Kidnapping of Lindbergh baby

The ransom money

Since it was obvious that the ransom was paid after the baby was already dead the police and Bureau of Investigation started the investigation to trace down were the ransom money ended up. Few of the ransom bills turned up in various locations, some as far away as Chicago and Minneapolis, but the people spending them were never found. As per Executive Order 6102, Gold Certificates (that were used to pay part of the ransom) were to be turned in by May 1, 1933. Few days before the deadline a man in Manhattan brought in $2980 of the ransom money to be exchanged. The bank was busy and no one could remember anything specific about the person. He had filled out a required form using name J.J. Faulkner. The address supplied was 537 West 149th Street in New York City. When authorities visited the address, they learned that no one named Faulkner had lived there - or anywhere nearby - for many years. US Treasury officials kept looking and eventually learned that a woman named Jane Faulkner had lived at the address in question in 1913. She had moved after she married a German man named Giessler. The couple was tracked down, and both denied any involvement in the crime.

For next thirty months many bills from the ransom money were tracked downe being spent in places throughout New York City, many of them along the route of the Lexington Avenue subway. This subway line connected the East Bronx with the east side of Manhattan, including the German-Austrian neighbourhood of Yorkville. On September 18, 1934, a gold certificate from the ransom money turned up in the Corn Exchange Bank at 125th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan (even though it was past the deadline for certificates). It had a New York license plate 4U-13-41-N.Y pencilled in the margin, which helped the investigators trace the bill to a nearby gas station. The station manager, Walter Lyle, had written down the license plate number feeling that his customer was acting "suspicious" and was "possibly a counterfeiter".

It was found that the license plate number belonged to a blue Dodge sedan owned by Richard Hauptmann of 1279 East 222nd Street in the Bronx. Hauptmann was found to be a German immigrant with a criminal record in his homeland. When Hauptmann was arrested, he had on his person a twenty dollar gold certificate. A search by police of Hauptmann’s garage found over $14,000 of the ransom money. Hauptmann was arrested, interrogated, as well as beaten at least once, throughout the day and night that followed. The money, Hauptmann stated, along with other items, had been left with him by friend and former business partner Isidor Fisch. Fisch had died on March 29, 1934, shortly after returning to Germany. Only following Fisch’s death, Hauptmann stated, did he learn that the shoe box left with him contained a considerable sum of money. He took the money because he claimed that it was owed to him from a business deal that he and Fisch had made. Hauptmann consistently denied any connection to the crime or knowledge that the money in his house was from the ransom.

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