Crime-of-the-Week

CRIME

One of the two swords sharpened by the nation to avenge the murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. last March, was last week raised menacingly over the heads of two young morons of Roanoke, Va. Banker John P. Morgan, passing through the city on a quiet motor-trip vacation (see p. 20), was shocked to read in the newspapers, not that the original murderers had been caught but that two youths, Norman Harvey, 26, farmer's son, and Joe Bryant, 19, city employe's son, had been apprehended near a Roanoke bank after Bryant had cashed--or thought he had cashed--a check for $17,000 demanded from Col. Lindbergh to avert harm from his second, six-month-old son, Jon Morrow Lindbergh.

Col. Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf of the New Jersey State Police disclosed that the Bryant-Harvey case--simple, stupid, but none the less horrid--was one of three extortion attempts made since small Jon's birth last August. One letter was a warning or threat to "watch out." Another asked $50,000 in $20 bills in a suitcase. The illiterate letters leading up to Bryant & Harvey's arrests began coming in December. Excerpt :

"colonel lindbergh:

"sir i am sorry that i cant write english good but i hope that you have read my other leter. i told you that i wanted money to go away from the usa my home is across the ocean and i must have (50,000) fifty thousand or i will get your baby, dont that we can get it for we can and will if it takes years, i am sorry that you paid your money to the rong man when i now that he did not get your baby and if you not published it your baby would have ben with you today but you broadcast and it was in all the papers, he died of new monia. we have no warm place to stay now i do not want this little baby we want he money and it will cheaper to pay us the $50,000 your child is worth that you. we will leave this country and you can have your child allways and no more worry about, i am in a little town to day call roanoke, va. . . ."

Then came instructions to put the money in a stump beside a road in Roanoke's outskirts.

Chief Robert C. Johnson and Officer Howard Ferguson of the Roanoke police stood secret watch near the stump, ceaselessly for six days & nights. They saw nothing. When they withdrew and Chief Johnson communicated with the extortionists, via the stump, as "John J. Jones," agent for Col. Lindbergh, answers came. By bargaining the tribute was cut from $50,000 to $25,000, to $17,000. A check for the latter amount was finally left in the stump and next day Joe Bryant presented it for payment at the Roanoke bank designated. His story when arrested was that he had "just happened to find it" at 5 p. m. the day before.

Police suspected no "higher-ups." Federal officers at once took charge and custody under the statute passed last July, carrying penalties for mailing kidnap threats and ransom demands of $5,000 fine or 20 years in prison or both. The other new sword to avenge Baby Lindbergh is the 1932 Federal law against actual interstate kidnapping, providing "such term of years [in prison] as the court, in its discretion shall determine."

Meanwhile last week Charles Boettcher II, 31, wealthy aviation acquaintance of Col. Lindbergh's, was kidnapped one midnight as he stepped from his automobile at his Denver home. His wife promptly offered to pay the $60,000 ransom for his release.

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