(2 of 3)
March 1, 1932 was the date of the abduction. A farmer-neighbor of the Lindberghs', who said he knew everyone in the Sourland district by name or sight, swore that he had seen Hauptmann twice near the Lindbergh house in February 1932. An earnest young salesman indicated, Hauptmann as the man he had seen loitering beside a dark sedan outside Hopewell three nights before the kidnapping.
April 2, 1932 was the date of the ransom payment. The construction timekeeper at a West Side Manhattan apartment house testified from employment records that Hauptmann had worked for him a fortnight before April 2, but not on April 2, that he gave up his job two days later. Nov. 26, 1933 was the date on which a $5 ransom note was received by the cashier of a Greenwich Village cinema theatre. She was sure that the man who passed it was Hauptmann. If the jurors believed her, they had to dismiss Hauptmann's story that he had not "dipped into" the ransom money left by Isidor Fisch until after Fisch left for Germany in December 1933.
With the evidence of an accountant that Hauptmann had received $44,486 of "fresh money" after. April 1932, the State closed its case.
Defense Opens. Witness No. 1 for the defense was Defendant Hauptmann. Twiddling his thick fingers, he answered in a deep guttural voice the questions put him by his lawyer.
Hauptmann was shown the ladder. Had he built it? "Certainly not!" said the accused man. "I am a carpenter!" The-ladder, he scoffed, looked like a "moosic" instrument.
Christian Fredericksen, proprietor of a Bronx bakery-restaurant where Mrs. Hauptmann worked as waitress, said that Hauptmann called regularly for his wife on the two nights a week she worked late. March 1, 1932 was one of the nights Mrs. Hauptmann worked late, said Fredericksen, so her husband "must have been there." But he "couldn't swear to it."
Gambler's luck played right into the hands of Counsel Reilly on the Nov. 26, 1933 date, on which Hauptmann was supposed to have gone by himself to a cinema in Greenwich Village, 12 miles from his home in The Bronx. Winning with the short side of a 365-to-1 chance, defense counsel jovially revealed that Nov. 26 was Bruno Richard Hauptmann's birthday. He said he would have no trouble bringing the guests of the 1933 party to the stand. "
Tell the Truth!" "A good witness," beamed Defense Counsel Reilly after he had put the stolid German through nearly six hours of direct examination. Next day Attorney General David T. Wilentz had his first chance to display his wit and aggressiveness as a cross-examiner. He put on such a good show that over the week-end newspaper headlines were predicting nothing less than a complete breakdown and confession by the defendant. That did not occur, but the inquisitorial ferocity of Prosecutor Wilentz made Hauptmann squirm in his chair, hang his head, blush, stammer, contradict himself. Observers thought he either looked like a very embarrassed man or a very guilty one when the State prosecutor at one point roared: "Tell the Truth!"