Analysis Of Charles Lindbergh's Kidnapping Crimes

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The great depression affected many Americans and it brought an increase in crime. During the years that followed 1929, there was an increase kidnapping (FBI, 2013). In 1932, twenty-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh was abducted from his home. On May 12, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr’s body was discovered not too far from the Lindbergh’s home (FBI, 2013). The baby head was fractured and it was ruled out as the cause of death (Quinlan & Quinlan, 2013). Mr. Hauptman was captured September 21, 1934, and based on circumstantial evidence he was tried and convicted (Gardner, 2004). He was electrocuted on April 3, 1936.
Our criminal justice system reacted to many crime during the great depression. Kidnapping crimes were on the rise. According to …show more content…

The first thing that police tried to answer was whether someone who was living in the house helped the kidnappers (FBI, 2013). The baby was abducted during the night while the parents were resting, so it is only logical to blame the parents or the house cleaners for the abduction. Furthermore, the family’s pet dog had been placed at a different location inside the home (FBI, 2013). This made the police suspicion because a dog’s tendency is to bark when some is approaching their dwelling. Therefore, if the dog were closer to the baby’s room he would have detected an intruder. Investigators challenge the idea that it was an inside job because the investigators found a chisel in the baby’s room (FBI, 2013). Cleary the chisel was thought to be used to pry open the locking mechanism on the window but the matter of fact was that the window’s shutter could not be locked (Quinlan & Quinlan, 2013). Therefore, logically if this crime was indeed an inside job then the abductor would have known this and hens would not have needed a tool to enter the window. This was significant to the police because this showed that none of the household dwellers had anything to do with the kidnapping (FBI,