|
Post by Sue on Nov 29, 2021 20:39:52 GMT -5
Was the dark-haired 7-year-old boy from Wavre, Belgium, Jean Vandenbosch, the first out of the gate to claim that he was the kidnapped Lindbergh child? A 2018 article about a German film crew that was to do a documentary on the Lindbergh case featured a picture of Vandenbosch that was published over 80 years ago. I wonder why they saw fit to include a picture of this boy? Was Vandenbosch's story to be an integral part of the film? (Sort of like how Harold Olson was featured in In Search of the Lindbergh Baby by Theon Wright?) www.tag24.de/nachrichten/kamenz-es-geht-um-das-charles-lindbergh-baby-jahrhundertmord-fuehrt-us-filmteam-nach-sachsen-903430Here is the same picture: www.alamy.com/is-he-the-lindbergh-baby-sensational-report-from-belgium-that-the-baby-son-of-col-charles-lindbergh-for-whose-kidnap-and-murder-bruno-hauptman-was-executed-is-safe-and-being-cared-for-by-a-belgium-family-is-the-story-revived-by-the-belgium-fascist-newspaper-pays-reel-the-paper-says-that-the-child-was-placed-in-the-care-of-a-mr-and-mrs-sby-a-priest-name-lambertz-who-was-unable-to-supply-a-birth-certificate-when-the-child-is-now-seven-months-old-was-shown-a-picture-of-col-lindbergh-he-said-this-is-my-daddy-he-said-he-was-taken-from-bed-by-walter-and-johnand-when-he-saw-a-pict-image359460845.htmlHere is a brief article about the boy from The Advertiser, Adelaide for October 27, 1937: "Story Revived that Lindbergh Baby is Alive in Belgium." trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36382165Also, American Weekly put out an article in 1940 called "The Strange Aftermath of the Lindbergh Kidnaping." That article appeared in the Albany-Times Union in 1940, and was probably published in other newspapers throughout the country in that year. I am trying to locate the article. Separate from all this, I recently came across a 1955 book called Memoirs of a Consul by Bartley F. Yost. Yost, a foreign service officer, relates the story of the Belgium boy. Apparently, Yost investigated some of the European angles of the Lindbergh case. Here is the link to search for snippet views of the story, or maybe you can actually locate the physical book. books.google.com/books/about/Memoirs_of_a_Consul.html?id=wNhQAQAAMAAJ
|
|
|
Post by Michael on Nov 30, 2021 17:02:55 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Sue on Dec 1, 2021 14:26:53 GMT -5
Thank you for sharing this letter that was sent to Governor Hoffman from the step-parents of young Jean Vandenbosch.
Do you know if Hoffman ever answered them back?
The article from the 1940 Hearst newspaper called American Weekly that was published in the Albany Times-Union mentions a journalist/photographer named Dr. Lucien Aigner who was involved in the Vandenbosch case. I think Aigner was pretty famous.
A picture of the Wavre Town Hall in Belgium appears in the article saying documents about the investigation went missing.
Someone sent me the complete article today, so I will see if anything more interesting is there.
|
|
|
Post by Guest on Dec 1, 2021 21:30:01 GMT -5
Thank you for sharing this letter that was sent to Governor Hoffman from the step-parents of young Jean Vandenbosch. Do you know if Hoffman ever answered them back? The article from the 1940 Hearst newspaper called American Weekly that was published in the Albany Times-Union mentions a journalist/photographer named Dr. Lucien Aigner who was involved in the Vandenbosch case. I think Aigner was pretty famous. A picture of the Wavre Town Hall in Belgium appears in the article saying documents about the investigation went missing. Someone sent me the complete article today, so I will see if anything more interesting is there. The boy in the picture doesn't resemble Charlie at all. There is no curl in his hair, the telltale sign of identification. If Hoffman answered, it was likely just a polite rejection of their claim based on lack of convincing physical characteristics.
|
|
|
Post by Sue on Dec 2, 2021 14:52:27 GMT -5
I also doubt whether the boy looks like Charlie.
However, a few sources say his hair may have been dyed black. Also, keep in mind that little Charlie's skull was still developing when he disappeared. Maybe it pays to view a developmental chart of a toddler? At what age is the skull considered completely developed?
I wonder why Vandenbosch's picture showed up in that article about the research team in Germany in 2018? Was their documentary ever produced? Has it been viewed by the public?
Maybe Hoffman DID respond to the Vandenbosch letter?
A GOOD detective doesn't get emotional, but considers ALL of the evidence?
Over a period of time, I come across new information regarding the Lindbergh case. I recently discovered the Yost book, and he alludes to the Belgium boy, but that picture of little Jean Vandenbosch has been around for years.
New information is always coming in, even if has always been there but covered with dust and cobwebs, e.g., the Bartley F. Yost book that was published in 1955!
I also now have "The Strange Aftermath of the Lindbergh Kidnaping," that was published in the Albany-Times Union on October 13. 1940. (American Weekly, a Hearst publication, may have distributed the article in other newspapers in 1940. I believe it was called an insert. Sewing patterns, advertisements, coupons, etc., are examples of inserts. Inserts are also considered part of a newspaper for that day!)
|
|
|
Post by Michael on Dec 2, 2021 18:32:00 GMT -5
Do you know if Hoffman ever answered them back? Bill Lutz wrote back on behalf of the Governor on January 3. It said the Governor suggested they send the fingerprints of the child. I found these two letters in the Governor's correspondence files. I think its 33 boxes but it might be 32 or 34. I've been through them countless times but, of course, I didn't copy everything. The next group of material about this subject I stumbled on while going through the HRO donations. This material is on top of the shelves and spans from one end of the room to the other. Here I found correspondence in the Fall of 1937 from Palais de Justice, a Brussels to the FBI which included the child's palm and finger prints. This letter also mentions these same prints had been sent to Governor Hoffman. The last letter I have is one where JEH is putting them in touch with Col. Kimberling in January 1938. While I do have multiple files on just about every person who ever made this claim or was presented on their behalf, I wasn't as focused on getting everything like I was with other subjects. So if I were to hazard a guess, there's probably more down there about this child. Of course none of them were ever verified but its still interesting to know their stories and why they believed what they did.
|
|
|
Post by jeanne on Dec 3, 2021 7:54:10 GMT -5
According to the account, the child stated that he "lived with John and Walter." In his book "Cemetery John" Robert Zorn presents a case for the kidnapping to have been done by John Knoll and his brother Walter Knoll with assistance from Richard Hauptmann. Possibly the child survived the kidnapping experience and did live with the Knoll brothers for a time. John Knoll and his wife Lilly sailed from New York to Hamburg on the SS Manhattan in December of 1934. Consider that he may have taken Charlie with him on the trip and then abandoned him in a Belgian port. I am not necessarily advocating this theory but proposing that it should be considered a possibility.
|
|
|
Post by Michael on Dec 3, 2021 8:48:15 GMT -5
According to the account, the child stated that he "lived with John and Walter." In his book "Cemetery John" Robert Zorn presents a case for the kidnapping to have been done by John Knoll and his brother Walter Knoll with assistance from Richard Hauptmann. Possibly the child survived the kidnapping experience and did live with the Knoll brothers for a time. John Knoll and his wife Lilly sailed from New York to Hamburg on the SS Manhattan in December of 1934. Consider that he may have taken Charlie with him on the trip and then abandoned him in a Belgian port. I am not necessarily advocating this theory but proposing that it should be considered a possibility. I like the way your brain works Jeanne. Let me be a little more specific about this issue... The children back then that were being presented as possible candidates were disqualified by fingerprint comparison IF they were submitted. In this case, I don't have a document which states they were compared but I have no doubt if Hoffman received them they were checked. Later, once Kimberling took over the NJSP, he was comparing them as well. What happened was there was a lull in these types of claims over the years and once they exploded again starting in the 1970s, the fingerprints of the child that had been used for comparison were "missing." The claimants seized on this to imply they were being hidden or had been destroyed to keep the "truth" from coming out. Eventually, the Hoffman's sets of the baby's fingerprints were discovered in his garage in October 1985 and comparisons were made soon after to disqualify the new group. Some insisted these prints weren't the "real" prints of the child and their claims continued on. Over the years since though, most have conceded, but there were/are still a few who still suspect and/or remain steadfast in their beliefs.
|
|
|
Post by Sue on Dec 4, 2021 14:40:57 GMT -5
Thanks for looking into this.
I wonder why HRO had information about the Vandenbosch story in his collection?
That the two men who little Jean mentions have the names, John and Walter, is very interesting.
Did Robert Zorn in his book Cemetery John make the possible connection of these names from the Vandenbosch account?
According to a youtube video from 2018, Zorn was in the process of writing a second book on the Lindbergh kidnapping.
At what point did Jean Vandenbosch's story stop?
I wonder if he is alive today.
|
|
|
Post by jeanne on Dec 4, 2021 16:16:15 GMT -5
In "Cemetery John" Robert Zorn discusses the death of the Lindbergh child but makes no assumptions that Charlie survived. He does does not make any connection between John and Walter Knoll and the child Jean VandenBosch in Belgium. I made the suggestion since the Knoll brothers had the same first names as the child Jean mentioned as taking care of him before he was "found" in Belgium. Jean spoke English when he was discovered. If he had been born in 1931, he would hae been about five and 1/2 years old when he was discovered and adopted. The family who adopted him gave him their name, which is (or was) fairly common in Belgium. John Knoll sailed to Hamburg from New York in December of 1934, just a few weeks after Richard Hauptmann was found to have ransom notes in his possession (Sept. 1934). It's possible that John Knoll feared Hauptmann would identify him as his confederate and did not want to have authorities find the child in his keeping, so he planned the trip to get out of the country and disposed of the living child at a Belgian port. The dates here are accurate. The rest may be coincidence, but it does seem odd that the events fall into place so well. There are histories of many persons with the name of Jean Vanden Bosch, several of which are from Belgium, specifically Brussels. It would be difficult to identify any of them as Charlie, particularly since the birth date of the "Jean" claiming to be Charlie is not certainly known. Robert Zorn was planning to write a second book, but I have not seen or heard anything more about it. Will check on it though.
|
|
|
Post by Sue on Dec 4, 2021 18:20:35 GMT -5
Hi Jeanne,
That was clever on your part that you remembered the names of the Knoll brothers, and that they matched the names of the men who Jean says abducted him.
Besides Father Lambertz from St. Vith, other names that come up in the Vandenbosch story are Margaret Schroeder, the photojournalist Dr. L. Aigner, Detective Jacques Godefroid, Judge Deblouts, Mr. Wickelmanes...
|
|
|
Post by Michael on Dec 4, 2021 18:48:04 GMT -5
Thanks for looking into this. I wonder why HRO had information about the Vandenbosch story in his collection? That the two men who little Jean mentions have the names, John and Walter, is very interesting. Did Robert Zorn in his book Cemetery John make the possible connection of these names from the Vandenbosch account? According to a youtube video from 2018, Zorn was in the process of writing a second book on the Lindbergh kidnapping. At what point did Jean Vandenbosch's story stop? I wonder if he is alive today. You might find more information on this child by looking for "Jean Schroder." He's referred to by this name in the police correspondence. When it comes to Zorn's theory, there's nothing on Knoll at the NJSP Archives. The only person with a last name close to that was "Steve Knowles" (sometimes misspelled "Knolls" in the source materials) who is mentioned in Chapter 4: The Women In Green. Obviously not the same person. When it comes to HRO's collection you would be amazed. He had information on various claimants (for lack of a better word) throughout his collection. He also spent a TON of money on copy fees, and legal actions to force discovery of certain report/materials from both the NJSP and the FBI before anything was deemed public information. In fact, I found several unique reports scattered here and there. And so, just like anything else, it was mandatory to go through everything so I wouldn't miss any. There's even a box of cassette tapes. I asked Mark for a tape player once to check them out thinking they might be interviews with certain witnesses. But when I began listening to a couple they were with people I never heard of talking about information I personally deemed worthless. Needless to say, I stopped before going through the rest but for someone with time and patience - there might be a legitimate discovery waiting for them there. There's also even more cassette tapes in the closet too. Same thing happened to me here. So who knows? All I can say is that whatever tapes I selected were duds. BTW: I can't remember the source, but I seem to recall there's even more of HRO's materials at the Flemington Library. I might be misremembering but that's the impression I've always had.
|
|
|
Post by Sue on Dec 5, 2021 13:24:08 GMT -5
I will try looking under that name, too!
Thanks!
And thanks for sharing about HRO and his cassettes!
HRO was quite a character. He was also a very nice man!
Who knows what new and interesting information some of those recordings may hold!
|
|
|
Post by sphinx on May 21, 2022 10:38:40 GMT -5
Was the dark-haired 7-year-old boy from Wavre, Belgium, Jean Vandenbosch, the first out of the gate to claim that he was the kidnapped Lindbergh child? A 2018 article about a German film crew that was to do a documentary on the Lindbergh case featured a picture of Vandenbosch that was published over 80 years ago. I wonder why they saw fit to include a picture of this boy? Was Vandenbosch's story to be an integral part of the film? (Sort of like how Harold Olson was featured in In Search of the Lindbergh Baby by Theon Wright?) www.tag24.de/nachrichten/kamenz-es-geht-um-das-charles-lindbergh-baby-jahrhundertmord-fuehrt-us-filmteam-nach-sachsen-903430I was hopeful. But since the caption says Charlie died at 1, and since Vandenbosch is years older in the photo, I suspect that a careless TAG24 employee simply grabbed the first image they could find in a quick stock photo search for Charlie. The film crew pictured in the 2018 article are from the Travel Channel, which aired that year "Lindbergh Kidnapping: Mysteries at the Museum"--which makes no mention of Vandenbosch or any other claimants: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGchZK6jJm8
|
|
|
Post by sphinx on May 21, 2022 10:43:01 GMT -5
Also, American Weekly put out an article in 1940 called "The Strange Aftermath of the Lindbergh Kidnaping." That article appeared in the Albany-Times Union in 1940, and was probably published in other newspapers throughout the country in that year. I am trying to locate the article. Separate from all this, I recently came across a 1955 book called Memoirs of a Consul by Bartley F. Yost. Yost, a foreign service officer, relates the story of the Belgium boy. Apparently, Yost investigated some of the European angles of the Lindbergh case. Here is the link to search for snippet views of the story, or maybe you can actually locate the physical book. books.google.com/books/about/Memoirs_of_a_Consul.html?id=wNhQAQAAMAAJI'm curious, were you able to find the American Weekly article? Yost's memoir is in a noncirculating collection at the NYPL, which I'll visit if you think it's worthwhile?
|
|
|
Post by sphinx on May 21, 2022 11:21:42 GMT -5
The film crew pictured in the 2018 article are from the Travel Channel, which aired that year "Lindbergh Kidnapping: Mysteries at the Museum"--which makes no mention of Vandenbosch or any other claimants: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGchZK6jJm8That said, there wasn't any footage of Bavaria in the "Mysteries at the Museum" episode. And although the following sounds like a synopsis of the "Mysteries at the Museum" episode, the TG24 article was published in December 2018, while (according to IMdB) "Mysteries at the Museum" was released the previous May. So maybe a second Travel Channel piece is in the works? A team from the US television station "Travel Channel" did research in Bavaria last week for a program dedicated to mysterious criminal cases. "The team asks itself: Was Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty or not? Were there other accomplices?" said Roland Dantz (60, non-party), Lord Mayor of Kamenz.
|
|
|
Post by Sue on May 21, 2022 13:58:32 GMT -5
sphinx, On the Old Fulton, NY Postcard website (what a place to search for great LKC articles!) you will find the first page of the 1940 American Weekly article called "The Strange Aftermath of the Lindbergh Kidnaping." Just put in the words: Little Jean Vandenbosch. The only article that will come up is the one that was published in the Times-Union, page 7. The story is continued on page 17, but I cannot locate it. I read the complete article years ago. I may have even viewed the rest of it on the Fulton Postcard website. www.fultonhistory.com/fulton.html
|
|
|
Post by Sue on May 21, 2022 15:08:26 GMT -5
Here is the rest of the article. (Page 17)
"Strange Aftermath of the Lindbergh Kidnaping"
Albany Times-Union
October 13, 1940
(Continued from Page 7)
Judge Deblouts of the Nivelle Parquet wrote in his report: "According to the testimonies and other information we have received this day, we are led to believe that we are in the presence of Lindbergh's son."
Much of his evidence seems to have vanished and this judge of the Parquet, which is the Child Welfare Department of the Belgian Courts, appears to have changed his opinion. Yet there must have been considerable smoke, even if no fire, to have swayed the judgment of a judge. Also, the trouble lady writes:
"Mr. Wickelmanes, the King's Attorney for the Nivelles Arrondissement, informs us that it is planned to send an interrogatory commission to the United States, since my letter to Col. Schwartzkopf, former head of the New Jersey police, has not been answered."
No commission was ever sent, and since the war now overshadows everything, none probably ever will be.
There are other possibilities such as that the child is the son of an important dignitary of Belgium or France who only asked that his name be kept from the public.
America's most famous kidnaping of a child for ransom before the Lindbergh case was that of Charlie Ross, the 4-year-old Philadelphia boy, whose disappearance, though never solved, offers many striking parallels to the Lindbergh case.
Charlie and his brother Walter were playing outside their home on the outskirts of Philadelphia.
A buggy stopped near them; the day before two men had given them candy.
"Want some firecrackers, boys?" one of the men called.
What a question, with the Fourth of July 1874, only three days off!
"Get in here with us," said the driver. "We'll take you to Aunt Susie's. She had lots of firecrackers."
The boys got in with the two men and drove off. It was a long ride to Aunt Susie's and when they arrived at a little shop Walter, the oldest, took if for granted that this was Aunt Susie's. The men gave him a quarter to buy firecrackers.
When Walter came out a moment later, his pockets bulging with firecrackers, the buggy had gone and with it Charlie.
Walter was puzzled and trudged the long distance home. He told his sister and the servants and they notified Christian Ross, the boys' wealthy merchant father. Mr. Ross notified the Germantown police, then the Mayor of Philadelphia.
On July 3rd the father received a demand in writing for money. The price the kidnapers wanted for the return of the boy was $20,000. Twenty-one letters in all were written by the men but Charlie Ross was never seen again.
In December, two thieves by the name of Mosher and Douglas were shot and killed in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York. Before dying, Douglas confessed that he and the already dead Mosher had stolen Charlie Ross, but died before he could give any further details.
Sixty-thousand dollars were spent trying to find Charlie, to no avail.
One boy, thought to be Charlie, was sent up from Cuba, another from Chester, Illinois. The police dredged Battery Bay in New York and Newark Bay. A letter came from Wurzburg, Germany, that Charlie was there. He wasn't.
From 1874 to 1876 at least one person every day reported to have seen Charlie and these leads had to be followed up. Over three hundred children were tracked down and in one case a kidnaped child was returned to its parents, but the child was not Charlie Ross.
Thirty-three states reported to have found Charlie Ross and Nova Scotia, Cuba, Canada, Scotland and Germany also reported having the child within their borders. But Charlie Ross was never found and his disappearance is as mystifying today as it was 66 years ago.
Unless the matter is cleared up, poor little Jean is likely to become the hero of another of those living ghost stories which haunt historians.
The Belgian Government might have gotten to the bottom of this new mystery if the terror of Hitler had not distracted its attention from most every problem but questions of the life and death of millions.
|
|
Joe
Lt. Colonel
Posts: 2,653
|
Post by Joe on May 22, 2022 9:17:02 GMT -5
|
|