After Hours AM Crime of the Century: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax with Greg Ahlgren

After Hours AM

On a riveting edition of After Hours AM/The Criminal Code — True Crime, with hosts Joel Sturgis, Eric Olsen and secret weapon, forensic psychologist Dr. Clarissa Cole — we explore the still-controversial kidnapping and murder of the young son of Charles Lindbergh in 1932, with author and defense attorney Greg Ahlgren, whose classic CRIME OF THE CENTURY: THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING HOAX (co-written with Stephen Monier) broke shocking new ground when it was first published in 1993. We speak with Greg at 10pE; at 9pE, Clarissa leads us through the week’s top True Crime news. CRIME OF THE CENTURY: THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING HOAX In 1927, Lindbergh was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic in his Spirit of St. Louis. By 1932, he was perhaps the most famous man alive. After it was announced that the twenty-month old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh had been abducted on March 1, 1932, the entire world grieved for their loss. Seventy-two days later, the boy’s body was found in the woods next to a roadway, a short distance from Lindbergh’s house, near Hopewell, New Jersey. Lindbergh kidnapping ladderDeferred to as a great American hero, Lindbergh was allowed to be the chief architect of the investigation into his son’s kidnapping. He demanded that the body be cremated without an autopsy. This book traces the two-and-a-half year investigation by the New Jersey State Police, headed by Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf, which led to the arrest, trial, conviction, and execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann. It challenges the effectiveness of the investigation, and the evidence advanced by the prosecution, which convicted Hauptmann. It also details the role that Mr. Lindbergh played in the investigation. More importantly, it dissects evidence previously overlooked of Lindbergh’s own role in his son’s disappearance, which, in combination with the authors’ expert analysis, leads