The Charles Lindbergh House - Crime Of The Century!

The Charles Lindbergh house, often known as ‘Highfields’ belonged to Charles Lindbergh and Anne Marrow Lindbergh. The home, which is located in New Jersey, was the scene of what some American media claimed to be the ‘Crime of the Century’…

The History Of The Charles Lindbergh House

Charles Lindbergh was an American aviator and military officer who in 1927 made the first solo transatlantic flight. Flying from New York to Paris, it took Lindbergh almost 34 hours to complete the journey. A year later Time magazine honored him with ‘Man of the Year’ and a flood of awards soon followed for his achievement.

Lindbergh was unprepared for the attention that came with fame. He and his wife were constantly hounded by the press, and the more reclusive and uncooperative they became, the more intense the press intrusion became.

Despite his father-in-law’s advice to accept the intrusions into his private life, Lindbergh was determined to escape the constant intrusion into their lives and so purchased a 390-acre tract near Hopewell, in a remote area of New Jersey. It is here where they built ‘Highfields’ (now often called the Charles Lindbergh House) in 1931, a home for the weekend, where they could escape the press while still living in Englewood, New Jersey, during the week.

Then on March 1st, 1932, just a year after building his secluded property, disaster struck at the Charles Lindbergh House! Charles and Anne’s 20-month-old son Charles Lindbergh Jr. was abducted from his crib on the upper floor sometime around 9PM.

Betty Gow, who was Lindbergh’s nanny, was the one who realised the child was missing and alerted Charles Lindbergh. Charles quickly found a ransom note on the windowsill in the child’s bedroom, and so grabbed a gun and began searching the grounds of his property with the family butler, Olly Whateley.

The pair soon found footprints leading away from the property, a homemade ladder, and a blanket, but no sign of the kidnapper or his son. He then phoned the police, who began a search by midnight. A fingerprint expert found no fingerprints on the bedroom, ladder, or on the random note, which features many grammatical errors. It read…

Dear Sir! Have 50.000$ redy 25 000$ in 20$ bills 15000$ in 10$ bills and 10000$ in 5$ bills After 2–4 days we will inform you were to deliver the mony. We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the Police the child is in gut care. Indication for all letters are Singnature and 3 hohls.

Investigators concluded that the note had been written by someone whose first language was not English. Rewards for information were soon put up by the family, however, the body of their son was found by a truck driver just a few miles from the Lindbergh house on May 12th, 1932, two months after he had disappeared.

Eventually, it was Richard Hauptmann who was arrested for the crime. Hauptmann, who was a carpenter by trade, was a German immigrant with a criminal record in his homeland. Police found a piece of wood that matched the homemade ladder used to gain access to the baby’s bedroom in his house, as well as addresses and phone numbers on his closet wall that tied him to the crime.

Hauptmann turned down offers from newspapers to confess his crime, as well as an offer to have his sentence changed from the death penalty to life without parole if he confessed. He was executed by electric chair on April 3rd, 1936.

The Charles Lindbergh House After The Kidnapping

After the discovery of their son, the Lindberghs never spent another night at the Charles Lindbergh House, instead choosing to spend their time at their home in Englewood, New Jersey.

In 1933, the Charles Lindbergh House was handed over to a board of trustees, then later to the State of New Jersey, who then turned the property into a juvenile rehabilitation centre, which the property remains as today. The house was added to the US National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

Below are a few recent photos from inside the rehabilitation centre.