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Post by laura51830 on Feb 10, 2006 18:37:32 GMT -5
There's no doubt in my mind that Hauptmann and Condon knew each other, at least by sight, prior to the kidnapping. What about the possibility that Condon was shadowing Hauptmann, and not the other way around?
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Post by dryan on Feb 11, 2006 0:34:04 GMT -5
Condon shadowing Hauptmann? To what point? I could see Condon shadowing Hauptmann out on City Island -- which our board members have largely neglected, City Island, that is, with its rendezous sites for sailors, Condon's summer home, his real estate office, his property down near the shore. Someone besides Hauptmann could have been shadowing Dr. Condon for the go-between. His whole reportage of CJ's conversation, moreover, is put in doubt by his insistence that CJ assured him repeatedly that he would be the one to put the child's hands around its mother's neck -- a phrase that he himself uses from the outset to reassure Anne and to tell her she must stop crying. Which is it, does he make up CJ's words in this instance to fit with his other statements, or did a contact promise him that even before he wrote the fateful letter? He can't have it both ways.
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Post by rick for michael on Feb 11, 2006 2:39:45 GMT -5
Well, there must have been some intended use of the mob bosses by CAL and his crack team of colonels? Rosner, Spitz, Bitale and Madden come onto the scene rather quickly and then fade away just as fast? What were their assignments. Evaluate Cerrita and Biritelli? Ask around "Do any of you have Charlie?" Or was their job to take the nursery note to the Condon-Fisch-BRH extortion team in the Bronx and get it going? Or just plausible denial that Capone had CALjr and wanted a get out of jail free card? 2. The exact location of Shippels shack has yet to be pinpointed...is it south of Hopewell on Hopewell/Princeton Road?
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Post by kanneedwards on Feb 11, 2006 7:30:35 GMT -5
my thoughts on condon and hauptman's meeting prior to all this is this: hauptman was steeped in German culture of that area. He and his friends spoke german with one another. Socially I don't think they would have any regard for one another. Condon was educated and lived in the ivory tower world of acedemia and hauptman was a laborer. I can't see them meeting other than very casually
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Post by laura51830 on Feb 11, 2006 12:58:19 GMT -5
I don't know how anyone can believe a word that Condon said. He claimed that CJ coughed continuously, then at the trial he said he only coughed once. He also said Hauptmann wasn't CJ, but after being threatened with arrest as an accomplice he said he was. His description of CJ also varied somewhat.
I think Condon was more than a go-between. I think he was involved and that's why he could have been shadowing Hauptmann. Or Hauptmann could have been shadowing him. Or they could have been signaling each other.
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Post by kathy for carol on Feb 11, 2006 15:04:45 GMT -5
Carol, I think there was more to Condon than has been discovered. I can't imagine Capone trusting some one with a mouth like Condon's and he seems to have known more than he told. I think it strange that with all the fuss about fingerprints on the first note, no one thought to check the subsequent notes. What where Condon and CJ talking about for all that time. If I were the kidnapper I wouldn't stick around all that time.
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Post by laura51830 on Feb 11, 2006 15:27:43 GMT -5
I agree, Kathy. Why would CJ talk to Condon for an hour... unless...maybe...they knew each other. There were no other witnesses and we're forced to take Condon's word about what happened during the meeting and he can't be trusted.
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Post by Michael on Feb 11, 2006 17:58:58 GMT -5
I think there was something to what Condon told Arthur O'Sullivan. It's mentioned in Dr. Gardner's book (page 100).
The link between Condon and Hauptmann wouldn't have to be a direct one. There were plenty of ways to become acquainted other then running into each other on the street one day and "hitting it off."
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Post by rick for kathy on Feb 11, 2006 22:59:13 GMT -5
If you look in The Hand of Hauptmann by Haring you can see that subsequent notes were checked for fingerprints! Michael once offered that prints were found! You can bet your next paycheck that none belonged to BRH/
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Post by kanneedwards on Feb 12, 2006 6:57:07 GMT -5
the VDer's like to point out all the lies Hauptmann told but forget the lies told by Condon. Lindbergh knew of these but wasn't interested in pursuing this line. I can see CJ and Condon being in on this together, like the final note in the cemetary. Where did that come from?
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Post by kanneedwards on Feb 12, 2006 7:05:20 GMT -5
the last note delivered to Condon's house wasn't checked too carefully. No one could id the "driver" who delivered it.
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Post by Michael on Feb 12, 2006 10:58:43 GMT -5
These are some excellent points.
Kathy's point harkens back to Kevin's, that is, people tend to consider certain things when they compliment their theory but come down with selective amnesia when it doesn't.
Prints were found on some of the notes and Hauptmann's prints were never found to match any prints developed in this case. Same with the footprints. Dr. Gardner revealed for the first time ever that one of the prints in Hopewell was casted and the NJSP probably took every shoe Hauptmann ever owned.
Do the math.
It doesn't mean Hauptmann isn't involved but certainly the inference is that someone else is.
I still have Dr. Gardner's unpublished work on the 2nd Taxi Driver. I'll ask him if I can link it up.
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Post by rita on Feb 13, 2006 22:49:37 GMT -5
To Kaneedwards If you say child is dead somone will say the opposite, if you question the 50k someone gives inflationary value to it? Then they maintain a value to handwriting, wood grain, and a ladder the neighbor claims he took from the Skilman Institute, but we shouldn't believe the neighbor. Have you ever heard of proof the box handed to CJ had 50k in it? I'm sure they counted the marked bills put into the box by the law, but from the law to CAL, to Condon, can that be proven? Most VDer's don't want to hear the extortionist fishing contest that CAL sponsored wasting time for what purpose? Did he already know where the child was, and just neede for someone to take the ransom money?
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Post by rita on Feb 13, 2006 23:07:56 GMT -5
To Carol I think Condon shadowing Hauptman is a very good possibilty, as CAL many resources, private, military, and law enforcement, but I think he took the secret route so that he could cultivate the patsy into a full fledged scapegoat. He probably had CJ followed from day one until he knew his routine that allowed CAL to know when Hauptman was not at work, thereby not alowing him any chance of alibi.
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Post by rita on Feb 13, 2006 23:45:46 GMT -5
To Kathy It seems as though CAL and Company were toying with CJ, waiting for when conditions were right and everything in place (body, and alibi's) to pounce on Hauptman. If CAL realy had officer training for Col. rank I think he would have known how to probe for the enemy in a simple setting like a cemetary, and therby defeat a simpleton like CJ with outflnk procedure, allowing his someone to follow CJ.
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Post by rick on Feb 14, 2006 8:08:41 GMT -5
Condon has many of the same character traits as Fisch. Making believe to be one thing while the opposite is true. Condon looks the bumbling olde eccentric but he stays right on the goals given to him by CAL and Breck. Kill as much time as possible, dragg your feet, convince CJ to stay in the game, dont worry about seeing Charlie, dont worry about Charlie being alive, just keep the marks in the blackmail, dont let them get away, keep posting "money is redy" ad infinitum, have Samuelson build a ballot box out of 5 woods, lie about it later? Keep the extra $20K, what are they going to do about it--call the cops? We have the gang right where we wanted them.
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Post by rita on Feb 15, 2006 1:35:42 GMT -5
To Rick That box is very curios, as I've heard that it was given in ransom note instructions, but if that was the case it would lean toward the writer knowing the final outcome, and with a pre planned ending with a short payoff.
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Post by rick for rita on Feb 15, 2006 14:53:13 GMT -5
hI RITA, the ransom note actually indicated a drawing of one "7 x 6 x 14 inch packet*" for the do-re-me--I suppose to eliminate a leather briefcase? But foxy olde Jafsie just reinterpreted this to mean a complicated antique wooden box. Seeing as how he already had a personal carpenter (the ladder-man) Abraham Samuelson, he had him make a copy of an olde Ballot Box he had in his office "for olde times sake" When you are stalling for time, any clever port in the storm will do.
So, why stall for time when you have already verified the Pisces symbol and the sleeping suite? Because CAL was too poor to raise the $70K? Because CAL was trying to locate the real kidnappers simultaneously?
*Note: money is 6 x 2.5 inches? So apparently thats two stackes 14" high? thats a pretty big packet?
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Post by rita on Feb 15, 2006 22:32:36 GMT -5
To Rick I would thik with such a box configuration it would be very difficult to give a quick count of money as it would if the money had been handed over in a brief case. In a brief case you can see the number of bank labeled notes without any difficulty, but in the box used would not be able to see how many labeled packs there were, and because the was no extra room a person could not put their fingers around the bills to feel if there were more packs underneath. I think this could have only been intended to cheat the person recieving the money, and would have been incredibly stupid to request money in such a container. Brief casses are the prefered method for payment, and for reasons obvious that the money can easily be estimated in a quick count. I don't belive that CJ was given more than 20k in ransom money, and believe CAL intended it to work along with Condon for that purpose.
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Post by rick for rita on Feb 17, 2006 14:38:48 GMT -5
Well Rita, that might be true in any normal payoff situation , but this is the LKC. It was reported by someone that Condon "threw the $50K over the fence"? If CJ was Paul Wendel, just for example, and Paul was headed over to his sister's house near St. Raymonds right after the payoff, then Paul would not want to walk in with a new leather briefcase full of money. I think the bundle was for concealment leaving the cemetary myself? Also, Michael knows alot more about the wooden box being discarded into the bushes and retrieved at a later date.
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Post by rita on Feb 27, 2006 1:07:16 GMT -5
To Rick The box might simply have been a decoy, while everybody is looking for the box, the money has been handed off, or maybee even brought back to CAL to complete the charade.
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Post by rick for Michael on Feb 27, 2006 11:43:35 GMT -5
Rita...when it comes to analysis of Condons foibles, well, Dr. Dudley Doright would have had a field day profiling JFC/ At first blush I thought the making of the wooden box was just to kill some more time before the mony was ready? Or some hairbrained scheme on JFCs part to entrap the extortion gang later by posession of the box....like they would have put it up on the Mantel? How idiotic when alls was axed for was a simple "packet"? Maybe, as Michaels has inferred, the Bronx gang was paid well before the snatch and the wooden box was to conceal the fact that the cupboard was empty? Condon was a loose cannon, exposing Samuelson the carpenter by mistake which provides a window into his role in the kidnapping. If you read the account of the ransom payment, Condon goes well past Whittemore Avenue and then comes back? Maybe the box was a ruse to when exactly the payment was made and to whom? Michael, where is the burning bush the box was dumped into?
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Post by Michael on Feb 27, 2006 17:07:02 GMT -5
I believe Condon knew exactly who made the box but was trying to keep this fact from the Authorities....
The box was in a bush near the rear of 3254 E. Tremont Ave about 75 feet from Whittemore Avenue.
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Post by rick for michael on Feb 27, 2006 18:00:54 GMT -5
Is there any important significance to this discard event? Can we find the reference to it? Was it discarded by Condon, Cemetery John or the Lookout?
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Post by rita on Feb 27, 2006 21:26:24 GMT -5
To Rick,Michael It's a real shell game, and doesn't it seem suspicious that Condon puts this act on for someone unknown, as wouldn't CAL find this suspicious also? It can be construed that CAL didn't he contributed to this suspicious activity, and in that case there is no CJ other than Condon.
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Post by Michael on Feb 28, 2006 22:14:59 GMT -5
Rick,
Well if the box winds up in the area Condon disappeared into then I conclude regardless who put it there Condon is guilty of lying about the events.
Rita,
I find it most interesting that Condon says under oath that he believed Condon but told Agent Larimier something very different.
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Post by rita on Mar 1, 2006 0:27:16 GMT -5
It looks like the note you discovered may point to the right time, and that the various deceptions and conradictory statements they made are strong idications that something other than a kidnap as claimed.
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Post by rick for Michael on Mar 1, 2006 10:58:26 GMT -5
Michael, there is a photo of the ransom/ballot box in Liberty Magazines aritcle by Condons cemetary piece. it looks much bigger in the photo. Measurements are unlikely to be 6 x 7 x 14 either.
Gaston Means says Condon "threw the $50K over the fence" ?
In Hand of Hauptmann the term "threw the money over a hedge" is printed.
Combined these suggest for whatever reason that Condon tossed the money to CJ at St.Raymonds........NOT THE BOX! Was ditching the box Jafsies attempt to conceal yet another one of his truly bogus, hairbrained ideas? So he doesnt look even dumber than he is?
2. What note did you recently discover? Another ransom note? (per rita above)
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kevkon
Lt. Colonel
Posts: 2,800
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Post by kevkon on Mar 1, 2006 12:04:08 GMT -5
"Measurements are unlikely to be 6 x 7 x 14 either"
Did you scale it or is that just your "professional" opinion?
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Post by Michael on Mar 1, 2006 20:35:10 GMT -5
Here's the problem with what someone may have said....
Only Jafsie, and presumably - CJ was there. We have Lindy witnessing Jafsie's actions to a certain degree and we have Uebel's eyewitness accounts to also consider in conjunction with facts he could not have known about.
Now Condon did tell someone in the Police that CJ went to confer with (2) men and returned with the note. The Police didn't make this up....but he also said different things elsewhere too about the same occurrence.
My point is that Means, unless he's CJ (not) or one of the (2) men then he would have no idea because he wasn't there.
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