If a Negro from Marshall's Corner N.J. had not decided to get out of his truck and relieve himself in the woods a mile from Hopewell last week, a half-dozen accredited negotiators and a hemisphere's police would still be looking for kidnapped, murdered Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr.
At a point 75 ft. from the edge of the concrete Princeton-Hopewell Road, traveled by the child's friends, kin and every official in New Jersey during the 72-day search, William Allen noticed something round and bright protruding from a mound of rubble and leaves. It looked like a human skull. Negro Allen ran back to the truck and summoned his white companion, Orville Wilson. It was a human skull. On it and nearby were wisps of yellow hair. Wilson hopped in the truck and made for Hopewell, where he found Charley Williams, one of Hopewell's two policemen, in a barber's chair. To him Wilson babbled their discovery of the Lindbergh baby. Policeman Williams notified the State Police and together they went back to the hillside spot, visible on a clear day from the Lindbergh home on Sourland Mountain, five miles away.
Careful examination indicated that the baby had been clubbed to death shortly after being snatched from his crib on the night of March 1. The badly decomposed remains, clad only in a flannel stomach band and an undershirt, lay face down in a shallow depression, possibly a hastily scratched grave. On one side was a tall oak On another was a stump. Through the underbrush 75 ft. back ran the special telephone line strung during the world-wide search. The head showed two fractures a round hole through the right temple. One leg and both hands were missing.
Nurse Betty Gow, whom the baby called "Gow,"identified the body in the Trenton morgue before sundown. More positive identification came from the Lindberghs' pediatrician. He recognized the child's abnormally twisted toes.
By 6 p.m. newspapermen had been hurriedly summoned from Trenton and Hopewell for the official announcement in the Lindbergh garage. The discovery made hushed after-dinner talk for most U.S. citizens, but the child's father did not learn about it until nine hours after the body was found. It came to him by radio. Stirred on by John Hughes Curtis, charter member of the Norfolk, Va. triumvirate whose boat-building activities have placed him in contact with rum runners, Col. Lindbergh was groping hopelessly about the dark waters off Cape May, N. J.—still trying to buy his child back from its abductors. Col. Lindbergh was put ashore near Atlantic City, raced homeward by motor.
Lid Off! Now that no amount of secrecy on the part of Press or Police could return the child alive to its parents, the lid of caution abruptly blew off the case. For the first time pictures of the nursery were published. And the text of the original ransom note, which newspapers had withheld since the case entered its second day lest negotiations for the child's return be jeopardized, was unofficially made public:
"Dear Sir,
"Have $50,000 ready, $25,000 in $20 bills $15,000 in $10 bills and $10,000 in $5 bills Have them in two packages. Four days we will inform you to redeem the money.
"We warn you for making anything public, or for notifying the police, child is in gut care.