Last week in the little old court house at Flemington, N. J., Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh sat in the same row, four places away from Bruno Richard Hauptmann when that stolid German ex-convict went on trial for killing the flyer's first-born son and namesake. At the conclusion of the first week of a life & death contest it could not be said that honors between prosecution and defense were even, for the prosecution had produced a half-dozen damaging surprises and the defense had not had its innings. But in the matter of the four women and eight men picked to judge the guilt or innocence of the young Bronx carpenter both sides appeared to be satisfied.
Jury. Since both prosecution and defense seemed to want the same kind of jurors, it took less than two days to choose a dozen citizens of Hunterdon County out of 65 who were questioned. Of those picked none had more than a modest education or modest means. Their average age was 44. All save one were married. All save two had children in the family.
State Opens. All twelve jurors had sworn that they had formed no prejudgment on the 20th Century's most fantastic murder case. One amazing prospective juror was found who confessed that he had never heard of the Hauptmann-Lindbergh affair, indeed did not even know for what case he had been called. He was challenged by the defense for "terrible lack of intelligence," excused.
But if Bruno Hauptmann's twelve chosen peers were even moderately intelligent newspaper readers, they must have been entirely familiar with Attorney General David. T. Wilentz's preamble as he opened for the State of New Jersey. He traced the old ' story from the night of March 1, 1932, when Baby Lindbergh was snatched from his crib, to May 12, 1932, when his body was found. Old, too, was the story of Hauptmann's arrest in The Bronx, of his possession of $13,750 worth of the ransom money, of the attempt to identify him with the ladder found on the Lindbergh premises the night of the crime. For months newspapers had trumpeted the fact that lumber in the ladder came from a Bronx lumber yard where Hauptmann had once worked.
Suddenly Prosecutor Wilentz electrified the courtroom with news that was to many indeed new: "Hauptmann . . . has got this ladder right around his neck. . . . One rung of that ladder, one side of that ladder comes right from his attic, put on there with his tools, and we will prove it to you! . . . We demand the penalty of murder in the first degree!"
Mother. First witness on the stand was a former county engineer to give the lay of the land at the Lindberghs' Hopewell home. Witness No. 2 was sombre little Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the dead child's mother. In a quiet, well-modulated voice Mrs. Lindbergh testified to her activities on fatal March 1, 1932. From her 40 minutes on the stand. Prosecutor Wilentz quarried three new foundation stones for the prosecution's case.
First stone:
Q.—Did you leave the premises at all that day?