Researchers sue New Jersey over access to Lindbergh kidnapping records

WEST TRENTON — More than a quarter-million documents, photos and other bits of evidence are stashed away here in a research center focused on the most famous crime in American history.

The archive, dedicated to the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., has drawn thousands of historians and researchers since it was established 44 years ago by an executive order of former Gov. Brendan Byrne.

Byrne said he took action to ensure that everyone, from professional scholars to curious members of the public, would be allowed to study the “Crime of the Century.”

But for the past 13 months, researchers from around the country have been locked out of the Lindbergh case archive amid mounting calls from across the nation to open the evidence to modern DNA testing.

Last week, three researchers who were denied entry to the archive by the New Jersey State Police officials who oversee it filed a bombshell lawsuit demanding access to the Lindbergh records that Byrne had guaranteed would always be open.

The 200-page complaint, filed in Mercer County Superior Court, included written appeals from historians and forensic experts around the world who contend that the State Police are blocking research that could solve myriad questions still surrounding the case.

Handwritten and stamped ransom notes and envelopes sent to the Lindbergh family, the researchers contend, could yield conclusive evidence that the sole individual found guilty and eventually executed for the crime, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, did not act alone when Baby Lindbergh was snatched from his crib at the Lindbergh family home in rural Hopewell, N.J.

“Testing can provide insights into the authorship or handling of the ransom letter … hereby refining our understanding of one of the most pivotal criminal cases in American history,” said plaintiff Jonathan Hagel, a New Jersey native and professor at the University of Kansas who has studied the Lindbergh case for decades.

“Living in an era when the very idea of historical or legal truth has come under political pressure, it is incumbent on those of us who prize truthfulness in our public life to use every tool at our disposal to affirm its value.”

Joining Hagel as plaintiffs in the suit are Michele Downie, a Hopewell resident and retired schoolteacher who has studied the Lindbergh case for years, and Catherine Read, an author and developmental psychologist who taught or researched at Rutgers, UCLA and other schools.

The plaintiffs were all denied access to the archive after making official requests for key documents under the state Open Public Records Act, according to the lawsuit. Hagel, who says he sought access to the archive only last week after contacting the State Police archivist in charge, said the archivist had “no idea” when the facility might reopen.

The archivist told Hagel that the Lindbergh evidence was being held back due to an ongoing “research policy revision,” he said.

The State Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment made over the past several days. In the past, they have argued that the right to examine state records for DNA residue is not covered under the state open records law. Attempts to analyze ransom letters and postage stamps affixed with human saliva could do irreparable harm to some of the state’s historic artifacts, they say.

Closing the archive, the State Police say, is a temporary measure taken so they can develop new policies to deal with an explosion of interest in the Lindbergh case from genetic testing experts, historians and documentary filmmakers.

“It is … incumbent upon the State Police to ensure that there is no risk of damage or mutilation to said files and artifacts,” State Police spokesman Sgt. Philip Curry wrote in a 2023 release. “All formal requests are considered to balance the right to know with conservation and preservation of the artifacts for generations to come.”

But Kurt Perhach, an attorney from Pennington who represents the plaintiffs, said the extended lockdown of the Lindbergh material flies against the spirit and letter of Byrne’s order. He cites a litany of forensic experts who say modern genetic testing techniques would only require tiny bits of material, which would be collected under State Police supervision.

The State Police, Perhach said, are abusing a minor clause in Byrne’s order that called for the state to develop procedures to orderly accommodate researchers seeking to examine the case file.

“They’ve effectively taken Governor Byrne’s order and turned it on its head, denying a whole generation of historians the right to research a crime that continues to rivet the public,” Perhach said in an interview with The Jersey Vindicator. “They’ve had decades to develop procedures for the archive. Isn’t 13 months enough time?”

Last year, a state appeals court ruled against an earlier legal effort by Perhach to release material for genetic testing. The court, ruling on technical grounds, determined that physical examination of artifacts is not guaranteed under state law. The court also found that the suit did not sufficiently establish a public interest in analytic testing.

The new case contains testimonials from researchers and others around the world who say they are frustrated with New Jersey’s effort to halt historic research.

These include Patrick Bamburak, the great-grandnephew of New Jersey’s Gov. Harold G. Hoffman (1935-1938). Bamburak has conducted extensive research on the case, including a detailed analysis of a homemade ladder prosecutors said Hauptmann used to steal into Baby Lindbergh’s second-floor nursery.

“Had DNA technology been available at the time, I believe Governor Hoffman would have championed its use in the pursuit of truth and justice,” Bamburak said in the lawsuit.

Angelique Corthals, a forensic anthropologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said in the suit that methods approved and used by the U.S. Department of Justice on historic documents assure that material such as the Lindbergh ransom notes would be handled in “a non-destructive manner.”

Corthals said the process would involve swabbing the envelopes’ seals and gentle vacuuming. “These techniques are well established,” said Corthals, who drew international attention in her successful attempt to extract DNA from ancient Egyptian mummies.

Martin Dolan is the great-grandnephew of Special Agent Michael Francis Malone, who worked closely on the Lindbergh case and also assisted in the FBI’s undercover investigation of Al Capone. In the new lawsuit, Dolan says his family’s private collection of historic papers connected to the Lindbergh case is convincing evidence that other conspirators helped Hauptmann pull off the daring kidnapping.

“The public has a right to know the full truth about this ‘Crime of the Century,’” he said in the lawsuit.

Hauptmann, a 36-year-old German émigré living in the Bronx and working as a carpenter, was arrested in September 1934 after using a $10 bill from some $50,000 in ransom provided by Lindbergh, the aviator who stunned the world with his historic trans-Atlantic flight seven years earlier.

The money was demanded in a series of handwritten ransom notes that prosecutors said Hauptmann wrote and sent to Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who had only recently completed work on their rural estate in the Sourland Hills outside Hopewell’s business district.

The decomposing body of the 20-month-old Baby Lindbergh was found about 10 weeks later, partly buried in a crude grave dug into a stand of woods off the roadway just a few miles from where he was abducted. The discovery was made by a pair of deliverymen who had pulled off the road to urinate.

Prosecutors, who insisted Hauptmann acted alone, built their case on strong circumstantial evidence: $14,600 of the ransom money was found in Hauptmann’s garage. Wood in the ladder used in the kidnapping matched wooden beams in the Hauptmann house. Hauptmann, however, professed his innocence until he was executed in the electric chair.

In the nine decades since Hauptmann was executed, a large and growing body of scholarship has arisen that raises questions about the official findings. Many of the questions focus on Hauptmann’s ability to plan and execute the abduction of a sleeping baby from under the noses of Lindbergh, his wife, and family servants, who were all home in the early evening hours when Charles Jr. was taken.

Robert Zorn is a Texas resident who visited the West Trenton archive more than 130 times in the past 20 years. His continuing research resulted in a popular book on the Lindbergh case, as well as a 2011 PBS “Nova” special.

In 2010, Zorn received an interesting letter from former Gov. Byrne, who had read and admired his book, Cemetery John: The Undiscovered Mastermind of the Lindbergh Kidnapping. The book unravels fascinating connections between Hauptmann and a fellow German immigrant living in the same Bronx neighborhood.

“I’ve always believed that Hauptmann was guilty, but that he worked with accomplices,” Byrne wrote in his letter, which is an exhibit in the new lawsuit, along with a testimonial from Zorn.

Zorn, who made a trip to the archive last fall, says he was turned away.

“It’s really incomprehensible,” Zorn said in an interview. “This is one of the most significant crimes in American history. Scholars across the country have dedicated their lives to researching it. People around the world are fascinated with it. There are books filled with foundational issues about a flawed investigation and completely lopsided trial, and the state of New Jersey continues to thumb its nose.”

Halfway around the world in Hauptmann’s birthplace, Kamenz, Germany, residents and scholars are still drawn to the Lindbergh case. Reports in the news magazine Der Spiegel prompted a community-wide forum there in 2010.

In a letter he wrote for the Superior Court suit filed last week, Kamenz Mayor Roland Dantz said he hopes New Jersey can side in favor of historic truth to finally unearth the full story of the Lindbergh case and the role of his city’s most infamous son.

“DNA analysis could settle lingering doubts once and for all,” Dantz wrote. “We stand with historians, forensic experts, and the general public in supporting this crucial step toward clarity and justice.”