Like the Kennedys, The Lindberghs were embraced as American royalty. Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s first born was dubbed “Little Eaglet”. On a cold blustery night in March, 1932 Charles Jr. was kidnapped. The crime riveted the attention—and broke the heart of 1932 America. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German Immigrant, was found guilty in 1935 and executed in 1936. But Hauptmann protested his innocence to the last. Now a new chapter in the Lindbergh saga is emerging—and its roots are in Central Florida.

The local link to the Lindbergh kidnapping case of 1932 was first made public in a series of Problem Solvers reports aired on WKMG-TV in November 2002. This is a new development of that ongoing investigation.

The Baby Lindbergh case

Known as “Little Eaglet” all across America. Charles, Jr., the first child of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was kidnapped from the Lindberghs’ Sourland Mountain estate in New Jersey on March 1, 1932. The Lindbergh baby had been whisked away. The first tangible clue was a ransom note. Discovered on the nursery window sill. the note demanded $50,000 for the return of the 20-month-old. The first of ten such notes, it was written in a way that suggested the author was German—and not acting alone: “We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the police the child is in gut care.” The signature consisted of two interlocking circles, some sort of tool or possibly an old style carpenter’s nail was used to punch three holes into each circle. It was the author’s calling card.

At first, Lindbergh himself hampered the initial investigation, fearing a manhunt would put his son’s life at risk. Ten weeks after the kidnapping, a truck driver found the baby’s body just two miles from the Lindbergh estate. The body, lying face down, was partially buried with dirt and leaves in what appeared to be a shallow grave.

Two years later, a trail of ransom money spent on the streets of New York led to the arrest of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German immigrant and a carpenter. Hauptmann was tried and convicted of the child’s murder, and executed in 1936. What is compelling about Hauptman’s death is the fact that he continued to declare his innocence, even when offered life in prison in exchange for his confession. New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman was convinced Hauptmann could not have acted alone. The governor’s push for the truth cost him his political career. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was branded the lone conspirator in the crime of the century.

The story didn’t end with Hauptmann’s death, however. In the late 1940s a message written in pencil on the bottom of a table brace was discovered in a small town in New Jersey.  Written in German, it included lyrics to an old German Folk song. The most compelling line of the message surrounded the holes of the table brace. The translation reads: “I am the kidnapper not Bruno Richard Hauptmann”. The local police dismissed it as a hoax.

In 2003, I traveled with photographer Joe Morrison Jr. and executive producer Tim Arnheim to the New Jersey State Police Museum in Trenton, New Jersey. This was the home to the Lindbergh files. We were allowed unprecedented access to original police interviews, photographs and a relic no one expected to find. The almost mythical table brace that had been given up for lost for decades had been rediscovered. Because of our fresh perspective on the case Lindbergh museum archivist Mark Falzini, ran a search through a state police evidence warehouse. There, in an old crate marked Lindbergh was the table brace and its curious riddle. The holes in the brace seemed oddly familiar. Falzini told us he had theorized that the holes in the orginal ransom notes might match the holes in the wood brace.

Unfortunately, the police evidence photographs of the table brace weren’t made to exact scale. Now we could test Falzini’s theory. We placed the ransom notes over the holes one on top of the other. It was a perfect match. Rutgers University’s Professor Lloyd Gardner reviewed our findings. Gardner who has just published The Case That Never Dies, a powerful book examining the Lindbergh   kidnapping, is convinced the message offers more than reasonable doubt. Gardner writes, “Those who dismissed the table as a hoax come away more than half convinced Falzini’s discovery has changed the terms of the whole question of innocence and guilt.” It also provides strength to the argument that Bruno Richard Hauptmann couldn’t have acted alone.

Private quest for truth

And now an Orlando man may have a possible answer to the table brace riddle. He believes he is close to proving that the Lindbergh baby, like the case itself, is still alive. In fact, he believes the people he knew as family may have been Hauptmann’s partners in crime.

On July 7, 2004, retired Orlando salesman Robert F. Aldinger calmly looked toward the WKMG news camera to stand by his theory, a theory that has sparked both skepticism and curiosity. Aldinger is convinced that his life in a Bronx orphanage is connected to one of the most celebrated crimes in American history: the Lindbergh kidnapping.

“I know I am Charles Lindbergh, Jr.”

Surrounded by family photos, birth certificates and Lindbergh documents, Aldinger’s faded blue eyes seemed convincing, and with good reason. His two-year quest for the DNA evidence that could link him to the Lindbergh legacy is close to being resolved.

“I already know the truth,” he says. Aldinger's confidence stems from a letter from Anton Schwenk, the attorney representing Lindbergh's "secret" German family. Three West Germans, Dyrk and David Hesshaimer and their sister, Astrid Bouteil, went public last year with the claim that Lindbergh was their father, whom they knew as Carou Kent, not Charles Lindbergh. They had remained silent for 30 years to honor the request   of their mother, Brigette Hesshaimer. When Brigette died at 74 in 2001, the Hesshaimer children wanted the world to know the truth at last—and the 150 romantic letters from Lindbergh to their mother silenced the skeptics. Even so, a second Lindbergh family seemed unlikely. However, one powerful trump card erased any doubt: the DNA. Tests conducted by scientists from Munich University compared profiles of Lindbergh’s American family and the Hesshaimers’. The DNA markers matched.

Aldinger’s quest for DNA evidence that could link him to the Lindbergh legacy is close to being resolved.

This was the break Aldinger had been hoping for. The German connection could change everything. Aldinger’s previous requests to the Lindbergh family for a DNA profile had been denied. Last April, he wrote Schwenk to propose a DNA profile comparison with one of the Hesshaimer children. In a letter dated May 13, 2004, Schwenk agreed to “arrange a DNA test” at the same Munich institute.

Aldinger sent his DNA data, which had been stored at GeneTree Inc. in California, as well as a new saliva sample. Both were delivered under strict "chain of custody" standards. Roughly two weeks later, Aldinger received a one-page contract from Schwenk stating “the result and content of the test must be kept confidential.” The next sentence said: "If the DNA test does furnish sufficient proof of a brotherhood to David Hesshaimer, the result shall not be made    public." Motivating the secrecy: The Hesshaimer Story, an upcoming German television documentary, and a book of the same title. In the contract, Schwenk also asks for complete control of the DNA results, to be kept for "safekeeping in his safe." And the agreement calls for Aldinger to remain silent on the results for 90 days after the publication of The Hesshaimer Story in the United States due out next year.

Is it possible the DNA profiles have already confirmed a “brotherhood” between Bob Aldinger and 45-year-old David Hesshaimer? Or is it simply an attorney protecting his clients’ financial interests? Aldinger is convinced the timing of the contract says it all.

“I am Charlie.”

A chance reading of Joyce Milton's book, Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, started Aldinger on his quest for the truth behind his unexplained placement in The Home for Friendless Children in the Bronx. And there on p. 307 is the story Aldinger believes explains his past:

His grandparents, Rudolph and Lena Aldinger, provided room and board for 24-year-old Bruno Richard Hauptmann. In fact, Lena, age 40 at the time, was so attracted to Hauptmann and his “happy-go-lucky ways” that it was the undoing of the Aldingers’ marriage. In an interview with NJ State Police Sgt. A. Zapolsky on November 23, 1934, she admitted breaking a chair over her husband's head after he accused her of having an affair with Hauptmann. By that time, police detectives already had Hauptmann on the short list of Lindbergh suspects and were tracing his past through friends and co-workers.

Hauptmann lived with Lena and her two sons, Fred and Rudy Jr., from Christmas 1923 through Memorial Day 1924. The Lindbergh kidnapping took place  March 1, 1932.

State police records suggest the Hauptmann-Aldinger relationship never faltered. In that same 1934 interview, Lena's loyalty to Hauptmann is clear. Sgt. Zapolsky wrote: "Mrs. Aldinger assumes quite a friendly attitude towards Hauptmann, and it appears that if she did know anything which would  further incriminate Hauptmann, she would not reveal it to the investigators.” Lena, her estranged husband and their two sons were interviewed but never connected to the kidnapping. Yet the Hauptmann-Aldinger relationship was treated as a footnote in the Lindbergh investigation.

Click on either image to see a larger version.The holes in the table brace that proclaims Hauptmann’s innocence matches perfectly the holes in the original ransom notes.

Now, 72 years later, Bob Aldinger is convinced the New Jersey  police  missed  something.

Aldinger believes the people he knew as his grandmother and father, Lena and Fred Aldinger, were simply his caretakers helping an old friend, Hauptmann, keep a secret. “I think Lena helped write [the Lindbergh] ransom notes,” says Aldinger. Police records confirm that Lena taught Hauptmann to read and write English. In his report, Sgt. Zapolsky wrote that Lena says she took “great pains in teaching the American language the best she knew how.”

Aldinger is convinced Lena, Fred and Rudy Jr., who was an employee of Chase Manhattan Bank, were among the many players involved in the Lindbergh kidnapping plot, and believes greed drove the Lindberghs to stage it. In his view, they wanted access to the trust fund Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s wealthy father, Dwight Morrow, left for Charles, Jr. If true, the Hauptmann-Aldinger relationship suddenly becomes more of a headline than a footnote.

Aldinger says he never knew Fred and Nancy Aldinger as Mom and Dad, “Oh no,” he says, “he was ‘Sir’ and she was ‘Nancy.’” And he always wondered why Fred Aldinger took custody of him from that Bronx orphanage so many years ago, which is why he hired GeneTree Inc. to compare his DNA to that of an Aldinger cousin. The DNA profile showed that Fred Aldinger was not his father—and that fact became the cornerstone of his private quest for an answer: If Fred Aldinger wasn’t his biological father, who was? The answer may be locked in a steel safe in Munich.