The Free Press Investigates

The investigation closes in on a German immigrant carpenter from the Bronx. When a chunk of the ransom money is discovered at his home, investigators think they’ve found a “smoking gun.” But is the evidence as airtight as it seems? Or is it a sign of a wider conspiracy that was never fully exposed?

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Charles Lindbergh is not just the father of a kidnapped child—he is the most celebrated man on Earth, and increasingly the one shaping how the investigation unfolds. But behind the heroic image is a more complicated figure: both controlling and naive, and willing to overrule the police entrusted with finding his son. Does Lindbergh’s strange behavior hold any clues to the mystery?
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Joe Nocera has launched a six part series about the Lindbergh kidnapping.

EP01 | The Broken Window

One night in March 1932, the infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh is taken from his nursery. A warped window, a ladder, and a ransom note mark the beginning of a case that will grip the world and launch a hundred conspiracy theories. Ninety-four years later, we return to the scene of the crime to ask: What really happened that night?
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Veteran reporter Joe Nocera investigates a 94-year-old crime that deserves a second look: the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr.

Little Lindy was the infant son of the most famous man in the world at the time, an aviator who had achieved impossible feats. Unsurprisingly, the case was a media sensation in 1932, especially when German immigrant Bruno Hauptmann was tried and executed for the crime. Hauptmann professed his innocence to the end; could he have been telling the truth? Joe embeds with a community of sleuths who think so, believing the authorities convicted the wrong guy and fighting for the DNA to be tested to prove it.

This is a series that asks: Was this case America’s first great conspiracy?

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A startling legal twist changes the case’s outcome, possibly forever. As we reflect on Samantha Woll’s legacy—especially that of a bridge builder between opposing views, her loved ones undertake the hard work of healing as they continue to fight for justice.

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Host: Frannie Block

Producer: Poppy Damon

Executive Editor: Emily Yoffe

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Contact us at: spiral@thefp.com
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