THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING SUSPECT NO. 1. Lise Pearlman
excluded Hopewell Police Chief Harry Wolfe from any further role in the case but rejected assistance from veteran detective Ellis Parker as well. A nationally acclaimed master sleuth, Parker had earned
his nickname “the Sherlock Holmes of New Jersey” by solving more than 95 percent of the 300 major cases he tackled in his decades-long career. Governor Moore had originally asked Parker to offer his help, possibly at the behest of Mrs. Morrow, since Parker was an old friend of her late husband.
As head of the investigation, what Colonel Schwarzkopf offered that the others did not was hero worship. Though he had never met Lindbergh before, Schwarzkopf later told a reporter: “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Colonel Lindbergh — there is no oath that I wouldn’t break if it would materially help his well-being.” When appointed to head the new state agency in 1921, Schwarzkopf had decided the men needed to have a motto to live by: “honor, duty and fidelity.” He arranged for them to wear impressive, specially designed caps and light blue uniforms with orange trim. He also got the state to buy motorcycles and horses for their use and had them practice military drills. What he instilled most in his men was a military chain of command.
Newspapers at the time of Schwarzkopf’s original appointment noted that the 25-year-old war veteran had no experience as a county or city policeman and no training on how to investigate major crimes. Skeptics assumed Schwarzkopf got hired because he was a friend of the governor’s son and the governor was not keen on rigorously enforcing Prohibition laws. Even after more than a decade of operation, the New Jersey State Police had no veteran detectives or full-blown crime lab. Celebrated detective Ellis Parker told reporters that veterans like himself did not consider the state troopers with their spiffy uniforms to have any ability to handle a serious criminal investigation. Investigative reporter Noel Behn summed up Parker’s view of the state police in 1932 as “glorified traffic cops.”
One assumes that Governor Moore knew when he assigned Schwarzkopf to head the investigation into “the crime of the century” that Schwarzkopf was over his head and easily manipulated. Governor Moore himself likely took orders from the man who got him elected, the state’s undisputed political boss, Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague. Hague was known as a consummate influence peddler, always open for business at the right price.
Hague demanded loyalty from all the many political candidates he backed for office throughout the state. Moore was an old friend of Hague’s from Jersey City, who had been a city commissioner before he first got elected governor in 1926. By 1932, Hague’s influence extended nationally.
The day after Lindbergh swore the New Jersey police to secrecy that a ransom note existed, he abruptly changed his mind. He told a reporter from The New York Times that he was prepared to pay the $50,000 demanded. The reporter asked Lindbergh for a recent photograph of the missing child so the newspaper could publicize it. The photo he gave the Times made the March 3 front page with the banner headline: “LINDBERGH HOPEFUL, IS READY TO RANSOM SON: NATION’S GREATEST HUNT FOR KIDNAPPERS PUSHED; ALL CLUES THUS FAR FUTILE: COUNTRY IS SHOCKED.” The photo of Little Charlie seated in a chair was captioned, “Picture of His Missing Son, Given Out Yesterday by Colonel Lindbergh to Help in the Search. It Was Made About Two Weeks Ago.” No correction was apparently ever offered by Lindbergh that the photo was not taken in February 1932 but in June of 1931.
Reporters soon learned that on the morning of March 3 an old barn burned down four miles from the Lindbergh estate. They asked the police if there might be some connection to the kidnapping but were told the police did not believe so. Despite being told that officers had combed the area, reporters began interviewing neighbors themselves and found that questioning by the police had been superficial and incomplete. Detective Parker determined he would continue his own unofficial investigation.
Courtesy of the New Jersey State Police Museum
Courtesy of the Jersey City Free Public Library
First 48 hours
Police ordering reporters to leave
Both photos curtesy of the New Jersey State Police Museum
The police move in
The Lindbergh three-car garage became temporary police headquarters
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