The Cases That Haunt Us (21 page)

We are interested to send him back in gut health. And ransom was made aus for 50000 $ but now we have to take another person to it and probably have to keep the 25000 $ in 20$ bill 15000 $ in 10$ bills and 10000 in 5$ bills Don’t mark any bills or take them from one serial normer. We will form you latter were to deliver the mony. But we will note do so until the Police is out of the cace and the pappers are qute. The kidnaping we prepared for years so we are preparet for everyding.

Thinking that this note might have been intercepted by the police, the offender sent another letter to Breckinridge’s office to be delivered to Lindbergh.

Dear Sir: Dit you receive ouer letter from March 4.we sent the mail on one off the letter—near Boro Hall, Brooklyn. We know Police interfer with your privatmail. How can we come to any arrangements this way. in the future we will send ouer letters to Mr. Breckenbridge at 25 Broadway. We believe polise captured our letter and let note forwarded to you. We will note accept any go-between from your seid. We will arrangh theas later. There is no worry about the boy. He is very well and will be feed according to the diet. Best dank for information about it. We are interested to send your boy back in gut health.

It is necessary to make a world-affair out of it, or to get your boy back as soon as possible. Why did you ignore ouer letter which we left in the room the baby would be back long ago. You would not get any result from Polise becace our kidnaping was planet for a year allredy. But we were afraid the boy would not be strong enough.

Ouer ransom was made out for $50000$ but now we have to put another to it as propperly have to hold the baby longer as we expected so it will be 70000$ 20000 in 50$ bills 25000 in 25$ bills 12000$ in 10$ bills and 10000 in 5$ bills. We warn you again not to mark any bills or take them from one ser.No. We will inform you latter how to deliver the mony but not before the polise is out of this cace and the pappers are quite.

Now, despite what I just said about not everyone being able to be a profiler, I think you’ll agree that a couple of things come across loud and clear in these notes. The letter writer’s first language is not English; he is not American-born, even American-born illiterate. Though many of the basic words are badly misspelled, he got a lot of the hard ones right, which suggests he was using a dictionary. Rather than an illiterate American, the communications suggest a Germanic language speaker, as evidenced by such spellings as
gut
for
good
, and phonetic spellings such as
ding
instead of
thing.

So Lindbergh had to be wrong from the get-go—this was not the work of any organized crime organization in the United States. They wouldn’t be so sloppy on communicating something so directly related to their business. It’s just too “unprofessional.” Also, they would have asked for far more money and would have made a direct threat if their demand was not met.

Could it be that more than one person was involved? Maybe, maybe not; we wouldn’t know that from the letters. The notes certainly appeared to have been written by one person, and none of the myriad of handwriting experts eventually brought into the case disagreed with that presumption. However, kidnappers often communicate as “we” even if there is only one to project more strength and organization than they actually have, and this one was clearly doing that in claiming that the crime had been “planet for a year allredy.”

Despite what appears obvious from this perspective, Lindbergh decided to deal with the criminal underworld. Al Capone, who had been the king of organized crime in Chicago until brought down on tax evasion charges, was at the moment residing in Cook County Jail in preparation for transfer to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Capone—who had ruthlessly stamped out his competition, such as Hymie Weiss, and then had seven men in a North Side garage massacred on St. Valentine’s Day, 1929, while searching unsuccessfully for Weiss’s successor, George “Bugs” Moran—expressed himself outraged and morally offended that such a crime had taken place and personally offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the safe recovery of the child. He also told Hearst newspaper columnist Arthur Brisbane that he was pretty sure the mob had done it and he thought he could get the baby back—if he could be let out of jail long enough to accomplish the mission. Not surprisingly, the feds would have none of it.

But Lindbergh believed in the mob connection and announced that a pair of bootleggers, Salvatore Spitale and Irving Bitz, would be authorized by him to deal with the kidnappers. Their associate Morris Rosner took over as Lindbergh’s “secretary” and on March 12 claimed that the baby was alive and negotiations were progressing well. He asked for $2,500 in personal expenses, which Lindbergh gave him. A little later, Spitale and Bitz unintentionally proved their underworld bona fides by getting arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy by federal Prohibition agents for a shipload of bootlegged booze that had come into a dock in Brooklyn. Their connection with Lindbergh, however, was enough to have the charges summarily dropped.

Meanwhile, perhaps the strangest and most enigmatic figure of all entered the case.

ENTER
JAFSIE

John F. Condon, seventy-two years of age with a distinguished white mustache and always neatly turned out in a dark suit and vest, was a retired physical education teacher and principal in the Bronx, a place he considered the most beautiful in the world. Though he was almost universally referred to as “Doctor,” we have found no specific reference to a Ph.D., and he was certainly not a medical doctor. Jim Fisher, an
FBI
special agent during my early years with the Bureau and now a professor and writer, describes Condon in his important book,
The Lindbergh Case
, as perceiving himself as a scholar-athlete. I would surmise from Condon’s subsequent behavior with both the media and law enforcement authorities that he must have been the kind of teacher who liked to stand up in front of the class and hear himself talk. He would pontificate at the drop of a hat. He was also deeply patriotic in an ingenuous, almost mawkish way. He was appalled by this crime against America’s greatest hero, thought it was a national disgrace, and wanted to do something to help. Just as likely, I think, he wanted to have some personal connection and self-importance in what was shaping up as the biggest story of the age.

After reading about the role these cheap thugs Spitale and Bitz were playing, Condon wrote a letter to the
Bronx Home News
, which appeared in the March 8 edition, offering his own services as intermediary with the kidnappers and pledging $1,000 of his own hard-earned savings to add to the ransom. I think this one fact says a lot about that sense of selfimportance.

Since the paper was hardly known outside the Bronx, no one in the investigation gave Condon’s offer much attention, if they knew of it at all. Certainly Lindbergh did not.

The day after his letter appeared in print, Condon was out of his house until around ten in the evening. When he returned home, the first thing he did, as was his habit, was to sort through the day’s mail. One envelope was in a primitive handwriting. Inside was the following handwritten letter:

dear Sir: If you are willing to act as go-between in the Lindbergh case please follow strictly instruction. Handel incloced letter
personaly
to Mr. Lindbergh. It will explain everyding. don’t tell anyone about it as soon we find out the press or Police is notifyd everyding are cancell and it will be a further delay. Affter you gett the mony from Mr. Lindbergh put these 3 words in the
New-York American

MONY
IS REDY

Affter notise we will give you further instruction. don’t be affrait we are not out fore your 1000$ keep it. Only act stricly. Be at home every night between 6-12 by this time you will hear from us.

Inside the envelope was a smaller one bearing two lines in the same handwriting:

Dear Sir: Please handel incloced letter to Colonel Lindbergh. It is in Mr. Lindbergh interest not to notify the Police.

Despite the warning not to tell anyone, Condon didn’t feel he could exactly keep quiet about so momentous a development. For one thing, he concluded, he would have to get this communication to his hero Colonel Lindbergh and he didn’t have a car. He decided to confide in his friend Al Reich, who did.

Reich was a former prizefighter who now worked in real estate and was known to hang out at Max Rosenhain’s restaurant at 188
^th
Street and the Grand Concourse. Condon took a trolley, but when he got to the restaurant, Reich wasn’t there. Not able to contain himself, Condon showed the letter to Rosenhain, who suggested he show it also to another friend of both men, Milton Gaglio, a clothing salesman who happened to be there at the time. Gaglio did have a car and agreed to drive Condon to Hopewell. The three discussed exactly how they should go about this, finally concluding that it would be best for Condon to call first and establish his credibility.

Condon got through but was handed off from voice to voice until he got to someone who said he took all of Colonel Lindbergh’s calls. This was his personal secretary, Robert Thayer. Condon explained who he was, spewing out a long list of his academic credentials and teaching positions. At this point, accounts diverge. Thayer stated that he alone spoke with Condon. Condon, who was much given to pomposity and self-aggrandizement, claimed that he then spoke directly to Lindbergh. I tend to doubt this version, but in any event, Condon did read the letter, then was asked to open the accompanying envelope and read its contents aloud.

Dear Sir, Mr. Condon may act as go-between. You may give him the 70000 $. make one packet the size will bee about—

Condon explained that a drawing of a box indicated the size should be seven inches by six inches by fourteen inches, then continued reading:

we have notify your already in what kind of bills. We warn you not to set any trapp in any way. If you or someone els will notify the Police ther will be a further delay. Affter we have the mony in hand we will tell you where to find your boy You may have a airplane redy it is about 150 mil awy. But befor telling you the adr. a delay of 8 houers will be between.

“Is that all?” the listener (whether Lindbergh or Thayer) asked.

Condon said it was, but then added the two interlocking circles at the bottom of the note. That got the listener’s attention. It was agreed that Lindbergh should have the letter right away, so Condon, Rosenhain, and Gaglio set out for Hopewell shortly after midnight in Gaglio’s car. They arrived around 2 A.M. and were met by Henry Breckinridge in the kitchen.

Condon was taken to an upstairs bedroom to meet with Lindbergh. As soon as he saw the handwriting, the misspellings, and the signature circles, Lindbergh knew the note was authentic. None of that had been made public. The sketch of the box was rendered in perspective and looked like something a carpenter might draw, which might also then tie in with the obviously homemade ladder.

Condon’s account of that night is so flatulent it’s almost stomach-turning. When he was introduced to Anne, he writes:

… she stretched out her arms towards me instinctively in the age-old appeal of motherhood.

“Will you help me get my baby back?”

“I shall do everything in my power to bring him back to you.”

As I came closer to her I saw the gleam of tears in her soft dark eyes. I smiled at her, shook a thick reproving forefinger at her. With mock brusqueness I threatened Anne Lindbergh:

“If one of those tears drops, I shall go off the case immediately.”

She brushed away the tears. When her hands left her face, she was smiling, sweetly, bravely.

“You see, Doctor, I am not crying.”

“That is better,” I said. “That is much, much better.”

Not only is this reminiscence just plain icky, it also goes against the far deeper and genuinely sensitive portrait of Anne that comes across in her own writings. But it does give us an important insight into John Condon’s personality and perspective.

Rosenhain and Gaglio drove back to the Bronx, but Lindbergh invited Condon to spend the night, an invitation Condon readily accepted. He went even further than that. Early in the morning, he strolled into the baby’s nursery, looked around, then went into, as he called it, “the Lone Eaglet’s crib” and removed the two safety pins that still fastened the baby’s blanket to the mattress. At the toy chest he took out some carved wooden animals. He then asked Lindbergh if he could take the toys and safety pins with him so that if and when he did meet up with the kidnapper, he could identify the baby by his reaction to his animals and qualify the kidnapper by asking where he had seen them before. Lindbergh agreed, and after breakfast, he, Breckinridge, and Condon went upstairs and drafted a short note: “We hereby authorize Dr. John F. Condon to act as go-between for us.” The note was dated March 10, 1932, and signed by both Charles and Anne.

The problem of the press came up again. Breckinridge was prepared to place the “Money is Ready” notice in the
New York American
according to the instructions in the note, but if Condon signed it, reporters would immediately know he was the intermediary and besiege him. That would be the end of the negotiations.

So Condon suggested using his initials—JFC—to come up with the name “Jafsie.” The kidnappers would recognize it, but no one else would.

Before being driven home to the Bronx by Breckinridge, Condon spent more than an hour studying family photographs of Charlie so he’d recognize the child on sight. Breckinridge would spend evenings at Condon’s home at 2974 Decatur Avenue until they heard from the kidnappers.