His son was kidnapped
On March 1, 1932, the Lindberghs' nurse, Betty Gow, discovered that 20-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was separated from his mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Gow then informed Charles Lindbergh, who rushed to the child's room right once and discovered a ransom note there in an envelope on the ledge. The note had poor handwriting and language. With the help of the family butler, Olly Whateley, Lindbergh searched the house and grounds with a rifle. They discovered a baby's blanket, bits of a wooden ladder, and prints in the ground beneath the baby's window.
On May 12, a delivery truck driver named Orville Wilson and his assistant William Allen pulled to the side of the road a little more than 4.5 miles (7.2 km) south of the Lindbergh residence in the nearby Hopewell Township hamlet of Mount Rose. Allen found a toddler's body after entering a forest of trees to relieve himself. The right foot's overlapping toes and homemade clothing allowed Gow to identify the infant as the missing child. The child of Charles Lindbergh appears to have died from a strike to the head.
Carpenter Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German immigrant, was detained for the crime in September 1934. He was convicted guilty of first-degree murder during a trial that ran from January 2 to February 13, 1935, and he was given the death penalty. He maintained his innocence despite being found guilty, but all of his attempts to appeal were unsuccessful, and on April 3, 1936, he was put to death in the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison.
