10. Charles Lindbergh’s celebrity status granted him a certain amount of freedom in the investigation of his son’s kidnapping. If he hadn’t been famous, how do you think the case would have been different? Would the investigation have been more or less successful?
11. The press was clearly biased during the Lindbergh trial—do you think they influenced the outcome of the investigation or the trial? Do you think the impartial reporting of crimes is important?
A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR
How has your career as a journalist informed the way you approach writing books?
A journalist wants to learn as much as he can about a subject. He won’t write everything he knows, but his depth of knowledge makes his prose more muscular, gives him access to vivid examples and vignettes, and lets him use shorthand with far more confidence. It’s far less satisfying for a journalist to have to concede, or spackle over, gaps in his information.
This book necessitated an incredible amount of research. Can you talk a little bit about your methods?
I relied a lot on microfilm from the New York Times, where I worked for twenty-eight years, and other newspapers. Plus, I read a number of books on important individuals, like J. Edgar Hoover, and especially noteworthy cases, the most famous being the Lindbergh kidnapping. And with some persistent internet surfing, I came across a magazine article and a book from the 1930s. The article was by a wood expert who traced the source of the Lindbergh kidnapper’s ladder, and the book was by a psychiatrist who pioneered criminal profiling and predicted—accurately—the kind of man the kidnapper would turn out to be, once the police caught him. A little extra digging can pay big dividends!
This kidnapping epidemic has been largely forgotten—why do you think that is?
Years went by, and other events seemed far more important: World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, and so on. A lot of the kidnappings that were front page news at the time then faded from memory.
In this book you discuss dozens of cases of kidnapping. How did you decide to structure the project?
I decided early on that it would be a mistake to recount every case in a single chapter, although I treated a number of cases that way. But I felt that the Lindbergh case was so fascinating, from the kidnapping through the arrest of suspect Bruno Hauptman two and a half years later and through his trial, that I needed to make the most of it. So I spaced the events of the case throughout the book to create suspense. I used the same technique with the 1928 kidnapping of little Grace Budd and the arrest of the kidnapper more than six years later. It would have been a mistake to use a strictly linear time line. Incidentally, I had to decide which of the many kidnapping cases of that era to include in the book and which to leave out. How did I decide? Instinct.
The Lindbergh case was hugely influential in shaping legislature, and the case itself was widely publicized—is this simply because the victim was a celebrity, or were other factors at play? Why was this case so culturally significant?
Lindbergh’s celebrity status was the main factor. Plus, his wife was an appealing person (and from a famous family), and their baby was adorable. And Lindbergh was more than a celebrity; he was an idol. His great courage in flying utterly alone across the Atlantic, his all-American good looks, his “aw shucks” smile—all contributed to his image. And there was far less debunking of famous people than there is today.
The prevalence of kidnapping during the Great Depression was enabled by the lack of technology and forensic science available to law enforcement. Do you think it would be possible, in the present day, for a crime epidemic to occur on a similar scale?
Probably not, given the instant, multi-state communications available today, making it possible for police agencies across the country to talk to one another. But there is still the human factor. For instance, the investigation into the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and several others was hampered by poor communication within the Los Angeles Police Department.
Your body of work largely covers the investigation of violent crimes. What is it about this topic that interests you?
Let’s stick with murder. A murder changes everything forever, at least for the victim and those close to him or her. There is nothing on this earth than can undo it, and there is no true justice this side of heaven. Even if the killer is caught and punished, the victim is gone forever, and those close to him or her are scarred forever. And I have occasionally reflected on how issues of profound legal importance reach the Supreme Court after originating in, say, a shabby rooming house or a grimy saloon or pool hall.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND LIST OF SOURCES
BOOKS
Aymar, Brandt, and Sagarin, Edward. A Pictorial History of the World’s Greatest Trials, From Socrates to Jean Harris. New York: Bonanza Books, 1985.
Bjorkman, Timothy W. Verne Sankey: America’s First Public Enemy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.
Burrough, Bryan. Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.
Cahill, Robert T. Jr. Hauptmann’s Ladder: A Step-by-Step Analysis of the Lindbergh Kidnapping. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2014.
Gentry, Curt. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991.
Nash, Jay Robert. Bloodletters and Badmen, Volume 3. New York: Warner Books, 1975.
Neibaur, James L. Butterfly in the Rain: The 1927 Abduction and Murder of Marion Parker. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
Schechter, Harold. Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America’s Most Fiendish Killer! New York: Pocket Books, 1990.
Shoenfeld, Dudley.
