Chapter 3 third quarter

Police continued to search Hepman's residence.A detective noticed a plank on the garage wall that didn't seem to fit in with the overall layout. "I can't explain why, it just didn't feel right," the detective later said.The wooden planks were pried open to reveal two small packets, one containing 100 $10 ransom notes and the other containing 83. This new discovery has investigators excited.They overturned the entire garage and found another box containing 12 small packages, totaling $11,930, all of which were ransom notes!Including the 840 US dollars found later, the total is 1.46 million US dollars, accounting for nearly 30% of the total ransom.Investigators believe that this is called "conclusive evidence".

How does Hepman explain this?He gave what police called the "Fisch Story." The pronunciation of "Fitch" is close to that of "fish" in English. The original meaning of Fish Story (fish story) is that a person always brags about how big the fish he caught when he came back from fishing, but no one has ever seen it with his own eyes.Because Americans fish just for fun, and put the fish back into the water after they are hooked.Hepman said Ecedo Fitch left some furs, a trunk and a shoebox at his home before visiting relatives in Germany.They put the shoebox on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets and forgot about it.It wasn't until three weeks before Hoppman's arrest, at the end of August 1934, that a heavy rain fell and the roof of the kitchen leaked, and Hoppman removed all the contents of the cupboard, and he didn't see the shoebox again.Hepman was afraid that there was something in it that couldn't get wet. When he opened it, he found a box full of US dollar bills.Ecedo Fitch owed Hepman $7,500 before he left. Hepman thought about it and thought he could take his own part from it, so he began to use the gold coupons Fitch left behind.Hepman said that he never said anything to Anna about this matter, but quietly rewrapped the money and hid it in the garage.

The investigators were naturally unwilling to believe Hepman's confession.But the situation at the time was that Hepman had been forced to confess for nearly 30 hours when he made these remarks.Slurred speech, slurred mind.Anyone who works as a police officer knows that in such a state of mind, almost no one can "make up" such a "lie" that is not to say seamless, but it can be regarded as plausible, not to mention that Hepman said that he began to use it about three weeks before his arrest. The claims of these banknotes dovetail with the fact that the ransom notes reappeared in September 1934.Except for the police, no one knew about this at the time.

Soon, news from the German side exposed another lie of Hepman. Bruno Richard Heppmann was born on November 26, 1899 in a farm family in Saxony, a border town between Germany and the Czech Republic. He didn't go to school until he was 14 years old. Then he apprenticed as a carpenter.At the time of the First World War, his older sister went to the United States with her husband's family, and the three brothers who were soldiers all fought on the front lines of the First World War.When he was also drafted at the age of 18, two older brothers had already been killed and the whereabouts of the other was unknown.Parents were reluctant to send their last son to the front line, but Hepman survived the brutal war.He was wounded twice, and the day the war ended he was lying in the hospital.Later, Bruno's missing brother also returned to his hometown.

The economic panic in postwar Germany put the entire country in a bind.In just a few years, Bruno Heppmann was arrested twice for stealing and robbing necessities such as food and coal.The first time he spent four years in prison, and the second time he narrowly escaped, Hepman made up his mind to go to the United States.Penniless, he could only sneak onto the ship.Unfortunately, he was found twice, one of which even set foot on American soil, but was eventually deported back to Germany.With the experience and lessons of the first two times, Hepman finally succeeded in smuggling for the third time.He settled in New York's German Quarter, made friends and found a job. In 1928, he married Anna, who worked as a waitress in a restaurant. The couple worked hard and frugally, and worked hard to earn money.Soon, Hepman was admitted as a member of the carpenters' union for his superb craftsmanship.

Like all illegal immigrants, Hepman has been careful not to provoke the police.Before he dealt with Ecedo Fitch, he had already heard some legends about Fitch's many ways, and some people even said that Fitch had something to do with the underworld.But Hepman and Fitch partnered in the fur business after all, and because of Fitch's supernatural powers, their business was doing very well.Later—after Hepman was executed—the police discovered that Ecedo Fitch had often used his connections to the underworld to buy "black money," that is, to buy up sellers' ill-gotten gains at less than face value, Then use it at face value.Of course, you must be very careful, otherwise, if you are caught, you will not be able to clean up even if you jump into the Yellow River.It is said that Bruno Hepman is not the only one who has been swindled by Fitch's "black money" - if those ransom notes are really Fitch's.

Taxi driver Josef Peron was the first witness to identify Hepman, though he had previously said he couldn't remember the man who made him deliver the note to Dr. Condon.During the identification at the police station, there were several tall and burly policemen in plain clothes standing on both sides of Hepman, and Peron recognized him at a glance.Sissy Ba, the ticket saleswoman at the movie theater, and Walter Ryle, the gas station worker, also successively identified Hepman as the coin holder under the same circumstances.Only Dr. John Condon was still not sure that Hepman was Graveyard John.

One day the police brought a stick of wood they said had been taken from a small storeroom in Hepman's son's room.Dr. John Condon's telephone number written in pencil on the strip.Hepman never admitted that it was written by him, and even doubted whether the wooden sticks were really taken from his home.After Hepman was sentenced to death, three different sources confirmed that a journalist named Tom Cassardy wrote down the number, initially as a joke.But the authorities did not consider a commutation or pardon for Heppman.Many years later, someone questioned: If a person does not have a phone at home, how could he write his phone number in a small dark room?

Charles Limber never met the kidnapper, he only heard the "Hi, Doctor" on the night of April 2 two years ago.According to Dr. John Condon, what he heard was "Hey Doctor, here, here."When the police asked him to identify the voice, Lin Bo admitted at first that he was sitting in the car across the road, about 200 feet away from the speaker, almost a block away, and he didn't hear very clearly.But when the investigators asked Hepman to say, "Hey, Doctor, here," Limber immediately said that was the voice from the cemetery. At this point, the Bronx Court believes that there is enough evidence to prosecute Bruno Heppmann for accepting and using stolen money.But Colonel Norman Siwakop hopes that Hepman will be extradited back to New Jersey for trial. For this reason, the police must prove that Hepman was involved in kidnapping and killing Lindy.Unfortunately, so far, there is no evidence to connect Hepman with the kidnapping.Hepman's lawyers have obtained his working time card from Mengasty's apartment on March 1, 1932, proving that on the day Lindy was kidnapped, Hepman worked until the afternoon as he told the police 5 o'clock.That's a pretty strong alibi.

The state of New Jersey participated in a series of operations by the NYPD to solve the case from beginning to end, including tracing the ransom notes, arresting, identifying, and interrogating Hepman and searching Hepman's residence.When New Jersey State Police Detective Louis Berman went to the Hepman home for the second time, he found that the wood on the attic floor was the same as the 16th tread on the wooden ladder left by the kidnappers in the Limber Manor, and he was very sure that the wood on the floor was the same. There is a piece missing.The far-fetched and absurdity of this statement should be obvious at a glance.Imagine that Hepman himself is a carpenter. If he wants to repair a ladder, he can find a piece of material from any place. Why bother to tear down his own floor?Besides, the kidnappers planned the case so meticulously that they didn't even leave fingerprints, so how could they leave such a big hole?However, the eagerness of the police and the one-sided public opinion at that time, coupled with the reputation of Colonel Limber and the tragic end of Lindy, prevented the public from pursuing such details.People just want to catch someone as soon as possible to pay for Charlie's life, even if it's just a scapegoat.When the defense attorneys asked to see the attic, the police overshadowed them by letting them set foot inside the Hepmans' home.

Another "breakthrough" for the New Jersey State Police is finally finding a "witness."Millard White lived in a shabby house in Thoreau Heights.After the kidnapping, the police and reporters asked him many times to find out the situation. He always said that he had never seen a stranger nearby, no matter on the day, night, or days before and after the kidnapping.Millard White's reputation among neighbors is not particularly good. He is lazy and "tells a lie as smoothly as others tell the truth."Two years later, Millard suddenly remembered seeing a man who looked like Hepman driving by before Lindy was kidnapped.Years later it was reported that Millard tried to ask the police for money after investigators had promised him $300 to testify as they had been told, but then only paid him $30. With these two pieces of evidence and witnesses, the New Jersey State Police successfully extradited criminal Bruno Richard Hepman to his territory. New evidentiary witnesses continue to emerge.At the same time, investigators began interviewing potential witnesses, most likely neighbors and acquaintances of Hepman, who would testify against him.As a result, with the exception of Mrs. Heppman, Anna, and a few close friends, almost everyone else changed their testimony or refused to appear in court.Years later, the men claimed they had been overtly intimidated, threatened and continually harassed by the police. In the American judiciary in the 1930s, it happened from time to time to fabricate crimes by planting, but it is rare to publicly cheat and be full of loopholes like the Limber-Heppman case.What's even more outrageous is that the New Jersey State Attorney General's Office issued a subpoena, requiring the defendant's lawyer to send the relevant evidence of the case for verification. As a result, more than 30 physical evidence including the working time card of Meng Jiasti's apartment disappeared.The incident is said to have so dismayed Bruno Heppmann's lead attorney, Edward Leary, that he decided it was a lost case. On January 2, 1935, the sensational and unprecedented "Trial of the Century" (The Trial of the Century) opened in Fommington, the capital of the Hunterdon area to which Hopewell belongs.It was snowing heavily that day, and more than 2,000 vehicles and more than 60,000 people rushed into this little-known small town.All the hotels had been fully booked three months ago, and a newspaper had taken over the entire country club.The restaurant's menu lists "Limber Ice Cream" and "Baked Beans" from Welenz, the lead prosecutor in the case, David Welenzi.Souvenirs on display at the store include miniature wooden ladder models and what is believed to be Lindy's flaxen hair in a glass case.People braved the severe cold and crowded the Main Street in front of the court building every day before dawn, in order to catch a glimpse of the famous movie stars, football stars and politicians who came to listen. There are three prosecutors, led by state attorney David Welenz.The lead attorney for the defense was Edward Leary, a well-known criminal defense attorney and alcoholic from Brooklyn, New York, and three local lawyers from New Jersey. According to the usual practice, David Welenz made an opening speech on behalf of the prosecution.Under New Jersey law, a person should be charged with first-degree homicide, or premeditated murder, if he kills someone while committing a robbery, Welenz said.The prosecution will prove that Bruno Richard Hepman kidnapped and murdered the Limber children, wrote those ransom letters, etc., and took the ransom money from Dr. John Condon.Welenz told the court the prosecution's reconstruction of the crime: "He got there with a wooden ladder and leaned the ladder against the wall. He went through the window into Little Lindy's room as planned in advance and stole the child and him. clothes.” Next, Verenz recounted the discovery of Lindy Jr.’s body, Hepman’s arrest, and the evidence gathered at Hepman’s residence and garage.He pointed out that Hepman had only one motive for committing the crime, which was "money, money, money".In the end he asked the jury to find Hepman guilty. According to the development sequence of the case, the first witnesses summoned by the public prosecution were the people who were in Lin Bo's house at the time of the incident.When the court adjourned at noon that day, no one went out to have lunch, because no one wanted to miss the first witness to appear in court in the afternoon—Ms.On the witness stand, under the guidance of David Welenz, Anne recalled bit by bit what happened on that terrible stormy night.When it was Edward Raleigh's turn to cross-examine, he didn't ask any questions, but stood up and bowed deeply to the witness stand. During the trial of this case, Colonel Charles Limber attended the court every day in all weathers.He took the witness stand to tell the whole story of what happened to him, and when he talked about his work with Dr. John Condon, David Welenz asked: "On the night of April 2, 1932, before you handed over the ransom to Dr. John F. Condon near Raymond Cemetery, you heard a voice say 'Hi, Dr.' as far as I know. Since then, Did you hear that voice again?" "yes." "Colonel, may I ask whose voice you heard that 'Hi, Doctor' that night near Raymond Cemetery?" "That's Hepman's voice." Colonel Limber answered every word. "Where was the second time you heard this voice?" "In the Bronx, New York, District Attorney Foley's office." There was an uproar in the courtroom.After everyone was quiet, Lei Li got up to do cross-examination.Facing this famous hero, what can he say?Lei Li didn't even dare to point out the flaws in Charles Linbo's testimony, and asked him how he could remember the voice he heard two years and nine months ago, not to mention that he didn't even hear the second half of the sentence when he was sitting in the car.Like all Americans, Edward Raleigh was an admirer of Colonel Charles Limber.It is said that a handsome portrait of Limber remained under the glass panel of his desk at all times, even while he was working on the case.But the following answer about Colonel Limber's whereabouts on the day of the kidnapping is quite interesting. "Can you please tell the court where you went on Tuesday?" "I was in New York City during the day on Tuesday." "where?" "I don't remember exactly. I think I went to the Pan Am office, maybe Continental. I was at Rockefeller Center for a while. Then, as far as I can remember, I went to The dentist." Edward Raleigh's initial idea was to test Lin Bo's memory, but this conversation aroused people's discussion at the time: How could Colonel Lin Bo not remember what happened on the day his son was kidnapped? On the front page of The New York Times the next day, news of Limber's testimony was ranked ahead of President Roosevelt's annual address to the nation. When Lindy's nanny, Betty, appeared in court, Edward Leigh thought his chance had finally come.He dissected and attacked every word Betty said, as if she was the real culprit in the case.This is the characteristic and specialty of Lei Li in handling cases, which has been tried and tested repeatedly in his lawyer career for many years, and has earned him the reputation of "offensive defense" ("defense" in English—defend—also means "defense") .But now, this trick is no longer effective.Lei Li caused dissatisfaction among the jury members because he "deliberately made things difficult" for the witnesses. This is the scene in the "trial of the century".In the eyes of the audience, the prosecutor and the defendant are like the positive and negative characters on the stage.The former's speeches often won applause from the crowd, while the latter was disheartened and aroused everyone's disgust no matter what he said. In addition to Millard White, the prosecution called another witness to make a similar statement. Amandou Hochma, 86, lives near the corner of Fisebed Lane, where the footprints stretching from under Charlie's window are replaced by two rows of ruts.The witness said that on the morning of March 1, 1932, he saw a dark green car with a folding ladder turn a corner at the gate of his house in Fisebed Lane, and then drive down the path towards Limber Manor go.Hepman's vehicle registration records show that his dark blue Dodge was once dark green.Hochma also said the driver looked at him and identified Heppman, who was in the dock, as the driver. At this moment, the lights in the courtroom suddenly went out.In the dark, Edward Leili said loudly: "This is a lie to offend Tianwei!" But during the cross-examination of evidence, the defendant did not question the vision of the eighty-year-old man as expected.In fact, as early as June 1932, Amandou Hochma was diagnosed as legally blind due to severe cataracts, that is, his vision loss was so severe that he could enjoy the federal government's benefits for the blind .But somehow, the diagnostic certificate was not discovered until after the trial in this case was over. A neighbor of the Hepman family testified that when the Hepmans returned from somewhere in March of that year, Hepman's leg was broken and he was walking with a limp.Anna Hepman, who had been sitting silently in the public gallery, cried out at this moment: "You are lying, Mrs. Achebach." Judge Thomas Trichard warned Anna not to do such a behavior in the solemn court.Anna apologized for her behavior, then choked up and said: "But sometimes I just find it unbearable." Liars don't stop there.Albert Osper, a handwriting expert who originally believed Hepman did not write the ransom letters, testified in court that Hepman was the author of the letters.His retraction became another newspaper headline about the case.In addition to him, three other handwriting and document identification experts appeared for the prosecution. There were rumors at the time that the baby's body found in the woods was not actually Lindy Jr.The director of the funeral home who performed the autopsy basically had no experience in forensic science. He didn't even explain the age and height of the deceased. Naturally, the results of the examination could not be submitted to the court as a formal autopsy report.On this point, the defendant's chief lawyer, Edward Leary, did another thing that surprised everyone.The prosecution summoned several witnesses to appear in court, just to prove that the corpse was indeed Xiao Lindi, but Lei Li unexpectedly did not question these witnesses about some loopholes in their testimony.When he announced that the defense had no doubts about it, Heppman's other attorney, Lloyd Fischer, stood up, said, "You're trying to send Heppman to the electric chair!" and walked away angrily. Because Dr. John Condon was not sure he identified Heppman at the police station, the prosecution could not predict what he would testify in court.There were a lot of people attending the court that day.After taking the oath on the witness stand, Dr. Condon spoke to the jury about his years of teaching and was then guided by questions from David Welenz as he recalled the incident at Raymond Cemetery on April 2, 1932. adventure.Who was "Graveyard John," Weilenz asked next?Condon replied that "Graveyard John" was the same person as Bruno Hepman.As soon as the words were spoken, reporters swarmed out. Within ten minutes, Condon's testimony was spread across the country by phone and telegram. Many bank clerks and store cashiers, who may or may not remember the bearer, took the witness stand for the prosecution.Ceci Ba of the Lois Sheridan Box Office again identified Hepman, who was in the dock, as having bought a movie ticket from her with a $5 ransom note.Her testimony hit the defense very hard, because on November 26, 1933, Ecedo Fitch had not gone to Germany, and Hepman told the police that the ransom notes copied from his home were Fitch's 12th of that year. It was given to him before Yue left. The prosecution also called an unexpected witness.An acquaintance of Dr. Condon's, fashion model Sedica Alexander, told the court that one day in March 1932, she saw Hepman stalking Dr. John Condon at the Bronx train station. A superintendent of Mengasty's apartment testified that Hepman did not come to work at the apartment on March 1 and April 2, 1932. Several relatives of Ecedo Fitch, from Germany, told the jury that Fitch died in poverty and left no money behind him.In fact, he still owes Hepman more than $7,000. A Treasury official confirmed that the gold bills seized at Hepman's home were part of the ransom, and that the ransom notes hadn't been seen in the market since Hepman's arrest. Among the 87 witnesses summoned by the public prosecution were the taxi driver Joseph Peron and several investigators.The last to testify for the prosecution was wood expert Arthur Koehler.He determined that the 16th step and the floor slab of the Hepmans' attic on the wooden ladder found at the kidnapping scene were originally a single piece that had been sawed open.He also said that he had done many experiments by folding the ladder into Hepman's Dodge sedan, where there was enough room to place the ladder on the backrests of the front and rear seats without difficulty.During the cross-examination of evidence, the defendant's lawyer emphasized that because the relevant authorities have always refused to allow the defendant to view the physical evidence, it is entirely possible that the step 16 and the floor of the attic were forged by the police. After the prosecution's hearing, Lloyd Fischer made an opening statement on behalf of the defense.He said that the defense will provide Hepman with alibi evidence on three important dates in the case; Evidence about Hepman making money in the stock market to explain his family's financial situation; the handwriting experts hired by the defense will challenge some of the statements and conclusions of the prosecution's experts, but their expert witnesses will be much smaller than the prosecution's, Because the defendant couldn't afford that much money.In addition, the defendant will also prove that the wooden ladder has completely lost its significance as physical evidence due to the manipulation of the police in the past two years.And, Fisher went on to say, the New Jersey State Police had manipulated the entire case, "Never in history has a case been so completely unrecognizable by the police!" That sounds like a good start, but in reality they can't do it.A witness who had previously offered to provide them with a copy of Moncasti's apartment work time card suddenly told the defense attorney that it was gone and, like many other witnesses, refused to testify on their behalf.Several witnesses were hastily informed the court at the last moment that they could not attend for various reasons. The first person to appear in court was Bruno Richard Hepman himself. He spoke unproficient English and testified on the witness stand for 17 hours. A German carpenter who was rendered as a "devil" by public opinion.During the hearing, Lei Li asked Bruno to tell the court about his background, his life, his family, his work and his relationship with Ecedo Fitch through several questions.Lei Li asked him if he had written those ransom letters, if he had seen Lindy's jumpsuit, and if he had made that wooden ladder, and Hepman answered all these questions in the negative. David Welenz's cross-examination was somewhat dramatic to the courtroom audience.Hepman and Werenz are both immigrants, one from Germany and the other from Jewish ethnicity.In the period between World War I and World War II, anti-German sentiment prevailed in the United States, while anti-Jewish tendencies were everywhere in Europe.Now, members of these two historically antagonistic races are at court, and Werenz seizes on Hepman for lying to the police about the ransom note and his criminal record before coming to the United States in an attempt to bring Hepman down. The credibility of Pullman's testimony, but in the end he was unable to induce Hepman to admit that he was guilty of the kidnapping and murder charges he was charged with. As an illegal immigrant who does not speak English, Hepman lived in a shanty town belonging to the lower class of society. Several witnesses who appeared in court for him were all in the intersection because they had criminal records, or were involved in the black liquor business, or had mental disorders, etc. Witnesses who were said to be unreliable or unqualified by the public prosecution during the evidence collection.For example, Ovete Castelao and Louis Keith separately testified that on the night of March 1, 1932, they saw Hepman in the bakery where Anna worked.But Castro had committed theft and was mentally disturbed, while Case often visited the underground hotel.The jurors found their testimony to be as untrustworthy as their character. Restaurateur Agusti Van Henk saw Hepman at a gas station near the bakery that same night, and he remembers Hepman walking his dog.Van Henk is also a dog lover. While cheering, he chatted with Hepman about dogs.But the testimony of Agusti van Henk was also not valid, because black liquor had been resold in his restaurant. There was also a road builder named Lou Harding. On the morning of March 1, 1932, he was digging a ditch on the side of the road. A blue car stopped beside him. Two people in the car asked him how to get to Limber Manor. During the conversation, he noticed a wooden frame in the car. ladder and a brown box.After the kidnapping, Lou Harding had reported it to the police and was taken to Limber Manor, where he confirmed that the broken ladder was the same item he had glimpsed in the car.Lou Harding testified in court that Hepman was not one of the two people in the blue car.But because he had been arrested twice before, his testimony was also not accepted by the jury. Taxi driver Philip Moses saw three people standing next to a green car stuck in a mud puddle near Raymond Cemetery on the night of April 2, 1932.Moses sent the three to another street, where they got into a gray sedan.However, during cross-examination, the prosecution lawyer forced him to admit that he could not see the faces of the three people clearly in the dark, so his testimony was naturally meaningless. The defense did have several very convincing witnesses.Benjamin Lupica, a Princeton college student, said that around 6:00 pm on March 1, 1932, he saw a car with a ladder on it near the Limber estate. The driver was not Hepman.Under repeated questioning by the prosecution, Benjamin Lupica admitted that the outline of the man was somewhat similar to that of Hepman. Hepman's friend, Hans Crobin, said on the witness stand that he visited Hepman's house on the first Saturday of every month.Yes, he was there on Saturday, April 2, 1932, and, as usual, he played instruments with Heppmann.Several friends also testified that they attended Hepman's birthday party on November 26, 1933. Only one handwriting expert, John Tendley, was willing to appear for the defendant.While the prosecution experts focused on the similarities between Hepman's handwriting and the dozen or so kidnapper notes, John Tendley focused on the differences.He pointed out that although there are some similarities between the two, in general, Hepman's writing is relatively regular, and the ransom demand letter is relatively sloppy.As for the idiosyncratic spelling and grammar, which are common among Germanic Americans, they are not unique to Hepman. One of the professions of wood expert José DePiccio is to match wood grains for furniture manufacturers.He showed a large number of wood samples in court, showing that wood from different trees may also have matching grains.He believes that the 16th step on the wooden ladder used as a tool for the crime is not the same material as the floor of the Hepman's attic. The defense also hired Dr. Erastus Mead Husson, a fingerprint expert, who found hundreds of fingerprints from the wooden ladder, but none of them belonged to Hepman. The six-week hearing concluded after calling a total of 162 witnesses.