|
Post by Michael on Mar 16, 2017 5:55:50 GMT -5
well stella it wasn't the only thing he looked at to identify his son. I believe it was the Lindbergh baby these people mwho think he did it with no credible proof is comical I don't think it's comical when considering all that happened. In fact, it would be crazy not to suspect him. Look at all that he did: He lied. He took over the investigation then obstructed and/or blocked angles. He played cards instead of searching for his child. He played jokes on people as if nothing had happened. He protected certain people he would later tell others should be suspected. So who can blame anyone for taking a closer look at the guy? I'll tell you what Steve, since so many of the Police actually suspected him or believed there was an inside job but were afraid to act on it - is there anyone of them you know of who did not? Keaten did. Lamb did. Walsh did. Haussler did. Sisk did. Hoover did. According to Keaten even Schwarzkopf did. Who prior to trial specifically did not?
|
|
|
Post by scathma on Apr 26, 2017 10:25:25 GMT -5
I'm new to the boards so forgive me if this has been asked and answered elsewhere.
Why didn't Anne view the body? Arguably she would've spent more time with the baby as a "stay-at-home mom" albeit perhaps less time than Betty but more than her husband.
I would've thought that as a mother, Anne would want to confirm in her own mind that the corpse was definitely her baby, not delegate that task to an employee, if for no other reason than for her own piece of mind and closure...
|
|
|
Post by hurtelable on Apr 26, 2017 16:18:09 GMT -5
I agree completely. Wonder whether any news stories at the time even brought up this issue. And if they did, they would probably say something like it would be too emotionally disturbing for Anne to view the body.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2017 16:20:13 GMT -5
Something I wanted to talk about was Prosecutor Marshall's role in the morgue the night Lindbergh sliced open his dead son's face so he could make the identification ( see pages 316-7). I've had people ask why I bothered to include the fact that Marshall was not in the morgue that night. Michael, Do you know why Prosecutor Marshall wasn't present in the morgue at the time Lindbergh came to id the corpse on May 13. The body was found in his county. Did Marshall put in an appearance on May 12 perhaps?
|
|
|
Post by Michael on Apr 26, 2017 18:23:34 GMT -5
I'm new to the boards so forgive me if this has been asked and answered elsewhere. Why didn't Anne view the body? Arguably she would've spent more time with the baby as a "stay-at-home mom" albeit perhaps less time than Betty but more than her husband. I would've thought that as a mother, Anne would want to confirm in her own mind that the corpse was definitely her baby, not delegate that task to an employee, if for no other reason than for her own piece of mind and closure... You don't have to worry about whether or not something's been asked. We've all been new at one time or another and re-asking questions sometimes brings out new facts or ideas that weren't brought up before IF the question actually had been previously asked. But I don't think yours ever was..... Schwarzkopf believed Anne was full of "sorrow and grief" and since he was there and was the one who broke the news I believe that's what he saw. He was of the opinion that seeing the corpse would have been an unnecessary "shock" to a mother who was already "frail." He was also trying to spare Lindbergh too, once he arrived, by telling him it wasn't necessary - but Lindbergh insisted. Do you know why Prosecutor Marshall wasn't present in the morgue at the time Lindbergh came to id the corpse on May 13. The body was found in his county. Did Marshall put in an appearance on May 12 perhaps? All I can say for certain was that Marshall testified he was not there when Lindbergh was there.
|
|
|
Post by pzb63 on Apr 27, 2017 1:34:18 GMT -5
Hi Scathma
I'm pretty sure that the decision not to see the baby herself was one she regretted. I seem to recall reading in "Under a Wing" that when Anne's own daughter Reeve lost a child at a young age that Anne encouraged her to hold the baby and grieve as she(Anne)regretted not having done so herself. (It's been ages since I read that book so I may be remembering it wrong).
|
|
|
Post by kate1 on Apr 27, 2017 6:55:11 GMT -5
I agree Hauptmann was a scapegoat. I could believe that Hauptmann, if guilty, would have viewed his life as over essentially, and that Anna would have totally rejected him. But what does that say about Anna who swore he was with her that night. I agree with your husband's astute observation about the ladder! Cannot believe a carpenter would build a ladder that wouldn't hold his weight nor calculate for the weight of his child. The idea that anyone with access to plenty of lumber (and good reason to have those boards) would climb up into an attic to bring a board down is ridiculous to me.
|
|
|
Post by kate1 on Apr 27, 2017 7:04:55 GMT -5
Scathma, I disagree about Anne and viewing the corpse. Just being told the baby's body was found in a wooded area after two months would be enough to let anyone know of the decompensation. I'm sure I would want to see any baby, let alone my own, in that condition. I believe she was comforted by her last weekend with the baby as she described in her diary.
|
|
|
Post by Miss dockendorf on Apr 27, 2017 7:13:52 GMT -5
I can very easily see the "Mrs. Lindbergh was too delicate etc, to view the body" If my husband would do it then have at it. I couldn't bear to see that myself. She seems very removed though and I would have been a basket case. Maybe that was simply something 'people didn't do', meaning wail and cry, but I would have been an emotional wreck and finding the baby dead would have put me in a looney bin for a bit. She's a bit too stiff upper lip but they always say everyone deals with grief differently so possibly that was the way she dealt with the whole mess. And as far as the ladder goes why would he build a crappy ladder and then allow it to be left somewhere as a prime piece of evidence. And no fingerprints to me sounds as if they, the fingerprints, would have incriminated someone else. The ladder could have been broken apart and burned or weighted down and thrown in the river. Sloppy work unless you were trying to incriminate someone else. It doesn't add up.
|
|
|
Post by scathma on Apr 27, 2017 9:08:25 GMT -5
I can very easily see the "Mrs. Lindbergh was too delicate etc, to view the body" So far everything I've read about Anne is that she is not lacking in courage, nerve, or vigor - she goes flying with CAL on demanding journeys and becomes a pilot herself.
I can understand the notion to spare her the trauma of seeing the alleged remains of her baby, but I don't see her as being so fragile that she couldn't handle it anymore than CAL could. Such a viewing would seem to be best handled by BOTH parents rather than the one, to be able to confer and comfort with each other.
I just don't recall any source mentioning if she was even asked if she wanted to go...
The discrepancy in the difference between the corpse vs. CALjr's height is curious to me - the 29 inches versus 33 inches question. My understanding was there was a typo or omission where the correct height of 2' 9" was misinterpreted as 29". I've read the explanation for this in Fisher's Ghosts book.
If I recall correctly, in the original NJSP report I thought it actually spelled out the height as 29 inches, using the word not the symbol for inches. At what point was this "error" discovered, since the missing child poster also reads 29 inches for the baby's height? How does a "printing error" explain the consistency between the original report and the missing poster?
|
|
|
Post by Miss dockendorf on Apr 27, 2017 9:21:39 GMT -5
That brings up another interesting topic which is the various people that claim Uncle Henry was in fact the Lindbergh baby. I find those fascinating because some people actually have some credible information but it seems as if these people appear then vanish. There was a lady on these boards with pictures of her fathers overlapping toes and so on and I thought she was fascinating. Could Lindbergh have opened up the baby's face to make sure he wasn't his son. Who knows but yes Anne Lindbergh was no wimp but viewing a decomposed corpse is too much for me and was she aware this was a farce to get the baby removed before he was old enough to become an embarrassment? That's where the "I am the Lindbergh baby" loses it's impact as if everything is true regarding the baby having developmental issues he would have been in some facility not passed off to some family to live a normal life. That's interesting about her never being asked to view the body. Sorry to go off point.....
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2017 13:08:46 GMT -5
I can understand the notion to spare her the trauma of seeing the alleged remains of her baby, but I don't see her as being so fragile that she couldn't handle it anymore than CAL could. Such a viewing would seem to be best handled by BOTH parents rather than the one, to be able to confer and comfort with each other. I just don't recall any source mentioning if she was even asked if she wanted to go... It was first reported that neither parent was going to go to view the corpse. I am sure that both Anne and CAL talked about this together and it was decided that he would go and view the corpse to make sure that it was their son. That was really the priority. Anne would do whatever Lindbergh would instruct her to do, and if he said he would do it alone, then that is exactly how it would go. Anne would accept whatever determination CAL made.
|
|
|
Post by kate1 on Apr 27, 2017 17:09:21 GMT -5
You are so right Amy! Taking her on that high altitude, low oxygen cross country trip was just cruel 7 months pregnant or not! Family was well educated and sophisticated enough to figure out what Charles Lindbergh was. Poor Anne.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2017 17:19:13 GMT -5
Indeed Kate. For CAL it was all about setting a record. Dwight Morrow was very angry about this flight and putting Anne through that. It is amazing that baby Charlie survived and wasn't stillborn.
|
|
|
Post by kate1 on Apr 27, 2017 17:30:59 GMT -5
I've always wondered about delayed development in Charlie because of that. So many babies suffer from Cerebal Palsy because of oxygen deprivation shortly before or during birth. Children with CP usually look quite "normal" and deficits don't show up until developmental milestones aren't reached. One newspaper article mentioned the baby was just beginning to walk...at 20 month!,
|
|
|
Post by daoud on May 6, 2018 12:39:05 GMT -5
Michael, I believe Lindbergh could well have done something invasive here to aid in his identification of body by making sure all of the teeth were exposed, but that your statement he "sliced open his dead son's face" could also be an exaggeration. Michael, can you post James Kirkham's actual testimony, so we know exactly how he described the event? Q: He did identify the body as -A: He said he would say it was his child.Q: Did he look at it?A: Did he? Yes, he looked at it. I want to tell you something else he did. He asked for meat skewer to open the lips so he could look at the teeth. I was with him the entire time he was there.Michael, in TDC you quote from Betty Gow's statement made to Capt. Lamb on May 12th: Gow looked over the decaying mass and the general appearance of the body. She took notice of the nose, the formation of the toenails, the toe cross over the other, and carefully counted the teeth, four of which were his eye-teeth and were barely breaking through the gums.
(Kindle Locations 2643-2645). So if Gow could carefully count the teeth through a visual inspection, why did CAL need a skewer to prise open the child's lips?
|
|
|
Post by hurtelable on May 6, 2018 14:04:40 GMT -5
With respect to "the toe cross over the other" supposedly noted by Gow, I have pointed out several times on these threads that the specific toes crossed on the corpse were DIFFERENT than the specific crossed toes described by Dr. Van Ingen in his letter to Mrs. Morrow describing the living Charlie. The only possible conclusions to be drawn from this are (1) Dr. Van Ingen was in error or (2) Betty Gow was in error or was making a deliberate false identification of the body as Charlie.
|
|
|
Post by daoud on May 6, 2018 14:13:07 GMT -5
Thanks for that Hurtleable, I have noticed some of your posts on the wrong toes, but I was specifically drawing attention to the two very different methods to identify the toddler's teeth by Gow and CAL sr.
I agree that the 'wrong toes' is a red flag, as is the much more recent removal of all the possible sources of CAL jr's DNA from the NJSP museum's exhibits by the Lindbergh family in 2003.
|
|
|
Post by Michael on May 6, 2018 15:29:59 GMT -5
Michael, in TDC you quote from Betty Gow's statement made to Capt. Lamb on May 12th: Gow looked over the decaying mass and the general appearance of the body. She took notice of the nose, the formation of the toenails, the toe cross over the other, and carefully counted the teeth, four of which were his eye-teeth and were barely breaking through the gums. (Kindle Locations 2643-2645). So if Gow could carefully count the teeth through a visual inspection, why did CAL need a skewer to prise open the child's lips? It's a good question that I've asked myself. Although Gow isn't someone I trust, she was with with both Det. Coar (Jersey City PD) and Det. Leon (NJSP) and their report backs up her cited Statement. Their report mentioned: "...and the general features of what was left of the face and also the sixteen teeth, four of which, his eye-teeth, were barely showing through the gums." So while neither source specifically says she "counted" the teeth I don't know how else she would have known how many there were without doing so. So we're left at this point to either accept this as a fact or consider it a lie. Once Lindbergh arrived, Mercer County Chief of Detectives Kirkham testified before the Grand Jury about Lindbergh asking for the meat skewer. I believe it was really a scalpel which is a part of the autopsy tools that were obviously in that room. There's no doubt that Kirkham was there. So we're left with either accepting this as a fact or consider it a lie. If both are true, and I believe they are, then we have no choice but to speculate how/why. Perhaps the mouth didn't open all of the way, and he did it to "show" he could see each and every tooth. Perhaps he did it to actually see each and every tooth so as not to assume those in the back existed. For my money, it was a "classic" Lindbergh move. He did it to "impress" everyone in the room by showing them he was not emotional (weak) and had nerves of steel (strong). It was something he tried to force Anne to do as well by preaching to her not to cry or become emotional in public. Lindbergh did not impress anyone that he was strong by what he did. His actions were something that were disturbing to those who witnessed it. We see at the crematorium he was completely emotionless as well. Was it all an act, or was it that he just did not give a damn?
|
|
|
Post by Michael on May 6, 2018 15:58:20 GMT -5
There's another similar question I've had regarding the autopsy and the condition of the skull as it appears in the photograph. If the skull came apart like it was testified that it did I cannot understand why the photo doesn't show it as described.
|
|
|
Post by lightningjew on May 6, 2018 16:52:54 GMT -5
I would think that those photos were taken before the skull was dissected, or maybe “coming apart like an orange peel” was just a phrase used to describe skull’s general texture and consistency.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 6, 2018 16:58:46 GMT -5
I, too, have wondered the same thing! Yet when you look at the picture you have on page 325 of TDC, that skull looks very together. Are you aware of any such statement about the skull being in pieces being made by anyone other then Dr. Mitchell. How could Betty Gow or CAL examine the teeth closely enough if the head wasn't together?? Something is very wrong with this whole autopsy thing. I think that Dr. Mitchell might have tailored his testimony to whatever the prosecutors expected of him.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 6, 2018 17:01:18 GMT -5
LJ,
When was the autopsy done? Before or after Betty Gow viewed the corpse? We know it was certainly done before CAL viewed that corpse.
|
|
|
Post by Wayne on May 6, 2018 18:55:26 GMT -5
I would think that those photos were taken before the skull was dissected, or maybe “coming apart like an orange peel” was just a phrase used to describe skull’s general texture and consistency. Lightning, Unless someone comes up with something to dispute this, the photo in the morgue was taken AFTER the autopsy. 1) Lt. D.J. Dunn states this in his May 16, 1932 report "Investigation of Report that Picture of Lindburgh's (sic) Baby Remains had been taken at Swayze's Morgue" -- Attachment Deleted2) Milton in Loss of Eden, pages 250-251, lists the photographer as Pat Candido of the Mirror and Frank Merts of the Acme News Service as the man in the photo with the corpse. If you don't have the book and want the pages, let me know and I'll post them. 3) Also, I think we can confirm that the photo was taken after the autopsy by the fact that the body is in a casket, not on an examination table. I'm with Michael and Amy on this one. If the skull fell apart during the autopsy, how were they able to get it back together? (Humpty Dumpty could have could have benefited from Mitchell and Swayze's expertise.) Also, I wish the photo was of better quality so that we could make out the hole under the right earlobe area.
|
|
|
Post by lightningjew on May 6, 2018 19:23:04 GMT -5
If the photo was taken after the autopsy, then maybe, as I said, saying it "came apart like an orange peel" was something of a misnomer. Maybe it was shorthand for "it would have come apart like an orange peel because it was so soft." Other than that, I'm not sure...
|
|
|
Post by trojanusc on May 6, 2018 20:12:43 GMT -5
If the photo was taken after the autopsy, then maybe, as I said, saying it "came apart like an orange peel" was something of a misnomer. Maybe it was shorthand for "it would have come apart like an orange peel because it was so soft." Other than that, I'm not sure... Correct me if I'm wrong but we can't see the other side of the skull in the photo, right? It could be deceiving.
|
|
|
Post by lightningjew on May 6, 2018 22:01:37 GMT -5
That could be too, that there was dissection that we can't see.
|
|
|
Post by Michael on May 7, 2018 7:18:01 GMT -5
2) Milton in Loss of Eden, pages 250-251, lists the photographer as Pat Candido of the Mirror and Frank Merts of the Acme News Service as the man in the photo with the corpse. If you don't have the book and want the pages, let me know and I'll post them. If you go to page 283 of V1 you will see I have this documented and footnoted. All of the sources point to the autopsy being performed prior to the place being over-run with Reporters. I think the book clearly shows they let those Reporters in to take that picture then lied about not knowing how it happened. I hope that doesn't get lost in all of this because how many times do we hear that "this" person or "that" person was supposed to be a Saint and would never lie? If nothing else I think I've shown no one was immune from lying so that myth goes straight out of the window. If the photo was taken after the autopsy, then maybe, as I said, saying it "came apart like an orange peel" was something of a misnomer. Maybe it was shorthand for "it would have come apart like an orange peel because it was so soft." Other than that, I'm not sure... Its possible he exaggerated the situation to better explain the condition of the skull. IDK. Correct me if I'm wrong but we can't see the other side of the skull in the photo, right? It could be deceiving. Here is a picture of what we can see. It does look like the bottom part of the skull might not be attached: I don't want to go crazy, but this was before either Gow or Lindbergh made their trip to view the corpse. The mouth doesn't look open but this picture could be deceiving when considering what could be seen in the mouth. Yet, it does make it easier to believe Lindbergh later opened it up.
|
|
|
Post by hurtelable on May 8, 2018 14:42:30 GMT -5
No matter what Gow of CAL Sr. did, they could never positively ID the corpse on the basis of the TEETH alone. The large majority of normally developing children of approximately Charlies age would have the same number and positioning of the teeth because eruption of each specific children's tooth occurs at a fairly precise age. There were no peculiar characteristics of Charlie's teeth, as far as we know - none mentioned by Gow, CAL Sr., Van Ingen, Miitchell, etc. - that could have possibly ID'd the corpse as Charlie as distinguished from another child of about the same age.
|
|