven't seen that the whole way through. Oh, bitch, we gotta watch it. I know, I do wanna watch it. Because the girls say that I'm like one of the characters. You're Lottie. Yeah, yeah. I'll take it. Lottie is awesome. I know her. Yeah, Lottie's the best. But he grew up on a small farm in rural Little Falls, Minnesota. And Lindbergh remembered his childhood as pretty idyllic. Nice. And a pretty great childhood. With a mom named Evangeline. How could it not be? He said, I spent hours lying on my back in high Timothy and red top, hidden from passerby. White cumulus clouds drift overhead, staring into the sky. Damn. Yeah. That's fucking poetic as hell. But however, you know, charming and beautiful those early years were, it's not like they didn't have like some difficulty in them. In 1905, when Charles was just three years old, the family farm burned to the ground. Oh, fuck. Three years later, his parents separated. Evangeline and Charles. Which was very uncommon, I feel like. Yeah. And Charles would end up living the rest of his childhood with his mother. Okay. With Evangeline. Did he see his dad? He did. So he, they relocated to Washington, D.C. after the divorce. so he really only saw his dad kind of like sporadically which definitely probably had like an influence on how he parented later yeah um but for most of his adult life charles lindberg was an american icon that's part of this case like he people know who he is he was an american icon but he's a tarnished american icon now with what we know things that have come out over time he was an aviation guy uh but yeah that's the technical term for it yeah of course aviation guy uh aviator uh he he had this ability to take control of his own narrative okay which i think a lot of people that are successful for better or worse in life they do have they are able to take control of their own narrative yeah and could frame themselves a certain way so he would frame himself as very heroic he was just really good at kind of putting that out there that's also very Aquarian in nature. Oh, there you go. Yeah. I mean, reporters, the American people, they were all very happy to accept this narrative as well. And it's not that he like lied about his past or, you know, like anything like that. But given the choice between like just bland reality and like a little embellishment, he probably picked a little embellishment. Like Gatsby. He had a very Gatsby-esque way about him. I think he would kind of overstate the facts. He would minimize inconvenient truths. Like for example, when speaking of his family life after his parents' divorce, he wrote, they continued to care for each other, although they were seldom together. And it's possible that that's how he remembered things, that they cared for each other. They just weren't together a lot. But historian Stanley Shapiro kind of challenges that for part of his history. He said his father was a stern man imbued with righteous populism. The parental expectations placed upon young Lindbergh were severe. So this like idyllic parent kind of situation, like father might not have been like totally true, but who knows? That's what he believed. Yeah. Well, it's also like you got to listen to the actual source. It's his reality. Right. So regardless of how they treated one another on the occasions that they were together, his parents' attitudes and expectations of their son were definitely at odds. Yeah. In the eyes of Evangeline, Charles could do absolutely no wrong. Just perfect child. kind of like showered him with attention and affection. Like it's her only child. And so Shapiro wrote, she lavished attention on Charles, leaving little room in his adolescent life for anything else. Yeah, that's rough. Charles Sr., on the other hand, was very rigid in his beliefs and how he presented himself to the world. He was a US congressman from 1907 to 1917. Wow. And he stressed that his sons, and I don't think this is a terribly bad outlook, Look, he so he really wanted his son to embody the principles of stoicism. OK. Like be unshakable. Yeah. And he encouraged him to be, among other things, thrifty, self-sufficient and intensely private, which I think he learned from his own. Yeah. Career in politics. He was a congressman. He's like, this is what I've got. I don't think those are necessarily bad. I think he was probably a little overbearing with it. So, yeah, the last one could be shaky. Yeah. but according to Shapiro the conflicting messages that he got from his parents left him like in this like weird paradox of like not understanding what he was supposed to be because those are two very opposite ends yeah because his mom's like you're a star you're the best everybody should know how amazing you are and his dad's like be so fucking private and stoic like and he's like what he's like can I find a middle ground perhaps so he had this like deep desire for fame because he was like I can achieve it yeah I know it and he wanted recognition as well but he also wanted to demand privacy for himself which is tough yeah so as a result of his father's career in politics and his mother's desire to provide her son for literally everything she could any opportunity charles spent his youth bouncing from one school to another eventually attending more than a dozen before graduating from little falls high school in 1918 from there he enrolled at the university of wisconsin madison where he studied engineering oh wow smart guy but he dropped out in the middle of his sophomore year because he wanted to pursue an interest in aviation. Okay. Which ended up being a good plan. After leaving the University of Wisconsin, he enrolled at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation's Flying School in Lincoln, Nebraska. Imagine just going to flying school. Yeah, just becoming an aviator. And being an aviator, like I'm going to talk about it, was like such a badass thing. Oh, yeah. It's brand new. It had such a mystique to it. Yeah. But he started learning the basics of aircraft maintenance and would eventually learn how to pilot an airplane. It's at this time that his heroic biography starts to take shape. This is where it all kind of begins. In 1924, after just two years in Nebraska, he enlisted in the National Guard and eventually became captain of the Missouri National Guard. From there, he continued his aviation career. He took a job with the Postal Service, where he would fly mail back and forth between St. Louis, St. Louis, and Chicago. Yeah. Now, although air travel is very commonplace today, like, look up in the sky right now. It's not going so well, but it's common. It's not going swimmingly right now, but it's very common. There was a time when the possibility of traveling by airplane was completely off limits to anyone outside of the military. That's crazy. Yeah, it wasn't until 1914 that commercial air travel was made available to the public. and even then it was so expensive that it prohibited most people from being able to and it was very very limited in where you could actually travel by plane i'm sure yeah those restrictions and the truly i mean even now flying is remarkable it's magic i try not to think about it too much when i'm in the air when i'm on land i think about it a lot it's remarkable and especially then it made air travel at that time especially seem so exciting and adventurous to the american public like it really was that like i'm like we're just flying through the sky so the role of the aviator was romantic it was dangerous it was and it was commanding respect this was a job yeah i mean truly you're flying you're flying a goddamn plane you're soaring you're fine uh the amount of pilots i follow not because they're hot but because like i should be clear about that Men and women. Not because they're hot. Hey, they're all hot in some way because they're flying a plane through the sky. So that's pretty amazing. That's a hot quality. But I love following pilots because they make me feel better about flying. Yeah. And kudos to them for taking a second to make me feel better about flying. But to a man like Charles Lindbergh with his deep interest in mechanical engineering and this desperate need for fame and recognition. This is perfect. It wasn't a surprise that he was drawn to this field. In the 1920s and 30s, as aviation technology was advancing, air shows and flying competitions just exploded in popularity. Papa loves an air show. He does. Loves an air show. He loves it. Hurts my neck. I've been to so many air shows. Me too. That's a good. And while some air shows focused on aviators and others performing like super daring stunts. Yeah, it's very cool. Wind, wing walking, barnstorming. Barnstorming, I looked it up. is they would like fly to like a field like a like they would essentially just land in a field where like a barn like a barn field kind of thing okay and they would start and then they would take off and start doing these like crazy stunts like just like storming the barn kind of thing like it was named like that The shit used to be so cool It was like was wing walking like while it was flying? Yeah. Shut up. Oh yeah. Wing walking is crazy. If you look at videos. Why? Yeah. It's nuts. I want to see that. So other competitions, so they would do like these daring stunts, but other competitions focused on the more technical aspects of aviation, like long distance flights that emphasized the potential of flying yeah what could be the future um it was during this time as a pilot for the postal service that Lindbergh became interested in these flying competitions and eventually became convinced he could fucking win one let's fucking go get me in there in the mid 1920s a winning pilot would not just walk away with a large sum of money he would also earn insane respect and admiration and fame all over the world in 1927 Charles was determined to enter this one particular competition. It was being promoted by Raymond Orteague, the French-American hotel magnate. Orteague was offering $25,000, and this is in 1927, to the first pilot to successfully complete a nonstop flight across the Atlantic from New York to Paris. Scary. Now, that spring, Lindbergh found financial backing from several businessmen in St. Louis, St. Louis. And on May 27th, 1927, he took off from the Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York. Long Island. In the decades since Lindbergh's successful flight, this story has been told and retold so many times. According to Stanley Shapiro, no opposing version can prevail against it. So it's just, this was a badass. Is what it is. Yeah. The facts are pretty difficult to dispute. He did it. And the whole thing is so like romantic and dangerous and has this mystique to it, that it also gives you a little insight into how he just rocketed to fame after this. Now, at the time, Charles was 25 years old. So as Shapiro points out, he looked much younger than that as well. Like he had a very youthful appearance. A pithy fist. And he was frequently referred to in the press as a boy, not a man, which I'm like, he's 25. Yeah, let's call him a man. Let's not refer to him. Like, let's not infantilize him. Yeah, that's a little weird. And Lindbergh was young, obviously, but 25 is still a grown man. Yeah. And he was conventionally handsome. And he was also said to have lived a very chaste life. He avoided drinking. He didn't smoke. And he wasn't like a womanizer. Basically, in like pretty simple terms, he was like an ideal role model for young Americans of the time. And the fact that he would take on such like a magical, incredible, remarkable, dangerous journey like that. Yeah. Everyone saw it as this perfect metaphor for like the indomitable American spirit of the time. You know what I mean? Because that was a time when it was like you're really looking for those kind of symbols. And Lindbergh's receipt of the prize made him an instant celebrity. And when he landed in Paris at the end of the whole thing, a crowd of more than 150,000 people lifted him out of the cockpit of the plane. Wow. That would be overwhelming. He basically just like crowd surfed over like a tarmac. Hello, Paris! The spirit of St. Louis, St. Louis, was the name of his plane. And it reportedly carried, they carried him on their shoulders for almost 30 minutes. Here's a picture. Yeah, see? For almost 30 minutes. Yeah, according to Shapiro, it was the romance of Lindbergh's, quote, boy hero. And Shapiro points out that a lot of like the Lindbergh romance kind of thing resides in his underdog status. Yeah. He certainly did not have the credentials of his competitors or their elaborate, expensive organizations. That outsider status pretty much inspired much of the newspaper coverage. Because again, like he was just this, just this random guy. You know, like he's just entering it, like you said. And he had to get backing from like a bunch of other people to do this. Right. So to a certain extent, Charles Lindbergh had always believed all the overwhelming praise and adulation that had been heaped on him by his mother. which is like a good thing in a way like you want to well yeah that's the whole reason his mom did raise a confident self-assured kid yeah absolutely um and of course he had he had a little bit of an overinflated self-esteem thing going on it happens but honestly like stupid confidence sometimes will get you really far i think so like you know like sometimes i have stupid confidence and look at you sometimes i have incredible imposter syndrome i am never neutral i'm either totally imposter syndrome or stupid confidence i think a lot of successful people have that there's just like makeup like there's not a middle ground yeah like i'm never just coasting it makes sense like especially that he didn't have a middle ground because like we were just saying like his mom really boosted him and his dad not like didn't not boost him or give him his due stoic be private yeah but was telling him the opposite thing yeah it makes so much sense yeah but his successful flight across the Atlantic and the newfound fame that came with it, it really only strengthened his belief that he was special and he was destined for great things, which if I fly across the Atlantic, I'd be insufferable. now in the wake of his flight Charles signed endorsement deals like that was like a thing wow with uh mobile oil vacuum oil I love advertising just always being a thing yes Just always. Throughout life. Always an endorsement. And a lot of other companies and sold the exclusive rights to his story to the New York Times for over $1 million. Wow. Yeah. Which now would be like insane money. Outrageous. I mean, a million dollars is insane money anyways. But it would be astronomical. Now, in December 1927, he accompanied his financial advisor, Dwight Morrow, on a trip to, which is such a financial advisor name. I know. Dwight Morrow. I almost said that. Yeah. Yeah. He went with him on a trip to Mexico. That would change his life in a lot of ways. At the time, Dwight Morrow was an executive with J.P. Morgan. Oh, I've heard of him. Yeah, have you ever heard of him? Yeah, don't touch the Morgan letters! That's the New York Housewives. That's a great one. You should watch it. Watch that. Absolutely. That's so good. So he was an executive with J.P. Morgan and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. And when they landed in Mexico, Lindbergh and Moro were greeted by a crowd of over 150,000 enthusiastic people. He's like the original Beatles. Yeah, all hoping to get a look at this American hero. And among them was Moro's daughter, Anne, who'd arrived a few days earlier. Now, Anne took an immediate liking to Charles, of course. Yeah, duh. But he did to her as well. Now, at the time, Anne was attending Smith College and wanted to be a writer. Hell yeah. And she was like, I'm not focused on marriage. like i'm looking to get my career going oh honey we love a career love her and the same could be said for charles who after winning that prize the ortique prize he received more than a hundred thousand marriage proposals that's a hundred thousand marriage proposals women i love you we have to get to know a man i was gonna say we don't know him he could be so many different things exactly and some of them could be fantastic and some of them not so much and that's why we date yeah we can't just propose marriage to charles limberg after he wins a prize no that's a little yeah but uh he later wrote in his autobiography i had always taken for granted that someday i would marry and have a family of my own but i had not thought much of it i mean he's 25 yeah he said in fact i had never been enough interested in any girl to even ask her to go on a date. Wow. I think he was just so focused on his own shit. He just wasn't. He was like Anne. Yeah. Anne was focused on her shit. And she was like, I got time. I don't need to worry about that. Yeah. He was the same way. He was like, I'm not worried about that. Let's go. Now, despite what seems like their respective disinterest in romance at this point, they hit it off immediately. Like, I think they were waiting for each other. Well, that's the thing. I think your universe, sometimes the universe leads you to your person like that. Yeah. I think that's what it was. When you're ready to. Brought them together. And soon they were dating exclusively. And Anne later wrote in her diary, the man I was to marry believed in me and what I could do. And consequently, I found I could do more than I realized. On May 27th, 1929, they married in a small, simple ceremony. It was at her family's estate in New Jersey. A little over a year later, the couple's first child, Charles Jr., was born on Anne's 24th birthday. Stop it. June 22nd, 1930. So to everyone on the outside looking in, they appeared to be living the American dream. So the Lindberghs were already one of the nation's most famous couples by the time Charles Jr. was born. Makes sense. And his birth was just one more reason for them to, you know, America's favorite couple at this point, to appear on newspapers, all like covers around the globe. Everywhere they went, reporters weren't far behind. Snapping photos, reporting on their activities, no matter how mundane they were, it was very much the paparazzi of like, your. He's not adhering to that rule, his dad taught him. No. So when Charles and Anne began construction on their new home in Hopewell, New Jersey, not far from Anne's parents in Inglewood, the press couldn't get enough of it. Let people live private lives. Yeah, truly. Let people's homes be private. And when they have a kid or like kids, leave them alone. Now built on 339 acres. I'm sorry, what? 339 acres? I can't even conceive of that. It's like just a forest. I thought two was a lot. Yeah. Damn. Acreage is a lot. Acreage is so expensive. Do you know how much acreage costs? Acreage is serious. Acreage is a fucking concept. Acres? Fucking A. And it was a remote land in a forested area of Hopewell. So it was very remote, very away from everything. Which like love but hate. It's a double-edged sword. The Lindbergh house was to be kind of a compound where Anne and Charles could grow their family and live out the rest of their days together. and among other things there was plenty of room for a literal runway plain runway they had over 300 acres there was there was plenty of room for it and he intended to build one he was gonna have a runway it just breaks my heart because like you wish that they got to live out like their actual parenting dream like obviously it's because you just never like now you just don't know what it would have been like what would that what would that kid's life have been yeah and then your life as a family have been. And you're left just asking those exact questions forever. It's just a bummer. Yeah. Like a real bummer. It's a tragedy. It also, this place had limited like access to like, like cars coming in, which was great for privacy. Yeah. It was that fun little, but construction on the house began in summer of 1930 and was pretty complete when Charles and Anne decided to begin staying at the house overnight in February of 1932. At first they would only spend their weekends at the house in Inglewood, but were otherwise living with Anne's parents at their house nearby. And March 1st, which was a Tuesday, was the first weekday the family spent the night at the new house. Okay. This kidnapping happens on the first weekday that they spent at this house. They had not spent a weekday there before. That's interesting. Now, a few days earlier, Charles Jr., the baby, had been sick with a light cold. And by the morning of March 1st, it looked like Anne had gotten the cold because, you know, she's always. Assuming she would need some help with the baby, Anne called their nursemaid, Betty Gao, and asked her to come to the Inglewood Estate that morning. So Betty spent the day helping Anne around the house and around 7.30 p.m. she started getting Charles Jr. ready for bed. That night, Betty dressed Charles Jr. in a flannel shirt that she'd made for the afternoon diapers rubber pants and a one-piece dr denton's sleep suit so cute and also rubber pants question mark they were a thing i guess really back then yeah like rubber sheets but like rubber pants pants for like no leakage would probably be so fucking uncomfortable absolutely i'm sure it was awful yeah uh but i'm not saying she did anything yeah they just had no idea i'm just like holy fuck but ann also placed thumb guards on each thumb to prevent Charles from sucking his thumb. That was the thing. Really? And she wrapped strings around the guards and secured them to the sleeves of the outfit so they wouldn't fall off. Aww. Yeah, that was like, it's very interesting how they would put babies to sleep then. Yeah. Well, honestly, it's changed so much and so frequently from like then to now. Because like with SIDS and everything, like so different. Because then once he was placed in the crib, he was covered with a blanket that Betty then pinned to the mattress with two large safety pins. Oh, that's interesting. Which like keeps them in place. Yeah. So they can't like roll around. And they can't smother themselves. She was doing the damn thing. She did the damn thing. Now although it was still pretty cold outside, Anne cracked the window just a little bit just before leaving the room to let some fresh air circulate. Because he had a cold. Because he had a cold. She was burping the room. Yeah. She was burping. That's weird. Ash just told me about burping the room. That's weird. We were literally just talking about it this morning. And what is it? It's a... Oh, what was... It's a German word. Lufthun? Lufthun. Lufthun. And it means like airing out the house. Yeah, like you just like open up the windows. Let the house burp. Yeah, you literally let the house burp. I like that. So that's what she was doing, letting the room burp. Yeah. Now Charles arrived, like Big Charles, arrived home that evening. Big Charles? Big Charles. He came home around 8.30, 8.30 p.m. And he had attended a meeting at Pan American Airways, the offices in New York earlier in the day. He's doing big things. He had been scheduled to appear as the guest of honor at a dinner held at by New York University that evening. But because of an issue with scheduling, he decided he was too overbooked. And he was like, so he skipped the dinner and he was like, I just want to go home. That's nice that he just wanted to be with his family. His kid's sick. He's just like, you know, my wife's sick. Yeah, and his wife is sick now. After coming home, he had dinner with Anne while the handful of staff in the house, including Betty, the nursemaid, retired to their homes for the evening. Okay. Now, Anne and Charles finished dinner a little after 9 p.m. And they were sitting in the living room together when Charles heard a noise he later described as the top slats of an orange box falling off a chair, which I assumed to be in the kitchen. Okay. So I'm assuming he's just thinking like a box of oranges, like a... Oh, oh, oh. Like a wooden box, like a crate. He was picturing... The top slat falling off. I'm real dumb in this moment. I was picturing an orange colored box. I was like, what that... You're like, how did he know that? I was like, he hears colors? What does that sound like? But he asked Anne whether she heard the sound and she was like, no, I didn't hear anything. Okay. And this is where I'm just a complete crazy person because if I hear a slight, no, I'm not saying he did anything wrong. Let me be clear about this. I'm just saying I am sick. I'm just saying I have a fucking problem. The amount of times that my kids, when they go to sleep, they always have books in their bed. And one of my kids loves to draw before bed or like color. Yeah. And so she'll have like, you know, markers or like a pad of paper in her bed or like a coloring book. And without fail. They will slide off the bed at some point and slam on the ground. And it makes the same sound every time. And we know that's what it is. And John always knows. He's like, that is just their book falling off. I have to run upstairs and check. Oh, yeah. Something in my brain is like, don't let that be the one time something happened. No, it's true. And even though it's like, it's a sickness, but whatever. I think that's actually OCD. is it i think that's a form of ocd interesting because i literally am like if i don't go up there and check it's going to be the one time that something happened that i didn't check that's literally the definition of ocd interesting you should have that checked out i'm learning a lot of things about myself lately um but yeah you might that's one of those things there's a there's a form of ocd that's related to becoming a parent um oh yeah that makes sense sheena shea got it oh okay i'm not laughing i'm just saying like that i'm relating it back to vanderpump rules is funny. Yeah, of course. But yeah, I wonder if you have that. That'd be interesting. I should talk to my doctor about it. I mean, sometimes moms are just like, you're just insane. Yeah. And as you should be. Yeah. Like it's like full on, like you feel crazy. Yeah. No, oftentimes when they stay at my house, I can't sleep. Yeah. I get it. It literally is one of those things. Yeah. Like I'm a crazy person. Look at me just saying oftentimes. Oftentimes. The way I introduced that. Yeah. Wow. I liked that. I feel better than everybody right now. I liked it a lot. Oftentimes. you know what oftentimes i might say scarce but i also say oftentimes you might but you know what it's okay but anyway we let you live thank you cheers cheers to living mama okay i picked up my drink at the perfect time cheers to scarce cheers to scarcing um and to saint louis saint louising cheers we literally both are we all right right we're not hello we're drinking our little because we're having me and our olipop having sody pop oh bitch has girls over there now i can do it uh so yeah so you know that was weird break here's the sound that was just me letting you guys know that i'm like a cuckoo nut man i got it i run upstairs and it's always their book on the floor yeah um but so ann was like yeah i didn hear anything so again that also him being like oh maybe i just heard something I didn Yeah And they got an entire staff in the house So like noises are probably pretty common in the house at night Now about an hour later, as Charles and Anne were getting ready to bed for bed, Betty decided to check on the baby one final time before going to bed herself. So she lived in the house? Yeah, she lived in the house. Like when she watched the kid. Um, so yeah, she was like, you know what? I'm going to bed. Like it was like a live in staff, like you said. but she was like, I'm just going to check on the baby one more time. She checked on him about 45 minutes after putting him in the crib. And she was like, he was sleeping soundly, but he's been sick lately. So like, I just want to do another check. So the lights were off. The room was pretty dark when she went in there. Like she left it. And as soon as she walked through the door, she was like, wow, it's a lot colder in here than I thought it would be. And she's like, so she's like, maybe, I don't know. Like I didn't think I had opened it very wide. And she looks and the window is open wider than she remembered leaving it. Which my heart is beating out of my chest right now. The pit in my stomach that I feel in that one sentence of like it was open wider than she left it. Yeah. Is deep. I also can't imagine how, I don't know how this all shakes out. So let me just say, I can't imagine how this poor woman felt in this moment. Because she did nothing wrong. She did nothing wrong, but that's not your child. So you're immediately like. The guilt would be. Like you must feel that fault. Yeah. Unbelievable. So she goes to close the window. And she's like, that's, and I think, and actually I shouldn't have said she realized that it was much wider than she left it. She actually didn't realize it. She just went to close the window. Oh, okay. And she said at the time it didn't register to her, but it was wider. Okay. She's like, but I just didn't click at first because I think your brain doesn't want to believe it. Yeah. But feeling the cold, she immediately was like, something's weird. It shouldn't be this cold in here. um so after closing the window she turns around to the crib and she was going to turn on a heater in the room but and her eyes are like adjusting to the dark at this point and so she said i couldn't really see into the crib very well because again my eyes are adjusting and she's like but so it didn't really strike her as odd that she couldn't see him right away but she said what struck her is she couldn't hear him breathing okay like little baby and also he's sick so probably so she's like so i reached my hand into the crib and she said she could feel the covers that she had placed over him but there was no baby oh fuck so she this is my worst fucking it's awful so she's trying not to panic because she's like okay so she's like maybe the parents exactly i'm gonna go down to ann and charles maybe ann took the baby into her room yeah you don't want It's a go worst case scenario. Yeah. So she calls out to Anne and she's like, hey, do you have the baby? And Anne anxiously replied, no, I don't. So now concerned, Betty went downstairs to see if Charles Sr. had the baby while Anne double checked the nursery. But within moments, it was clear no one had the baby. The baby was not there. As Anne and Betty tore through the house looking for the baby, Charles ran upstairs into the nursery to double check himself. Everything appeared perfectly normal in the baby's room, except for the fact that there was no baby in there. In the crib, he said the blanket was still secured to the mattress with safety pins. And he said the impression of the baby's head was still in the pillow. And he said it was as though someone had carefully lifted him out of the crib, trying not to disturb anything. So he realizes now my son's been taken. And so he went to the adjoining room and he grabbed his rifle from the closet. Hell yeah, motherfucker. With Anne and Betty following close behind him. And when they returned to the nursery again, he noticed the small white envelope resting on the windowsill. Stop. That Betty hadn't seen. Oh, motherfucker. I hate this. There was nothing written on the outside of the envelope, but inside there was a note. And it said, Dear Sir, have $50,000 ready, $2,500 in $20 bills, $1,500 in $10 bills, and $10,000 in $5 bills. After two to four days, we will inform you where to deliver the money. It's all spelled wrong, by the way. We warn you for making anything public or for the police. The child is in good care. Indication for all letters are signature and three holes. What? No idea. Now, by that time, the entire household was awake. All the staff was awake and alert to what was going on. Charles took one final look around the nursery, but nothing was out of the ordinary other than that letter. so he instructed everyone to remain as calm as possible and he insisted no one touch anything in this nursery then he went to the phone and called his lawyer colonel henry breckenridge from the and then he called the new jersey state police so when lieutenants dunn and bornman received the call from lindberg the two officers first instinct was that this is a prank this is not charles lindberg like this is someone calling to do this but that's a bad first instinct when they hung up They called the number back, and it was the Lindbergh house that answered. So they were like, buck. After providing the officers with all the information, Charles hung up the phone and went outside, rifle in hand, to search for his son. Now, in the yard, just underneath the nursery window, Lindbergh and one of the staff, Ollie Wheatley, found what would be the most important piece of evidence in the case. It was a handmade wooden ladder that was clearly used by the kidnapper to reach the boy's window. It's so creepy. A few feet away, there was a broken piece of wood that appeared to have come off the ladder, probably when the kidnapper was climbing down from the window. Finding nothing else of note in the area outside the house, they went back inside to wait for the police. Now around 10.30 p.m., Hopewell police officers Harry Wolfe and Charles Williamson arrived at the Lindbergh home and briefly questioned Charles and the staff, and then they did a preliminary search of the house. From the moment the officers arrived, Charles' dominating personality was pretty evident. Which, of course, he's in a state of panic. Yeah, that's his son, his only child. Yeah, by that point, he was one of the biggest celebrities in the world. And he'd become accustomed to taking control of every situation he was in. Particularly those involving his family and his privacy. That was also like his role back then. He's been trained. So rather than allow the officers to go about their business as they saw fit, he followed them around the house. And as he had with his staff, demanded that the officers not touch anything in the nursery until experts came, which I can't say I wouldn't do that. And I'm not saying it's a good thing to do. I'm just saying he's a parent. You could never say I would just sit there quietly. Obviously, it's better to let the experts do what they do best. I'm not saying you should involve yourself. I'm just saying I can't get too mad at a parent for just wanting to be like, what's going on? And I think I would do the same thing. I just, I don't know what I would do and I can't say I wouldn't do that. But again, I'm not saying it's right or wrong. No, it's just parent shit. Honestly, I get it. Now, after nearly 100 years, it's unclear what Wolf and Williamson did and didn't notice. We still don't know, but it's almost certain they took note of the ladder in the yard and the small number of footprints leading away from the house. But whoever had taken the baby appeared to have placed cloth over their shoes or had gone barefoot and placed bags over their feet which would make it impossible to measure their feet wow which is like pretty just the fact that somebody thought of that yeah that's like mastermind shit those are essentially the two things that we found out that they found that we just don't know what other evidence they if anything they came up with they did though suggest that whoever the kidnapper was there was a strong possibility that this was not their first criminal act. Okay. Now, other than the ladder and footprints leading away from the house in a southward direction, again, there was little evidence that we know of to speak in the house. Neither the ladder nor the ransom note had any fingerprints either on it. Aside from the noise Charles heard from what he thought was the kitchen while they were eating dinner, no one in the house heard any other sounds. As far as the investigators could tell, the kidnapper probably parked their vehicle a ways away from the house and walked through the woods to get to the house which means they obviously traced that route at least one other time yep and then they climbed into the nursery through the window that betty had left open through no fault of her own then gently lifted the sleeping baby from the crib and went out of their out the way they came in which like the fact that the baby didn't cry or make any sound yeah must have they were very gentle yeah what they did obviously it's also just so horrifying to think that somebody or a group of people were 100 casing that house yeah that that is the part of home invasions that scares me the most like it's all so scary yeah but for some reason like the thought of a person casing you yeah while you are just going going about your daily life and they are learning your daily life while you have no fucking idea that's why switch up your routine switch up your routine that's why I leave my house at a different time every day. Like switch up your routines however you can. Switch it up. It just is. But it's so sad that also they did switch up their routines. That's the part that really gets you here. Yeah. Is this wasn't part of their routine. They weren't supposed to be there really. Yeah. Which we will go into for sure. This is going to be a multi-parter because it's very involved. But and also the noise that Charles heard when he was like what was that? That was the rung of the ladder breaking. Yeah. That makes sense. So he's sitting there having dinner with his wife. Here's a noise. And it was somebody stealing his baby. Yeah. Like that is unthinkable. No, it truly is. And to go back and realize like, oh. That's what that was. What I thought was just innocuous was a life changing. Was the most like fucking malignant thing I can think of. Yeah. So the limited evidence found at the scene supported the theory of how the kidnapping unfolded. But there was one very important question that wasn't really answered yet. Until that night, like we were just talking about, Charles and Anne only stayed at the house on weekends. So how was it that the kidnapper knew they would be there that evening? when they hadn't been there on a weeknight any other time before that. In the month or two leading up to this whole thing, the only people living at the house full-time were a number, like a small number of staff. And if the kidnapper had cased the house, like we were just saying or been watching for a number of days or weeks, they would have seen activity and might have interpreted that as indication that the family had moved in. But it's also possible they simply got lucky that night and had been completely unaware that this is the first weeknight that Charles and Anne were staying there. Or I just wonder too, like were they being followed and were people listening to their conversations and knew they were planning on moving in? Well, there's a third possibility that's pretty troubling is that the kidnappers had someone on the inside informing them of the couple's comings and goings. Because it is just like, sure you could have gotten lucky, but that's lucky. Well, and it's like, if you are casing that house and you know that they're not there, like why would you come on a Tuesday? It just doesn't make a lot of sense. That's the thing. Well, the other, that whole thing of like, if they got lucky is, is one that says they weren't casing the house. They just showed up on a random night to kidnap this kid and happened to hit the night. And I just don't feel like that could happen. Sure. Like it could. It's a pretty remote possibility. And well, and it's just like the fact that they thought this person had done things in the past. And it's this question, the, how did this happen? How did they know they would be there? That hasn't been answered yet. Yeah. Still. And this is a hundred years old. We still don't know how this happened. so when the news of the kidnapping hit the papers the next day the public was just shocked to learn of charles jr's disappearance yeah because maybe also like was kidnapping really a thing back then it was definitely not a new phenomenon in the united States at this point, but look at me leading you into your next sentence. You really did. But this was the first time, like the real first time that they saw like the child of a celebrity. Like a high profile. Yeah, somebody that like everyone knew. Right. All over the country. That's exactly what you meant. All over the country, entire front pages were occupied with coverage of the kidnapping and just like various stories about the investigation. New Jersey Director of Public Safety William Egan called out the entire state police in the area and officers conducted a house-to-house search but they didn't find anything that way. Several miles away from the house investigators found an abandoned sedan that they thought maybe was related to the kidnapping but like the crime scene itself it didn't have anything in the car to really identify a suspect even if it was connected. It's still spooky. That's the thing like it could be connected but they just didn't leave anything behind. Yeah. But they did discover something about the car. It had been stolen on the afternoon of the kidnapping from an address in Brooklyn. Okay, so that's sus. Yeah. Which did lead investigators to conclude the car, quote, may have been used by the kidnappers in their flight from the Lindbergh home. That's smart wording. They said maybe, maybe not. They said let's hedge our bets. Maybe. Maybe not. There's two possibilities here. It was either used by the kidnappers. Or it wasn't. Or it wasn't. Period. And that's where we are in our investigation. Okay. So everybody said, oh, good. Great. Yeah. Awesome. That's helpful. Aside from the various details of the crime, what is pretty evident about the heavy coverage of it is the extent to which Charles Lindbergh attempted to use his power and influence to control the investigation from the start. According to historian Lloyd Gardner, Lindbergh had a very deep distrust of the authorities and doubted their ability to actually solve this case to his satisfaction. Like, for example, like the morning after the kidnapping, New Jersey Governor Harry Moore coordinated with the state legislature to offer a $25,000 reward for Charles Jr.'s safe return. when Lindbergh learned of the reward he immediately shut it down saying quote such action should be deferred for the time being while initial efforts to capture the abductors were being made so he didn't want that award going out because he was like we should capture the people first and it's like no no we know that it's to capture them and also I think the most important thing here is to find your baby yeah that's that that's number one feels like counterintuitive well that's what that reward does. The reward is to find your baby or find information about where your baby is. It's yeah, we want to find who did this, but that truly would have been secondary to me. I guess like, like on one hand, maybe he was just like, what if that leads to false tips or something? But of course it is. But also like you wouldn't get the reward unless it was a real tip. That's the thing. It's part of the course in that stuff. Yeah. But why wouldn't you want to just open it up to see if anybody has a tip? I don't really understand that. Well, as promised in the initial ransom note, more communications from the kidnappers did arrive in the days that followed. That's so eerie. On March 6th, a second note arrived in the mail postmarked two days earlier from Brooklyn. In it, the kidnappers increased their demand to $70,000. The note said, Dear Sir, we have warned you not to make anything public. Also notify the police. Now you have to take consequences. Means we will have to hold the baby until everything is quiet. we cannot make any appointment just now we know very well what it means to us it is is it really necessary to make a world affair out of this or to get your baby back as soon as possible to settle those affairs in a quick way we'll be better for both don't be afraid about the baby keeping care of us day and night we also will feed him according to the diet we are interested to send him back in in gut health but they meant good hello and ransom was made uh for five fifty thousand dollars but now we have to take another person to it and probably have to keep the baby for a longer time than we expected so the amount will be seventy thousand dollars twenty thousand dollars and fifty dollar bills twenty five thousand and twenty dollar bills and fifteen thousand in ten dollar bills and one thousand or excuse me ten thousand and five dollar bills okay don't mark any bills or take them from one serial number i'm assuming number yeah we will form you ladder where to deliver the money but we will not do so until the police is out of the case and the pappers are quiet the kidnapping is prepared we prepared in years so we are prepared for everything i'm sorry but this is like an og drunk text yeah it literally is like yeah hello did they receive this at like 3 a.m there's a reason that they that that it comes off like what is happening in okay like it was purposeful i perhaps now two days later a third note was received at the office of lindberg's lawyer and it was lamenting the fact that they had not received a response and they were reminding the family not to involve the police in their negotiations it said dear Yeah fear with your private mail How can we come to any arrangements this way In the future we will send our letters to Mr Breckenridge at 25 Broadway Otherwise the note was nearly a word-for-word duplicate of the letter received the day before. The drunk text. Yeah, the drunk text. Now, in total, Lindbergh received a dozen ransom notes, all appearing to be written by the same person, but only those sent directly to Lindbergh contained the unusual signature and three holes referenced in the first note. Okay. Each note was clearly rife with misspellings and like what seemed to be poor grammar. But were they like coded? Well, it indicated that the writer maybe had some like limited formal education, especially at the time. Oh, okay. But it wasn't poor grammar and spelling alone that stood out. The notes also had an unusual syntax to them. Like the writer was not a native English speaker. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that might be why like, it seems like it's not making sense how an English speaker would say it. Okay. Because it would make sense for someone that is not a native English speaker. It's like translating. I see. If it's being like directly translated. Right. Now on the day the third ransom note was received by Lindbergh's lawyer, a strange quote, open letter appeared in the Bronx home news in which the writer, a retired Bronx school principal, Dr. John Condon, offered the kidnappers $1,000 if the kidnappers turned the baby over to a Catholic priest. But they want $70,000. Yeah, so Condon said, I offer all I can scrape together so a loving mother may again have her child and Colonel Lindbergh may know that the American people are grateful for the honor bestowed upon them by his pluck and daring. Okay. I kind of love that. But he was just like, I want to help. That's nice. We love a good Samer. Yeah. So the next day, Condon received a letter at his address in New York, believed to be by the kidnapper. It said, dear sir, if you are willing to act as go-between in the Lindbergh case, please follow strictly instruction. Handel enclosed letter personally to Mr. Lindbergh. It will explain everything. Don't tell anyone about it. As soon as we find out the press or police is notified, everything are canceled, and it will be a further delay. Okay. So the letter instructed Condon to coordinate with Lindbergh to get the money together. And once he had done that, he was to post a post a notice in the classified section of the New York American only saying money is ready. OK. Now, according to author Richard Cahill, like boom, just boom. According to author Richard Cahill, the single most fascinating person involved in the Lindbergh kidnapping was Dr. John F. Condon. Really? in fact like condon appeared to come out of nowhere at a pretty crucial moment in the investigation and while the timing is almost suspiciously convenient right his desire to be like of some assistance to the family was by all accounts genuine he's just a good guy he was a very patriotic man especially at a time when like being patriotic was like you know it was just like a different thing you know what i mean like i feel like it carried so much weight back then And he had a very like sincere love for like teaching children, helping children. His teaching extended beyond his retirement and motivated him to become an active leader in his community. Like he was just a good guy. Yeah, it sounds like it. And like many Americans, Condon had been inspired by Charles Lindbergh's achievements in aviation and was devastated to learn of the kidnapping of his baby. Right. It was that like patriotism and his commitment for the well-being of children that he really spent his life with, that led him to write the letter in the first place. It's unclear what, if honestly anything, he expected in return for his services. He never said he wanted anything back. But it's really, it's pretty unlikely that he expected to find himself at the center of the literal crime of the century is what it is called. So while Condon's open letter appeared in the Bronx Home News on March 8th, it caught the attention of the New Jersey State Police, but was ultimately dismissed as insignificant. Because after all, Charles Lindbergh received countless letters year-round from adoring fans. And those letters only increased when the news of the kidnapping broke. But when Condon received a reply from the kidnappers, they were kind of forced to take the offer more seriously. So the letter sent to Condon was the second ransom note to be received by someone other than Charles Lindbergh. The first being the letter sent to Henry Breckenridge. His lawyer. Like the letter received by Breckenridge, Condon's letter didn't include the three-hole design used by the kidnapper to indicate their authenticity. But nevertheless, the letter was determined to be authentic by the authorities. Okay. And on the evening of March 9th, Condon found himself on the telephone with Charles Lindbergh, which must have been wild. Yeah. Now, to everyone's surprise, Lindbergh agreed to allow Condon to act as a go-between. Okay. On March 10th, Charles provided Condon with the $70,000 demanded by the kidnapper, and Condon started the negotiation with the kidnappers through newspaper classifieds. He identified himself with the code name JAPSE. Mm-hmm. Two days later, another letter arrived at Condon's home, delivered by local cab driver Joseph Perrone. According to Joseph, the letter had been given to him by an anonymous man who paid him to deliver it. But he could remember very, like, little about the man. The note directed Condon to a vacant lot, where he found yet another note. Ugh, hate that. Which instructed him to place the money in a box and planned to bring it with him to Woodlawn Cemetery. Oh, not a cemetery. Yeah. once there he was to follow the fence in the direction of 233rd street where he would be met by a man referred to only as john that's isn't this spooky as hell yeah i would and this is just like a random dude who's just trying to help like this guy's just like what the fuck but you didn't think you were gonna do all this no he was like i'm just trying to help man so the letters from the kidnapper didn't specify when the meeting would take place and in the days that followed Condon continued communicating through the newspapers, trying not only to pin down a date and time he was supposed to do this, but also to secure some proof from the letter writers that they were in fact the kidnappers and not just like setting him up. Right. To that end, on March 16th, a seventh ransom note arrived at Condon's address. And that included the Dr. Denton sleeping suit that Betty Gao had put Charles Jr. in before putting him to bed that night. Oh, that's awful. That sends me into orbit. Yeah. The idea of the little sleeping suit? No. Because I just remember putting my babies into those little sleep sacks. Oh, I just, getting that would be the enemy. I think it probably smells like baby. Oh, the suit was passed along to Lindbergh, who confirmed that it was his son's suit. Oh, that's fucking bleak. So it's important to point out that all of the negotiations between John Condon and the kidnappers and John Condon and the Lindberghs were happening outside the official investigation. Oh, okay. This was like a whole side quest. Which you can understand because they're being told, like, don't involve the authorities. I get it. Lindbergh's desperate need to be in control of the situation and his distrust of the police and them saying don't involve the police, it kind of led him to undertake his own investigation. Yeah. And it was coordinated by and executed by his lawyers and a lot of, like, private investigators. All right. So there were professionals involved. Now, according to historian Lloyd Gardner, the fact that Lindbergh kept the ransom notes and the plan to meet with the kidnappers from police would become one of the primary reasons that suspicions would later fall on Lindbergh himself. Interesting. Because, like, once they found that out, they were like, what the fuck's going on? Why didn't you involve us? Yeah, I mean, I get that. Which you get. You see both sides of that pretty easily. You absolutely can. You know? Yeah, because you can see why authorities would look at that and go, what the fuck are you doing? What? You didn't want to find your kid by involving us? Like, what the fuck? Right. But then you get, like, when that's how, I can't imagine how that feels. Don't involve the police. Yeah. Now, finally, after weeks of waiting, Condon received a note from the kidnappers on April 1st, instructing him to have the money ready for the exchange the next evening. Imagine Anne right now, and, like, obviously Charles, too, like, weeks with your baby. Just waiting around. Your little baby. Like a baby. In your brand new giant house, just, like, waiting for your baby's return. With that nursery just sitting there empty. I can't. Like, I can't. So the next afternoon, the 11th ransom note was delivered to Condon's home by an anonymous cab driver, who said he'd been given the note by a man that he didn't know and paid to deliver it, just like the first. The note provided directions to a greenhouse on East Tremont Street in the Bronx, where Condon found the 12th and final note. The 12th and final note said, cross the street and walk to the next corner and follow Wittenmore Avenue to the sound. Take the money with you. Come alone and walk. I will meet you. So Condon did as he was instructed, and that evening he found himself in the cemetery waiting to meet that man known as John. After a few minutes of waiting, he was flagged down by a man waving a handkerchief, whom he assumed to be his contact. Later, he would describe the man as being of average height and weight with large ears and a pointy chin. The only distinctive feature that he noticed was that the man had a large lump at the base of his left thumb that appeared to be some kind of like physical imperfection. Okay. So in exchange for the money, Condon was given the last written communication anyone would receive from the kidnappers, instructing him where to go to find Charles Lindbergh Jr. They said, the boy is on the boat Nelly. It is a small boat, 28 feet long. Two persons are on the boat. They are innocent. You will find the boat between Horseneck Beach in Gay Head near Elizabeth Island. Talking about Massachusetts. I was just going to say, wait a second, horseback? Mathis Vineyard. So Condon raced home and immediately gave the information to Lindbergh. After a month of just anxiety and heartbreak, it seemed like the ordeal was finally going to come to an end. Also imagine missing, like, obviously we know what happens here, but they think they're getting their baby. And you're like, oh my god, I missed out on a month of my first child's life. And what kind of trauma are they going to have from this? Now Lindbergh made arrangements with the U.S. Navy to borrow a seaplane. Jesus Christ. Yeah, he and Breckenridge flew to Martha's Vineyard. Imagine just dialing up the Navy and being like, hey, can I borrow a plane? I got to go to Martha's Vineyard. So they went to Massachusetts to retrieve his son. Once they reached the area around Martha's Vineyard, they scanned the water below, looking for the boat supposedly named Nellie, but found nothing. After a brief break to refuel, they went up again and continued the search until the sun went down, but they never found any boat. That evening when it was clear that there was no boat to be found, Lindbergh and Breckenridge returned to Long Island from there and they took a car to the Lindbergh estate in Hopewell. So the failure to find their baby in Martha's Vineyard caused John Condon tremendous guilt and anxiety. Oh, I'm sure. He had idolized Charles Lindbergh and genuinely believed that by just helping and acting as a go-between, he could rescue his little boy and be a hero to him. Right. But now it looked like his efforts had just been for nothing. Not only had they not rescued Charles Jr., but he had also lost them the ransom money. Oh, fuck. Or that's how he felt, you know. Right, right. In the days that followed, Condon placed another ad in the Bronx Home News that read in all caps, what is wrong? Have you crossed me? Please, better directions, Jaffsy. Unfortunately, his plea received no reply from the kidnapper. Now weeks passed with no word and no progress in the official and unofficial investigations. Then on May 12th, the mystery of Charles Lindbergh Jr.'s whereabouts was pretty tragically solved. Not by police, but by a stranger completely unconnected to the case. That afternoon, New Jersey truck driver William Allen was driving a load of lumber to a location in Hopewell, and about four and a half miles from the Lindbergh house, he went into the woods, just ducked in to relieve himself before going back into his car. He hadn't made it more than 50 or 60 feet into the woods when he made a terrible discovery. A few feet in front of him, covered in dirt and debris, was the child's skull. Oh, God. Not certain what he was looking at at first, he ducked his head down for a closer look, and he said he saw a small foot. Oh. So he raced to the nearest police station and reported what he had found, then accompanied several officers and Hunterdon County Coroner William Swayze back to the grave site. The body of the little boy was laying on its side and was badly decomposed. It had been picked at by animals and scavengers. So the whole time that Condon was communicating with the quote-unquote kidnappers, this baby was not alive. And they're talking about how he's healthy and they're feeding him his diet and everything's fine. I know that the authorities at the time or the unofficial authorities believed that they were actual communications. Do people widely believe that they were? We'll get into that for sure. But yeah, this poor little body was badly decomposed, but there was no denying it was the body of a baby. Because of the position that the remains had been left, which was the face was pointed towards the ground. The only good thing was that investigators were able to photograph the child's face, which was mostly intact because it was faced towards the ground. After comparing the photographs to those of Charles Lindbergh Jr. provided by the family. Inspectors from the state police identified the body of that as that of Charles Lindbergh Jr. But before making the identification official, detectives took the small scraps of clothing found with the body to the Lindbergh house, where Lindbergh and Betty Gao both confirmed that they were a match for the clothing the baby was wearing the night he disappeared. The disappearance of Charles Lindbergh Jr. was now a murder investigation. oh man and we are going to stop there yeah for part two that was a lot um we're gonna get into the hunt for the killer we're gonna get into theories we're gonna get into mysteries things that still make us say huh about this case all of it because it's not over i guess not it doesn't end there i know i don't know all the theories i i like obviously i know this case but i don't know it's a wild all the nitty-gritty that's the thing with this case there's a lot yeah there's a lot going on yeah and so we will get into it in part two all right i'm interested but yeah definitely a good place to stop that was sad yeah it really is that poor baby yeah all right um do you have a fun fact for us there were active volcanoes on the moon when dinosaurs were alive fuck yeah hell yeah hell yeah brother that's metal as fuck the only appropriate reaction to that yeah That fact. That fact. That fact. That fact was so fun. That fact was fun. Volcanoes on the moon. Oh my god. Dinosaurs. Which, by the way, another fun fact. You should check out that show on Netflix called Dinosaurs. Sick. I should. Okay. Sick. Party. So good. Let's go. Go watch that, guys. I'ma. The kids love it. Alright. Well, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. Weird. But not to worry that you don't give yourself a little palate cleanser by checking out the show Dinosaurs on Netflix. Do it. It's fun. That's not even that. Elena just likes it with her children. Dinosaurs. Bye. Boom. Not the mama. What? Oh, that was from the show Dinosaurs. Oh, it's not the same one. I know it's totally different, but I still think that made sense. Thank you. Thank you. .