The Trail Went Cold - Episode 472 - The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping, Part 3

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

Tv & Film, True Crime

4.5 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2026

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

March 1, 1932. East Amwell Township, New Jersey. 20-month old Charles Lindbergh Jr., the son of renowned aviator Charles Lindbergh, is abducted from his crib in the nursery of his home and a note is left behind demanding a $50,000 ransom for the baby’s safe return. Even though the ransom is eventually paid out to an unidentified man at a cemetery in the Bronx, the child is not returned and his body is found in a wooded area located just over four miles from the Lindbergh residence. His cause of death is a fractured skull and it is believed that he was killed on the very same night he was kidnapped. Over two years later, a suspect named Bruno Richard Hauptmann is charged, convicted and executed for the child’s murder. However, some people believe that Hauptmann was railroaded and even though nearly a century has passed, there is still a lot of controversy and debate surrounding one of the most famous cases of all time. To commemorate the milestone of our ten-year anniversary as a podcast, “The Trail Went Cold” will be presenting our very first special four-part episode and exploring the crime known as the “Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping”. This week, on Part Three, we explore a number of theories about the case which have been pushed forward over the years, including the possibility that Hauptmann committed the crime alongside some accomplices who got away with it, or that Charles Lindbergh himself staged the kidnapping in order to cover up his own complicity in his son’s death. Our final chapter in the series, Part Four, will be released next week. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping "Kidnap: The Story of the Lindbergh Case" by George Waller "Scapegoat: The Lonesome Death of Richard Hauptmann" by Anthony Scaduto "The Airman and the Carpenter: The Lindbergh Kidnapping and the Framing of Richard Hauptmann" by Ludovic Kennedy "The Ghosts of Hopewell: Setting the Record Straight in the Lindbergh Case" by Jim Fisher "Crime of the Century: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax" by Gregory Ahlgren & Stephen Monier "The Case That Never Dies: The Lindbergh Kidnapping" by Lloyd Gardner "Hauptmann's Ladder: A Step-by-Step Analysis of the Lindbergh Kidnapping" by Richard Cahill "Master Detective: The Life and Crimes of Ellis Parker, America's Sherlock Holmes" by John Reisinger "Cemetery John: The Undiscovered Mastermind Behind the LIndbergh Kidnapping" by Robert Zorn “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Hello everyone and welcome to part three of our special 10-year anniversary episode of The Trail
0:41.1	Went Cold. I'm your host Robin Warner, and today we're going to be presenting the third of our
0:46.6	four-part series about one of the most infamous crimes of all time, the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping.
0:53.2	We've already released our first two episodes over the past two weeks, which outlined the most
0:57.8	important facts of the case, so if you haven't heard those episodes yet, I suggest you go
1:02.0	back and listen to them since I shared a lot of information which would be relevant to what
1:06.1	we're discussing today. In part one, we shared the details of the kidnapping itself, as renowned aviator Charles Lindberg and his
1:13.9	wife, Anne Morrow Lindberg, were living on a large estate in East Amwell Township, New Jersey,
1:19.5	with her 20-month-old son, Charlie Lindberg. On the evening of March 1st, 1932, Charlie was abducted
1:26.6	from his second floor nursery, and a makeshift wooden ladder
1:29.6	was found at the scene, which the kidnapper likely used to enter the nursery and take the child
1:34.2	from his crib. A ransom note was left behind in which the abductor demanded $50,000 for Charlie's
1:40.2	safe return, and one month later, the ransom drop took place at St. Raymond's Cemetery
1:45.0	in the Bronx, and the money was delivered to a mysterious individual nicknamed Cemetery John.
1:51.2	But unfortunately, this did not lead to Charlie's return, and just over one month later,
1:55.8	the baby's decomposed body was found in a wooded area just over four miles from the Lindberg
2:00.2	estate, and his cause of
2:01.5	death was determined to be a fractured skull. It would be nearly two and a half years until Cemetery
2:06.7	John was identified as a German immigrant named Bruno Richard Halpman, who lived in the Bronx
2:12.0	with his wife and infant son, as $14,000 of the ransom money was found hidden inside his garage. Even though Houtman was charged with
2:19.8	Charlie's murder, he denied any involvement in the kidnapping and claimed that the money had been
	...

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