Mock Trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann

You be the judge! The audience is invited to vote on whether this murder case should be reopened, after viewing this reenactment.

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On February 13, 1935, defendant Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted and sentenced to die for the felony murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. Bruno Richard Hauptmann proclaimed his innocence even as he was walked to the electric chair on April 3, 1936. It was called “the crime of the century” — the kidnapping and murder of the first-born son of that era’s most celebrated man, Charles Lindbergh, the first pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic nonstop, ushering in a new era of global connectedness.

On March 1, 1932 Charles Lindbergh, Jr. disappeared from the 2nd story nursery from his family’s estate near Hopewell New Jersey between 8 and 10 p.m. while his parents, the family nanny, butler, cook and terrier were in the house. The police who arrived late that night were told the householders had noticed no unusual noise. An envelope with a ransom demand in poor English was left on a windowsill unopened until the police arrived. A ladder was found lying in the yard 75 feet from the house. Within days, Charles Lindbergh was granted authority to lead the investigation of his son’s disappearance. A dozen more demands were received over the next month from a purported gang before Lindbergh’s go-between met a self-proclaimed representative of the gang in a Bronx Cemetery and paid “Cemetery John” $50,000 in recorded bills for directions to a boat allegedly moored near Cape Cod which Cemetery John claimed would lead to the child’s safe return. Cemetery John then disappeared without a trace. The directions turned out to be a wild goose chase. The child’s mostly skeletal body was found on May 12, 1932 less than 5 miles from the Lindbergh Estate in rural central New Jersey. Lindbergh ordered the body cremated the next day after only a partial autopsy.

For 2½ years under Lindbergh’s leadership the State of New Jersey conducted the biggest investigation to date in American history. Yet no meaningful progress was made in finding the kidnap gang the police believed had conducted the bold kidnap/murder. On September 19, 1934, Richard Hauptmann was arrested in the Bronx for spending a recorded ransom bill. Police discovered his birth name was Bruno Richard Hauptmann and he had arrived illegally from Germany over a decade before. Nearly $14,000 more of the ransom money was found in his garage. Hauptmann claimed the money was delivered to him in a wrapped shoebox by business associate named Isador Fisch and he had no idea of its source. He denied even knowing where the Lindberghs lived. The police and media ridiculed his “Fisch” story and called him Public Enemy No. 1. In early October, 1934 Hauptmann was extradited to New Jersey to face murder charges at a six-week trial from January 3 to February 13, 1935 featuring 90 State witnesses. Tens of millions of people followed the death penalty trial closely in newspapers, on radio and in newsreels. Tickets to the trial were issued for admission to the densely packed courtroom.

NOTE: 1n 1981 New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne ordered the New Jersey State Police to make public tens of thousands of investigative documents that had been kept from Hauptmann’s defense team. This presentation features excerpts of testimony from the 1935 trial, original trial evidence and later discovered evidence. The legal teams are represented by one player each as are the 8 State handwriting experts. The judge’s lines are not from the original trial and two new players have been added. One is a fictional modern lawyer representing Hauptmann. The other represents forensic pathologist Peter Speth who recently reexamined medical evidence related to the victim’s corpse. The script was prepared by retired Judge Lise Pearlman, author of The Lindbergh Kidnapping Suspect No. 1, The Man Who Got Away (Regent Press 2020), and her principal research assistant, Jamie Benvenutti. This event was the brain child of Noah Griffin who orchestrated the sponsorship by the San Francisco Historical Society of a prior mock retrial in 1986 at San Francisco City Hall. That reenactment featured Hauptmann’s widow Anna Hauptmann and alibi witness Hans Kloppenburg both of whom testified at the death penalty trial in 1935.

Special thanks to Chesa Boudin for the sponsorship of the Criminal Law and Justice Center and to Taylor Hawkins for her assistance.