On the night of March 1st, 1932, a biting howling wind swept across the Sowerland Mountains

of New Jersey. Nestle deep in the remote, heavily wooded area near the town of Hopewell

was a brand-new secluded estate called Highfields. It was the private sanctuary of Charles Limburg,

the legendary aviator, and his wife Anne.

Up on the second floor of this quiet mansion, inside a warm, dimly lit nursery,

20-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was fast asleep in his crib.

He had a slight cold, so his nurse, Betty Gow, had carefully pinned his blanket to his

mattress and rubbed his chest with camphor.

The night was pitch black, and the wind outside was so violent that it made the freshly

plastered walls of the new house creek and groan.

Downstairs, around nine o'clock, Charles Lindberg was sitting in his study.

He would later swear that above the roar of the gale outside, he heard a strange sound.

It wasn't a branch scraping against stone.

It was a sharp, sudden crack, like a dry piece of pine snapping under immense weight.

He dismissed it as maybe a branch breaking or perhaps the wind was rattling the

shutters. He had no idea that the sound he heard was the fracturing of his life as he knew it.

At 10 o'clock, Betty Gow walked back upstairs to check on the toddler. She slipped quietly into the

nursery, her eyes adjusting to the shadows. She reached the crib to

adjust the child's blankets, but her hands met only cold, empty sheets. Thinking Anne had taken

the baby, Betty hurried to the mother's room, but Anne didn't have him. Her heart pounding,

Betty ran downstairs to the study to ask the Colonel.

Lindberg's face went pale.

...