In the New Jersey countryside in early spring and March, it was warm and cold.Despite the care of his mother, Anne, and nurse, Betty, little Charles Limber, one year and eight months old, caught a cold.Charles Jr. is the eldest son of Charles and Anne Limber, nicknamed Charlie.As soon as it was dark, the two women gave Charlie medicine and coaxed him to sleep early.They put another jumpsuit over Charlie's flannel underwear, and covered it with a thick blanket.In order to prevent the children from kicking off the quilt at night, they fastened the blanket to the mattress with pins.It was raining heavily outside, and Betty had closed the two windows, but at some point the latch of the window in the corner was broken. Annie came to help Betty close it together but did not close it, so she had to let it go.Annie was back in the living room at 7:30 and continued writing while she waited for her husband to come home.She wanted to be a writer since she was a child.Betty worked around Charlie's room for a while and left around 7:50.

At 8:25, Colonel Charles Limber returned home.After dinner the couple came to the living room.At around 9:30, Charles felt that something was moving outside, and he said to Annie: "I seem to hear the sound of wood breaking." But no one went out to check.Perhaps the wind and rain broke the branches, which has happened before. At 10 o'clock, Anne went upstairs to shower and get ready for bed.Betty went to Charlie's room and plugged in the electric heater.She felt that the room was strangely quiet, because she didn't hear Charlie's breathing.Betty reached out to touch the baby's crib. The blanket was still there, but the baby was gone.Betty turned on the light, searched all over the house, and then broke into Anne's bedroom in horror.Anne said with an forced composure that Charlie might be with his father.

Betty ran downstairs to the library: "Colonel Lin Bo, did you take the child away?" "No, of course not. Isn't he asleep?" "But he's not on the bed. You must have carried him away. Don't tease me." Betty almost cried. Charles, Anne, and Betty went back to Charlie's room.But the window in the corner was open, there was a muddy footprint on the box under the window and on the floor, and there was a letter on the window sill.Charles told the two women not to touch the items.He rushed into the master bedroom, grabbed a rifle from the closet, and ran out of the building pushing the bolt.There was no one in the misty rain all around.

Charles told Anne: "They stole our son." The words became the headlines on the front pages of the newspapers the next day. Charles immediately ordered the housekeeper to call the local police station.At that time, telephones were not very popular. In this small village called Hopewell, apart from Limber’s family, only the farm and the shops in the town had telephones, and usually several of them shared.The operator on the night shift saw the number and knew it was from the newly built Limber Manor in Thoreau Hills, under Solan Mountain.The call was transferred to the Hopewell Police Station, and the officer on duty, Joss Williamson, heard the calm and stiff voice of the English butler of the Limber's house through the microphone: "Colonel Limber's son has been kidnapped. If it is convenient Please come quickly."

Charles himself made two more phone calls, one to his attorney, Henry Breggingrich, and the other to the New Jersey State Police. When Joss Williamson and Sheriff Harry Wolfe arrived at Limber Manor at 10:35, Colonel Limber was waiting at the gate with a rifle in hand. He led them to the outside of the house under the window of Charlie's room, and a series of footprints went southwest from here.There is a broken wooden ladder at about 75 feet, and there are two more not far away. The ladder probably broke when the kidnappers carried the child down the second floor window sill. This may be the sound Charles heard in the living room. .The ladder was crudely made, obviously homemade, but well designed, with each run a little narrower than the one below it.The steps on the ladder, according to Lin Bo, "seem to be made of planks removed from the wooden box".According to the inspection results of wood expert Arthur Koehler later, the wood of the 16th step on the wooden ladder is different from the other wood of the whole ladder, and it is likely to be removed from somewhere else.The trio also found a chisel and a dowel used to connect the two rungs together in the dirt next to the wooden ladder.There were two holes in the clay wall below the windows, and two holes in the ground, apparently from leaning a ladder against the wall.They were careful not to touch the possible physical evidence.

Just before 11 o'clock, several officers from the State Police Department rushed to Thoreau Heights in the rain.They told Colonel Limber that the State Police Headquarters had issued an alert to all branches, requiring roadblocks to be set up everywhere to check passing pedestrians and vehicles.The police station also sent a large number of personnel to wake up the residents of Hopeville Township to understand the situation.Together with them, Lin Bo checked the wooden ladder and the footprints again, and followed the footprints to a small road called Fisebed Lane, where the footprints terminated beside two ruts.

Charles and the others came to Charlie's room. He pointed to the envelope on the window sill and told the police that it must have been left by the kidnappers.The envelope was sealed and nothing was written on it.A police officer was ordered to open the envelope.Charles guessed right, it was a ransom demand letter: Dear Sir! Prepare 50,000 US dollars, 2.15 million with a face value of 20 yuan, 15,000 with a face value of 10 yuan, and 10,000 with a face value of 5 yuan.After two to four days we will let you know where to put the money. We warn you not to publicize this matter, let alone call the police.We will take good care of the children.

All our letters will have the following logo and 3 holes. The letter was handwritten with a blue ink pen.The so-called logo is two blue circles that are slightly larger than a 25-cent coin. There is a red solid circle the size of a 5-cent coin where the circles overlap each other. Outside the blue circle, three holes are arranged horizontally.Judging from the peculiar wording and spelling of the letter, the writer should be German or Scandinavian.For example, "not" is spelled note, "good" is spelled gut, and so on. So far, the Lin Bo child kidnapping case was officially opened, and the date was March 1, 1932, Tuesday.

The United States in the 1930s can be said to be a troubled time compared with the present.The Prohibition Movement, which began at the end of the 19th century, finally forced the Senate and House of Representatives to pass the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in 1919.The new law prohibits the manufacture, sale, transport or import or export of alcohol of any kind within the United States, including spirits, cider and even beer.At first, those drunkards who were addicted to alcohol quietly set up a pot of shochu at home.Soon, underground workshops, illegal hotels and a black liquor market emerged.As in the drug trade, gangster organizations large and small have sprung up.Many later famous mafia families started their business from the black wine business.In less than ten years, the manufacture, sale, smuggling of black wine and related gang activities spread all over the country, and the high crime rate caused headaches for the police and the government.Then there were calls to repeal the 18th Amendment. (This amendment was later repealed in 1933).

This period also saw a historical event that shocked the world, that is, the New York stock market crash on October 29, 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression.In six months, 4 million people across the United States lost their jobs.By the end of 1931, the number of unemployed had ballooned to 13.5 million.Thousands of companies closed, hundreds of banks closed, tens of thousands of people lost their farms, workshops, and homes, and even those who managed to hold on to a job saw wages cut to half or less. At the same time, the number of kidnapping cases, large and small, increased sharply.Before the stock market crashed, kidnappings mainly occurred in fights between gangsters, firefights and black wine trades, and most of the kidnapped hostages were adults.By early 1931, kidnapping was a lucrative business, mostly targeting wealthy families, and the victims spread to children.However, it is rare that the kidnapping of Limber Jr. made headlines in the United States and several countries around the world. This is because he had a father who was very famous at the time.

Charles Augustus Limber was born on February 4, 1902 in the small town of Little Fels, Minnesota.His grandparents are from Sweden and his maternal grandparents are from England.Lin Bo's father, also named Charles, was a farmer and politician who had been elected to Congress.Although he and his wife Evangeline Lander never divorced, they separated very early.Charles Limber grew up with his mother.Like all orphans and widows, Ewan Qilin has high expectations for Charles, but she almost never gets close to her son. When the mother and son say "good night" to each other, they just shake hands. Charles grew up to be a big, shy boy.He has little contact with girls, never smokes or drinks, and his only bad habit is racing - cars and motorcycles.Charles was admitted to Wisconsin State University at age 18, and dropped out two years later to enroll in flight school.He overcame his fear of heights with perseverance and became a pilot seven months later. Pilots back then were probably as rare as astronauts are today.The first airplane invented by the Wright Brothers took to the sky in 1903, just 20 years after Charles Limber became a pilot. In January 1924, Charles joined the U.S. Army and entered the Military Aviation Academy.A year later, he ranked first among the 19 graduates in the class of 104 students.At that time, there was no formal air force in the U.S. military, and the army did not need regular pilots, but Lin Bo was awarded the rank of second lieutenant by the Air Force Reserve. Since then, flying has become Charles Limber's second life. In April 1926, he was hired by a St. Louis company as one of the first pilots to deliver air mail.In the fall of the same year, he heard that the New York hotel tycoon Raymond Orteig had set up a $25,000 prize in 1925 to be awarded to the first solo direct flight across the Atlantic. Accept the challenge alone.Limber couldn't resist trying his hand, and he ran around seeking funding to build his landline, the "Spirit of St. Louis." In the early morning of May 20, 1927, 25-year-old Charles Limber drove the "Soul of St. Louis" from Roosevelt Airport on Long Island, New York, to Paris, the capital of France.The noisy single-engine plane had no radio, and Charles had to rely on a compass, a fold-out map, and the stars for directions.All he had packed for the flight was five sandwiches and some water. The media in many countries around the world - then only newspapers and radio stations - followed the historic flight by cable across the Atlantic.After 33 hours and 29 minutes and traversing 3,735 miles, Charles Lindbergh reached the sky over France the next day, circled the Eiffel Tower once and landed at Naboguet Airport outside Paris.Hundreds of thousands of French people welcomed this overnight hero with a grand ceremony. When he returned to the United States, the whole New York was boiling.Charles Limber was awarded the rank of colonel by the Air Force Reserve, and was awarded the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress.The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued commemorative stamps for him, and the radio station played songs for him.People called him "Lucky Lindy" and "Lonely Eagle".He was elected Time Magazine's first "Newsman of the Year" and was hired as a technical consultant by several airline companies that were just started or were in the process of being built.Until 1999, he was also nominated as Time Magazine's "Person of the Century". At the request of the U.S. government, Lin Bo, as a special envoy of friendship of the United States, flew around the world to visit and open up routes.He met the future Mrs. Limber, Anne Spencer Morrow, in Mexico.Anne's father was the U.S. ambassador to Mexico and an influential banker. The 20-year-old Annie has already shown her talent for writing. She published poetry and novels in the school magazine when she was in college, and won the school's first prize for literature twice. Charles and Anne were married on May 27, 1929.In March of the following year, the pregnant Anne obtained her pilot's license and became Charles' deputy, radio operator and navigator. In April, the couple broke the flight record from Los Angeles to New York with a time of 14 hours and 45 minutes. They were also hailed by the media as "the first couple in the blue sky". On June 22, 1930, on her 24th birthday, Anne gave birth to Charles Augustus Limber Jr.Newspapers reported the news on their front pages, dubbing the famous baby "Eagle Baby" and "Little Lindy" after his father's names were "Lonely Eagle" and "Lucky Lindy." "Baby Eagle" had just passed its first birthday, and Lin Bo and his wife left him at the house of their grandparents, and then they both flew to the Far East to investigate and open up air routes from the United States to China.Unfortunately, due to the death of Anne's father, this project could not be completed. Both Charles and Anne were socially awkward.In order to avoid being followed by reporters, they chose to make their home in Solo Hills near Hopewell, a quiet town far away from the downtown area.The new residence of Lin Bo's family has 14 rooms, and the whole manor covers an area of ​​400 hectares.The house was not fully completed when the kidnapping occurred.So since moving in in October of the first year, the Linbo family only spent weekends in Thoreau Heights. On Monday morning, the craftsmen left before going to work, Charles went to work in New York, and Anne returned to her natal home in Inglewood, New Jersey with her children and nanny. Stayed there until next weekend. But this pattern was disrupted on February 29, 1932.Because Little Lindy had a cold, Lin Bo and his family did not leave Hopewell this Monday morning as usual.The next day, as Charles Limber wrote in his autobiography many years later: "A tragedy occurred which changed our lives forever. Our son Charles Jr. was kidnapped . . . he was twenty months old, flaxen hair, blue Eyes, just learning to speak." More and more police personnel arrived at Thoreau Heights, as did State Police Commissioner Colonel Norman Sivakop, the general who commanded the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Desert Storm 60 years later father.In just a few hours, no less than 200 people gathered in Limber Manor, and almost everyone had to go and check everywhere in person.But for some reason, no one measured the footprints, took photos, or masticated the sole pattern (at least not in the later police report).The police did not find any fingerprints anywhere at the scene, including all physical evidence. It can be seen that the kidnapper was wearing gloves when committing the crime, which also shows that this is a well-planned kidnapping case. It was just dawn, and countless reporters and onlookers gathered around the Limber Manor. Vehicles parked on the roads, large and small, were connected end to end, stretching for nearly a mile.Almost everyone in Hopewell came.Colonel Siwakop commanded nearly a hundred military and police officers to take great pains to secure the scene, but some clues left by the kidnappers may have changed beyond recognition by this time, or even disappeared. Another thing that troubled Colonel Siwakop was his disagreement with Colonel Limber.As the top leader of the state police, he demanded that the murderer be arrested and brought to justice as soon as possible.But another colonel, who is the father, insisted on keeping his son safe. Charles didn't even care that the murderer escaped the law. He had only one request to the police, which was to let little Charlie return safely.The result of the debate was that Colonel Siwakop gave in, and everything was done according to Colonel Limber's will. On March 2, news spread throughout the country by radio and newspapers.From the east coast to the west coast, military police and people from all over the country acted spontaneously to help search for Xiao Lindi and the kidnappers.Checkpoints have been set up on all bridges and tunnels from New Jersey to New York, and all ships entering and leaving ports near New York must dock for inspection.In the next few days, the police received tens of thousands of calls and various reports. Some people claimed to have seen Xiao Lindi with a stranger, and some gangsters accused each other of framing each other for being involved in the case.A man was forced to stop 107 times by the police on his way to California in a car with New Jersey license plates! At the same time, outside the Limber Manor, the reporters set up temporary shelters with tents, etc., because the only hotel in Hopewell Town was full.In Limber Manor, the police brought in the most advanced instruments at that time, turned the garage into an on-site headquarters, and the living room was used as a press conference venue. Annie, who was four months pregnant, had to give up the master bedroom for investigators from time to time. We have a meeting.There were mattresses and sleeping bags of various sizes in the dining room and corridors, and even the stairs were full of people. More than 20 telephones rang day and night, and three police officers were in charge of opening letters to find clues related to the case. Since it was Lin Bo's case, state police departments adjacent to New Jersey, such as New York and Pennsylvania, extended a helping hand.Government agencies such as the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Economic Intelligence, the Tax Service, and the Postal Service also offered to cooperate, but Colonel Siwakop declined all of these offers. He did not want others to interfere in matters within his purview. There are three different views on the case at the outset.Colonel Lin Bo believed that the case was committed by professional kidnappers or gangsters, because the underworld was extremely rampant at that time, and there were countless kidnapping cases involving gangsters.However, according to Colonel Siwakop's inference, the perpetrator should be a local who has nothing to do with professional kidnappers or the underworld. Much higher than that.Lieutenant Cayton, the chief detective of Colonel Siwakop's state police station, targeted the people in Limber's house and Anne's natal Morrow house, as well as the craftsmen who built the new house for Limber's house.There are various indications that the perpetrator should have an internal response.For example, the kidnappers knew that because the child had caught a cold, the Limber family did not leave Hopewell on Monday morning for Anne's natal home in Inglewood, as usual. Colonel Limber strictly limited the information and actions of the police. He did not want to scare off the kidnappers.Limber himself formed some sort of committee or caucus, including himself, his lawyer and good friend Henry Bruegingrich, Colonel Siwakop, and Bill Donovan, who would later run for Governor of New York .The team of four first ran a story about Lindy's diet on the front pages of local newspapers and some national papers.The child was sick at the time of the incident, and he had to eat strictly in accordance with the doctor's instructions. The second thing the group of four did was to contact the underworld through secret channels.Before that, there was a kidnapping case in which the hostage kidnapped by a group of gangsters, Nier Donnelly, the heir to a million-dollar fortune, was rescued by another gangster with no ransom and no damage.Lin Bo hoped that he could also encounter such a miracle.Soon, the group of four received offers from many gangsters, but Colonel Lin Bo's move was also condemned by many religious organizations.To make matters worse, they angered the kidnappers. On March 4, the four-person team received a second ransom demand letter from Brooklyn, New York.Like the first letter left on the window sill, the letter is written in blue ink, with 3 circles and 3 holes in the lower right corner, and its language and spelling style are also the same as the first letter.Judging from the content of the letter, the kidnapper was not a mafia figure. Dear Sir: We have warned you not to make publicity or call the police, and now you must pay for your actions - that is, we have decided not to return the child to you for the time being.We won't be dealing with you until the police and press calm down.. We were supposed to get $50k, but now it looks like we'll need one more person to take care of the kids.So the total ransom will increase to $70,000. On March 5, the kidnappers sent a third letter.In addition to repeating the content of the second letter, it is said that the child is well cared for, fed according to the recipe provided in the newspaper, etc.The letter asked Lin Bo to find an intermediary through whom he could contact the kidnappers. 72-year-old Dr. John F. Condon was once the principal and sports coach of a public school in the Bronx, New York. After retiring, he still teaches at Fordham University twice a week and often contributes to newspapers. On March 8, he wrote to a local tabloid, the Bronx Hometown News, saying that he was willing to be an intermediary between Lin Bo and the kidnappers, and offered to contribute $1,000 to the ransom.The letter was published on the front page of the Bronx Hometown News.The next day, March 9, Dr. Condon received a letter containing a note and another envelope.The note said: Dear Sir: If you are willing to act as an intermediary in Lin Bo's case, please be sure to act strictly according to our requirements.Give this letter to Mr. Lin Bo personally, and everything will be explained to him in the letter.This should not be told to anyone.If we find out that anyone has leaked information to the media or the police, all operations will be canceled and the exchange plan will be postponed again.When you get the money from Mr. Limber, put four words in the New York American: Money is ready.We will give you further instructions after reading the text.Don't worry, we won't take your $1000, keep it for yourself. But you must strictly follow the instructions.Please be sure to be at home every night from 6pm to 12pm - we will be in touch with you during this time. On the back of the note was a sketch of the box used to hold the ransom, and indicated that the dimensions of the box were 7 by 6 by 14 inches. Dr. Condon later said that he never imagined that the kidnappers would read such a tabloid, let alone that they would actually pick him.Condon first called Limber Manor, and then rushed to Hopewell with a friend in the starry night.The team of four identified that the letter was indeed from the kidnappers.In order to avoid the eyes and ears of the reporters, the four-member team gave Condon a pseudonym, Gafser, which sounded like his initials J·F·C.Colonel Limber asked his lawyer, Henry Broughingrich, to take Dr. Condon back to the Bronx, where he lived at Conton's house.