Chapter 4 fourth quarter

Edward Leary pointed out in his concluding speech for more than five hours on behalf of the defendant that, in fact, all these witness and physical evidence did not provide any evidence to prove that Hepman participated in the kidnapping and murder of Lindy Xiao.Defendant Hepman's only connection to the case was the ransom notes.But since the police desperately needed a scapegoat to close the case, they didn't care whether Hepman was actually guilty.Lei Li finally said that he and the other defendants' lawyers firmly believe that Bruno Hepman is innocent. Chief Prosecutor David Welenz has become a national star in six weeks.He seemed confident in his concluding remarks, going so far as to say that Hepman's looks and personality alone made him guilty.

On February 13, 1935, 12 jury members entered the deliberation room at 11:20 am after listening to the instructions of Judge Thomas Trichard, and a bailiff closed the door behind them.The deliberation room was just above Hepman's cell.At around 3 p.m., the jury asked the judge for permission to send them in a magnifying glass to compare the ransom demand letter with the writing on the wooden strip with Dr. John Condon's phone number on it. In the evening, more than 7,000 people gathered around the court waiting to hear the final verdict. They kept shouting: "Kill Hepman! Kill that German! Kill Hepman!"

At 10:27 p.m., the court bell finally rang. At 10:30, after the jury members took their seats in the jury box one by one, the defendant Bruno Heppman, who was handcuffed and fettered, was brought to court.He was deathly gray and his right wrist was handcuffed to the left wrist of a bailiff.In the auditorium, Anna Hepman's wife was also pale and haggard. When the doors of the courtroom were locked, Judge Thomas Trichard signaled for the court documents to begin. "Mr. Juror, will the jury decide whether the defendant—Bruno Richard Heppmans—is guilty or not guilty?" "Guilty." The chief jury read slowly and clearly according to the note in his hand, "We rule that the defendant, Bruno Richard Heppmann, is charged with first-degree (premeditated) murder."

Several reporters immediately got up and ran out, but the door was locked.Judge Trichard gave away a warning to anyone not to leave without permission.The court clerk went on to ask if all the jury members agreed with the verdict, and the eight men and four women on the jury nodded one by one. Thomas Trichard ordered the defense to stand, repeated the verdict of the jury, and said: "This court sentences you, Bruno Richard Heppmans, to death." The execution took place one day during the week of March 18, 1935. At this time, a man climbed onto the window sill as high as one person, opened the window and shouted to the outside: "Guilty—death penalty!" Suddenly, deafening cheers erupted.

At 10:50, Hepman was taken back to his cell, where he threw himself on the cot and sobbed silently.Meanwhile, Anna, who remained in the courtroom, wept in her seat until staff asked her to leave. When the reporter called the Limber estate, a spokesman for the Limber family told him that Colonel Charles Limber would have no comment on the matter.When Lin Bo heard their conversation on the phone, he immediately turned on the radio in the library. The announcer was broadcasting live on Main Street outside the court gate, with a noisy background.The voice of the announcer said: "The most famous trial in history has just come to an end here. The defendant Bruno Richard Hepman was found guilty of kidnapping and murder..." Hearing this, Anne immediately asked her husband Turn off the radio.

Several reporters drove to the residence of Dr. John Condon in the Bronx.Mrs. Condon said she would pass the news on to her husband, but Dr. Condon would not comment or speak to reporters. First lady Elena Roosevelt was one of the few celebrities at the time who dared to publicly express doubts about the ruling in the case.The president's wife is also a well-known social activist, writer and speaker, and was later appointed as the permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations.She believes that there is no direct evidence in this case to prove that Bruno Hepman is guilty of kidnapping and murder.Mrs. Roosevelt told reporters: "The whole trial has left a big question mark in my heart. I don't feel sorry for Hepman, but I keep thinking, maybe he is really innocent."

The New York Times commented on the ruling in the Hepman case as follows: "We still don't know what really happened on that fateful night in Hopewell. The case was a mystery from the beginning. Only the crimes Only the confession of people or the emergence of new evidence can help us clarify the truth of the facts." At this time Bruno Richard Hepman was destitute.Edward Reilly said he still had faith in Hepman's innocence, but that there was no talk without money.As a result, Lloyd Fischer replaced Lei Li as the chief lawyer of the defendant, and he and Friedrich Pope, who was part of the original four-member lawyer team, continued to defend Heppman free of charge.At the same time, Anna Hepman traveled around with her son Monfield who just turned one year old, most of them were in German-settled areas, and together with those who believed that Hepman's trial was an unjust case, they appealed the case in various ways. fundraiser.After World War I, Germany was condemned by world public opinion for provoking the war, and anti-German sentiment was very common among Americans.Perhaps for this reason, people in the German community believed that Heppmann, like them, was a victim of racism.

Hepman has always maintained that he has nothing to do with the kidnapping of the Limber toddler.The day after he was sentenced, he told reporters: "I have never met the Limber children, and I have never taken a ransom... I am absolutely innocent before God." In another interview, he said: "Even if they tell me now that I will be acquitted if I tell them everything, I have nothing to say. Because I have told them everything I know." The New York Times reporter traveled across the ocean to interview Bruno Heppmann's 70-year-old mother in Germany.The old lady said: "I know my son is innocent. But Lin Bo wanted this ending, so everything developed according to his wishes."

In fact, many people in the industry feel the same way.Colonel Charles Limber was present every day of the 33-day trial, which undoubtedly put such pressure on the jury that it was almost impossible for them to reach other verdicts.Judge Thomas Trichard's obvious language bias in the process of presiding over the trial, as well as the incompetence of the plaintiff's chief lawyer Edward Leary, all made it difficult for Hepman to obtain a fair trial.For all these reasons, Hepman's new two-person defense team began a year-long appeal.The case was submitted to the New Jersey Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States in turn, all of which were dismissed one by one.Hepman's execution date was pushed back again and again, and was now rescheduled to January 17, 1936.

In a last-ditch effort, Lloyd Fischer and Friedrich Pope brought the case to the New Jersey Pardons Court on December 23, 1935, in an attempt to have the death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.Then-Governor Honored Hoffman was one of seven members of the court. On January 11, 1936, the pardon court rejected the defendant's lawyer's application by a ratio of 6 to 1. Governor Hoffman voted for the only vote. Overwhelmingly the case, in his words, was "the papers tried and judged Heppman." There were only a few days left before Hepman's death.Honnold Hoffman visited the cell in person. After a long talk with Hepman, he decided to use his authority to postpone Hepman's execution date again, and announced that he would personally preside over the re-investigation of the case.Hoffman said his purpose was simply to hope that the case would come to light.Unexpectedly, this move was opposed by the people of the whole country. Newspapers from all over the country rushed to write articles condemning the perverse actions of the governor of New Jersey. Hoffman's political opponents even prepared to impeach him. It is conceivable that the investigation was full of resistance.To make matters worse, Detective Inspector Ellis Parker, Hoffman's chief assistant for the investigation, was arrested in the course of the case on suspicion of kidnapping to extract a confession.As a result, Hornold Hoffman not only failed to save Hepman, but ruined his political career and lost to his opponent in the governor's re-election campaign.

At 8:47 pm on April 3, 1936, Bruno Richard Heppmann was executed in the electric chair. For many years, the judicial and legal circles in the United States have been arguing whether the Limber-Hupman case was an unjust case.Several details and doubts in the detection and trial process were brought up and discussed extensively one by one. For example, Hepman's English is not good, but the court did not provide him with a suitable interpreter, so he often answered irrelevant questions on the witness stand.Another example is that the members of the jury are not strictly isolated from the outside world. They can often hear people's discussions about this case in the hotel where they have three meals a day and stay in the hotel.Another example is J. J. Faulkner, who exchanged a $2,980 ransom note at a central bank branch in New York. Why didn't the police compare his handwriting with Hepman's?etc. After Hepman was sent to the electric chair, people continued to learn new findings about the case. For example, some witnesses were bought with money, while others were threatened; , but the original physical evidence disappeared without reason; another example is that the chief lawyer of the defendant, Edward Leigh, often drank alcohol at lunch during the trial, so that his performance in court in the afternoon was obviously affected, and so on.The most important development in the case came in February 2000, when a joint team of handwriting and document identification experts from the Federal Bureau of Economic Intelligence and the U.S. War Department formally confirmed that Bruno Heppmann was not the author of the ransom letters.But generally speaking, there have been no clues that really have a breakthrough in the case. The most talked about is Edward Leary, the defense's chief lawyer.Before the case went to trial, a major newspaper at the time, the New York Daily, made a deal with Hepman that the newspaper would buy out the media's interview rights to Anna Hepman and use the money to pay Edward Leary legal fees.At the time, the Hepmans agreed to the New York Daily's advance payment of Leili's entire expenses.Later, some experts believed that because the money was already in hand, Edward Leary did not perform his duties as the lead defense attorney in the Hepman trial.Throughout the case, he spent less than 40 minutes talking with his client, Bruno Heppmann, which was shorter than Governor Honnold Hoffman's prison visit.Two years later, Lei Li was hospitalized for a long time due to schizophrenia.Many believe he also suffered from tertiary syphilis.It is said that while he was in Vermington, prostitutes came to his hotel room every night. Before he was executed, Bruno Heppmann told Governor Honnold Hoffman: "They thought that as long as I died, this case would be closed, like a closed book. But this This book, it will never close." The facts fulfilled his prophecy. Over the past 70 years, many scholars have devoted themselves to the research and investigation of this case, and many of them have become experts on the Limber-Hupman case. Maybe Bruno Hepman was just one of the kidnappers, maybe he was innocent after all.Regardless of the facts, as prominent lawyer and law professor Aaron Dershowitz puts it: "Today, there are not many who would deny that Hepman's trial was unfair—by today's standards, Still by the standards of the 1930s." The case has recently been revisited by some prominent forensic experts.The following are the points and doubts they list in the Limber-Hupman case: 1. Lin Bo's dog usually barks when he sees a stranger, but why didn't he make a sound on the night when the kidnapping happened? 2. The crime scene was not properly protected.Police officers, reporters, and even onlookers came in and out to check at will, causing many valuable evidence and clues to be destroyed. 3. No fingerprints were found at the scene.Using modern lasers and new chemical methods may help identify latent fingerprints. 4. There is no mention of the footprints at the scene in the police report, nor has anyone compared them to Hepman's. 5. Are the 16th step of the wooden ladder and the floor slab of Hepman's attic taken from the same tree?Modern DNA testing methods can help determine this. 6. There is only one window with a broken latch in the whole building of Limber's house. How did the kidnappers find that one by chance? 7. The foldable wooden ladder was made by the kidnappers.How did he (they) know the height of the windows on the second floor of Lin Bo's house from the ground?How much does the wooden ladder weigh?Can one person carry it? 8. A policeman reinserted the two feet at the bottom of the wooden ladder into the two holes left by the kidnappers on the ground, which not only destroyed the evidence on the wooden ladder, but also changed the shape and size of the two holes. 9. Before the trial, the defendant did not see the police investigation report and the evidence that the prosecution would submit to the court.Expert witnesses for the defense also did not have the opportunity to examine the physical evidence for themselves. 10. The baby's body was cremated shortly after it was found.There is no formal autopsy report, no accurate and detailed explanation of the cause of death, and no possibility of reopening the coffin for autopsy. 11. Before the slab was taken down, the police did not allow the defendant to view the attic of Hepman's house and make corresponding investigations and records. 12. The defendant had obtained Hepman's work time card on the day of the incident.The card showed that Hepman had been working until 5 p.m. in New York that day, making it impossible to drive to central New Jersey. 13. With regard to the baby's body found in the woods, no official forensic autopsy was invited, and even the height and age were not clearly explained.Why didn't the defense's lead attorney, Edward Leary, question the prosecution's witnesses in court on these issues?His move even angered other defendants' lawyers. 14. No one has photographed or otherwise identified the muddy and water footprints in Lindy's room, or compared them with those on the ground outside the house. 15. Was there any trace of tools used at the crime scene?If so, is that the chisel left behind? 16. There are only two holes on the clay wall under the window, indicating that the perpetrator knew in advance which window was not closed. 17. No one has made any investigation or clarification regarding the envelope and letter paper of the first ransom demand letter found on the windowsill. 18. Nobody investigated the inks (red and blue) used in the first ransom demand letter to track down their provenance.Did the police search for pens at Hepman's or Limber's? 19. Has anyone investigated what tools were used to punch the three holes marked on the ransom letter, and the source of the tools? 20. Is the imprint of the broken window latch in Lindy's room new or old? 21. In 1932, ninhydrin fingerprinting method has been published.Why were latent fingerprints on wooden ladders, chisels, envelopes, and letter paper not tested by this then new method? 22. Has anyone compared the handwriting, ink, and paper on the first ransom demand letter with the notes from other kidnappers since?Has anyone tried to find the source of these inks and papers? 23. The cloth blanket that wrapped the little body was not from Limber's house.Did the police or the autopsy doctor try to look for clues in the rug before it was cremated with the body?Did they find anything? 24. Were there any fingerprints on the ransom note shoebox seized at Hepman's house?Has anyone investigated the source of the shoebox? Charles and Anne Limber went on to have a total of five children.They lived a semi-reclusive life and almost never mentioned Lindy at home.Colonel Limber died in Hawaii on August 25, 1974, of terminal lymphoma. Anna Hepman has been living in poverty since her husband was executed.She spent her life campaigning for Hepman's justice, with the help of many people she knew and didn't know.In 1981 and 1986, Anna asked the relevant authorities in New Jersey twice to reopen the case for investigation, but failed due to various reasons.Anna died on October 10, 1994. More than half a century has passed, if the parties, witnesses, investigators or perpetrators of this case are still alive, they are already centenarians. Maybe we will never know the truth of the matter, maybe this is an eternal mystery left by history.Regardless, the Limber-Hupman case has entered some of the American history books as an unjust case.