Crime of the Century: Who Kidnapped Charles Lindbergh Jr?

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Lindbergh Kidnapping is one of the most influential crimes in American history; it plunged a national hero into an investigation which changed the way America thought about law, justice, and “celebrity” forever.

In this episode, we’ll look at what happened inside the Lindbergh home that night, how the investigation unfolded, and how one suspect was tried, convicted, and executed amid an unprecedented media storm.

Today, Don is joined by Thomas Doherty, Professor of American Studies at Brandeis University and author of Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century.

This episode was edited by Aidan Lonergan and produced by Tom Delargy. The Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Morning streams through the windows of a New Jersey house, normally quiet, peaceful, secluded.
0:10.0	It now buzzes with investigators from the New Jersey State Police.
0:15.0	Outside, officers search the grounds for clues.
0:18.0	They discover a ladder, footprints. Inside, upstairs, detectives
0:23.7	huddle in a child's nursery where near the window a ransom note sits in an evidence bag.
0:30.1	The handwriting is jagged, the wording oddly constructed. The head of the state police,
0:36.2	Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf, is officially running this investigation,
0:41.0	but he defers to the man of the house, none other than the legend of the skies, Charles Lindberg.
0:47.5	Schwarzkoff gives orders to his men while Lindberg, America's hero, moves from room to room with a tent of authority.
0:55.1	But beneath his calm composure, Lindberg's face is pale.
0:59.4	His son's crib is empty, and soon the world will be watching.
1:04.5	This investigation is only hours old, but what is transpiring here,
1:09.7	the kidnapping of an innocent child and the hunt for the
1:12.3	perpetrator will become known as the crime of the century.
1:32.5	And greetings to you. Thanks for listening. This is American History Hit, and I'm Don Wildman.
1:42.8	On Tuesday, March 1st, 1932, a horrifying crime shattered a New Jersey family and instantly seized a nation's imagination.
1:46.8	A child, a toddler, taken from his own crib,
1:52.6	a ransom note left by the kidnappers, and the victim's father, no ordinary man, but the most famous aviator on earth, Charles Lindbergh, the hero who had just five years earlier crossed
1:58.7	the Atlantic in the spirit of St. Louis.
2:07.7	Like all true crimes of the century, the Lindbergh kidnapping rose beyond mere criminality.
2:15.1	It became a full-blown cultural spectacle, splashed across front pages, magazines, and radio waves,
2:20.2	as America hung on every new twist of the story. Today, we join the media blitz after the fact in the company of Thomas Dougherty, cultural historian, professor
	...

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