The "Trial of the Century" Begins

Bruno Hauptmann, a German immigrant to the US, was convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the young son of famed pilot Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann had been found with part of the ransom money, but the case against him has since come under scrutiny. It has been alleged that some of the evidence used to convict him was planted and that false testimony was given at the trial. What was discovered in 1985 that shed new light on the case? More...

In 1985, over 23,000 pages of Hauptmann-case police documents were found in the garage of the late Governor Hoffman. These documents, along with 34,000 pages of FBI files, which, although discovered in 1981, had not been disclosed to the public, represented a windfall of previously undisclosed information.[44] As a direct result of this new evidence, Anna Hauptmann again amended her civil complaint on July 14, 1986, to clear her late husband's name by continuing to assert that he was "framed from beginning to end" by the police looking for a suspect.[44] Among her allegations were suggestions that the rail of the ladder taken from the attic, where they used to live in 1935, was planted by the police and that the ransom money was left behind by Isidor Fisch, who was possibly the real kidnapper.