Among the many comments I have been getting about what I said on "Who
Killed ....." the most frequent issue raised is: How would Lindbergh
go about secreting his child, presuming Anne knew nothing about the
endeavor? Where and how could one possibly do that? These are
important questions. The answers I will give will, of course, not
satisfy many. Truth is, as John Douglas said last night, there will be
lots of questions that will never have answers in this case. Take, for
example, the table that was found in 1948, and re-discovered to
everyone's amazement by Mark Falzini in an evidence bin at the
archives. It was this table that had a legend written on it claiming
innocence for Hauptmann, and explaining where the rest of the money was
buried. (A picture of the table viewed from the bottom, is reproduced
in the original edition of "Case" before page 210). What Falzini
discovered after carefully looking at the table was that the holes in
the ransom notes fit perfectly over the holes where the table top was
attached to the base. Every hole fit perfectly for every ransom note,
suggesting that they had been punctured at the same time. What was
behind the writing on this table? Who could have done this simply by
guesswork? There it sits at the archives and museum - waiting for a
final answer.
So with that in mind, let me address the issue as I see it today, 11 a.m., February 1, 2013.
As
I put at the heading of my "Afterwards," Charles Lindbergh testified
that most people did not know what he did during the day time - or
presumably at other times as well. That he worked with Dr. Alexis
Carrel on a variety of projects, most famously the artificial heart, is
well-known. It is possible that Dr. Carrel -- a fervent eugenicist
talked with Lindbergh about his "problem." They could have decided to
do something, using Carrel's contacts with a variety of institutes, one
close to the Lindbergh home, "The Skillman Institute for Epileptics."
Remember that this condition was treated then as a serious mental
illness inheritable, and efforts were made to keep those afflicted
separate from society so that they would not reproduce.
I wrote in the Afterwards that there were sightings that night of
cars leaving the area of the Institute on the way to (possibly)
Highfields. Among these was a car that could have been Hauptmann's. We
simply do not know.
What we do know is that powerful people at that time had the ability
to move heaven and earth to change their situation -- especially if it
was potentially embarrassing. We also know that at the height of the
eugenics movement, the attitude toward the handicapped was very
different than today, with the "Special Olympics," and the recognition
that society gains, not loses, from their contribution. This has been
an important recognition that came after many other movements, such as
those for equality for women, civil rights decisions from Brown vs Board
of Education, etc.
