The $50,000 ransom note found on a nursery windowsill — and the carpenter who would stand trial

The nursery window was open.

On the evening of March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was taken from his crib in the family's home near Hopewell, New Jersey.

Anne discovered the child missing around 10 p.m.

A ransom note demanding $50,000 was found on the nursery windowsill.

The note was there, in the room where a baby had slept.

Who wrote it is not established in the record.

Not the note's author. Not the hand that left it.

The demand is documented. The writer is not.

A window sill is a small thing.

It is where a child might press a palm.

It is where a stranger left paper.

The note asked for money.

It did not ask for anything else.

The room held a crib. The crib was empty.

Anne found the room that way.

She was on the ground below, in the house she lived in.

The window was the way in. The window was the way out.

A ladder would have been needed.

That would come later.

For now, only the note, the crib, the missing child.

The note demanded $50,000.

It promised the child's return.

That promise would not hold.

THE SEARCH AND THE RANSOM

The search began that night, with state police and volunteers fanning out across the fields and woods near Hopewell.

Dogs were brought in. Airplanes circled overhead.

The child was not found immediately.

Charles Lindbergh himself joined the negotiations, speaking to go-betweens and waiting by the telephone for word of his son.

Dr. John F. Condon, a retired Bronx schoolteacher who volunteered his services, served as the intermediary.

He delivered the ransom.

The payment was made in gold certificates, and their serial numbers were recorded before the money changed hands.

Those numbers would matter later.

For weeks, the family held onto hope.

The note had promised the child's return. That promise would not hold.

On May 12, 1932, the body was found in woods about four and a half miles from the home.

A truck driver made the discovery, and he called the authorities.

The child had been dead for some time.

The cause of death was a skull fracture.

Whether that fracture came from a blow or a fall is not established in the record.

No weapon was ever identified.

The exact circumstances of the child's death remain unknown.

What is known is the sequence: the note, the negotiation, the payment, the body.

The serial numbers on the gold certificates were recorded.

They would not surface for more than two years.