A Long-Remembered Child

Today marks the sad date that Charles Lindbergh, Junior, or the Lindbergh Baby, as he came to be known, was kidnapped from his parents' home in 1932. They never saw their child again.

The abduction of this baby, which prompted "The Trial of the Century," made him perhaps the most famous baby in the world. He was twenty months old at the time of his kidnapping and death. Theories abound, and some insist that the Lindbergh baby never died at all--in fact several claimants came forward insisting that they were the famous missing baby. The story given the most credence, however, is that the child, who was recovering from a cold, was taken from his bed by a lone kidnapper who had made a homemade ladder for the crime. The ladder, which was really two ladders connected, did not hold the weight of the perpetrator once he was holding the baby, and it broke--sparking the theories that he dropped the baby and that it died at the scene.

This did not prevent the kidnappers, however, from their plans of seeking ransom. It was two months before a child's body was found, and Lindbergh identified it as that of his missing son. Conspiracy theorists are troubled by the fact that Lindbergh had the remains cremated very quickly after identification.

More than two years passed before police linked the crime to Bruno Hauptmann, who never did admit to the crime, despite being offered cash and a lesser sentence if he confessed. He was electrocuted on April 3rd, 1936.

The story of this baby and his demise remains one of the saddest I have ever heard.

(photo link)