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| Chapter 8- Puzzle Pieces and a Lounge Singer |
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| By this time, the pieces were starting to fit together nicely. I had assembled a lot of information from various sources and had access to first hand family information from Parker`s grandson. By now I could see the futility of trying to make a detailed advanced plan for researching a project such as this. So many sources led to other, unexpected avenues, it was almost like a treasure hunt without a map. |
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| The confessions were strange documents. Each version was a refinement of the last. The first half of each version consisted of the suspect relating his early life and hard luck. The Lindbergh kidnapping part of the story was interesting, but had a number of highly dubious details, some of which were obviously wrong. Was he pulling Parker`s leg? Or was he telling the truth? It seemed the more I found out, the more the mystery deepened. I would have to search further. |
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| I was surfing the various Lindbergh sites on the web and decided to try to track down more descendants of people involved with Parker. After all, you never knew if someone had old family papers, a dairy, or other inside information. |
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| From the Ellis Parker website I found an old newspaper article about the retirement of Parker`s faithful secretary and Dr Watson, Anna Bading. The article mentioned and named her two sons. I couldn`t find anything on one son, but the other had been in the Navy at the time. But where did he live now? I tried a web search in New Jersey and came up empty. Well, maybe he moved to Philadelphia. Nothing. New York? No. Well, I reasoned, if he was still alive he would be retired, so how about Florida? Nope. Finally, I tried a nation wide web search. I had avoided this because it was likely to produce so many similar names, I could never sort them out, but now I had no choice. |
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| To my surprise, I found a list of only seven similar names and only one exactly right. Amazingly enough, he lived in Annapolis, only about 50 miles from where I live. He had been almost next door the whole time. Since he was retired Navy, I should have guessed Annapolis from the beginning. A quick phone call and there he was. He told me all about his mother and had some good anecdotes about Parker. Strangely enough, he said she left no letters or memorabilia about her adventures. Too bad: I would have loved to have read her memoirs. |
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| Flush with my success, I tried another of the cast of characters. A Brooklyn man had been Parker`s deputy and had led the men who had actually kidnapped Parker`s suspect. Since the man had an unusual name, and since he had lived in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, I tried a web search for that name and location and turned up someone with the same last name. It seemed promising; he even had his own website. |
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| He featured his picture on his website, and he looked like a lounge singer. Skimming his biography, I found he goes by a stage name that sounded sounded vaguely familiar so I read on. Then I remembered. This guy had gained his 15 minutes of fame by marrying a famous, but much older entertainer and inheriting most of her estate when she died. He is a frequent guest on the Howard Stern Show. Could he possibly be the descendent of Parker`s deputy? I decided to e-mail him. |
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| He replied with a demand to know how I got his name, which I thought was a strange question from someone with a website and a history of publicity seeking. Anyway I told him and he replied that the man in question was his father`s uncle, and that the family all knew the story. Unfortunately, he offered no new information beyond that, but wished me luck. |
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| My next step was to track down the files of the Trenton Times, since they covered the events in which I was interested. Newspapers are not usually considered primary sources, being written by people who sometimes put their own spin on things, but they do provide details that fill in the gaps and put things in context. If I could get hold of newspapers from the period, it would go a long way towards filling out my record of events. The newspapers from the Garden Street house would be great, but only covered a few months in 1935. |
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| I e-mailed the editor of the Trenton Times who suggested I try the Trenton Public Library. Trenton actually has two libraries; the Trenton Public Library and the New Jersey State Library. Both, I soon learned featured microfilmed copies of the Trenton Times, only it was called the Trenton Evening Times during the period in question. The Baltimore County Public Library had the New York Times on microfilm, so I had some good contemporary news sources to check out. |
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| Barbara, meanwhile, was continuing to come up with weird information from unlikely sources. It seemed every third person she talked to had some connection with the Lindbergh case, or even remembered it. She learned that local folks in Hopewell used to visit the Lindbergh house while it was under construction and were all very familiar with the room layout and the grounds. This would seem to make the idea of the kidnapper needing inside information less credible. Another lady told her she remembered her parents sitting around the table at dinner time eagerly discussing and speculating on the case. |
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| The law professor who had sent me the CD with the FBI files had also sent the file numbers of the appeals that were decided in Parker's case and in the cases of the deputies. He sent the summaries of most of the decisions as well, but there were several I still didn't have, so I decided to check out the Baltimore County Law Library in Towson. |
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| Law libraries are strange places. They contain miles of bookshelves lined with laws, court decisions, appeals, and legal reference material dating back, well, forever it seems. |
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| The record of appeals in state courts on the east coast are filed by year in the Atlantic Reporter, but Parker was tried in Federal Court so his records were in the Federal Reporter. These volumes read like a telephone book, only with a lot more verbs. I had a lawyer coworker help me out with navigating this maze, and it was a good thing, because his case wasn't in the Federal Reporter but in the Federal Supplement. (I have no idea why.) |
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| The legal digging was worth it, however, because the judges wrote about the legal aspects of both the case and the appeal in some detail, giving a good overview of the legal issues involved. There were even three preliminary motions, all of which were denied. One commentary even contained a summary of prosecutions and sentences under the Lindbergh law, something I have seen nowhere else. |
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| Inspired by my foray into the legal thickets, I thought I'd get hold of a trial transcript while I was at it. I looked up the New Jersey Federal Court on the web and found a link whereby you can order trail records. Unfortunately, there was a fee of $.50 a sheet involved, and since the transcript was over a thousand pages, I decided I could do without it. |
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| During my internet wanderings, I had discovered that an abbreiviated version of the Hauptmann trial was reinacted in September in the original courtroom in Flemington, New Jersey. The trial had been held in Flemington because it was the county seast of Hunterdon County and it was assumed the baby had been killed in that jurisdiction. I mentioned it to Barbara and she was immediately hooked. |
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| "Let's go. It would be good research for the book and entertaining besides. And look here; we can sit in the jury box!" |
| "Well, that costs extra......" |
| "I want to sit in the jury box. I want to sit in the jury box." |
| "All right already. Jury box it is." |
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| We decided to hit the State Police Museum again on this trip,.since I still wanted to go through their collection of Governor Hoffman's papers. Then we'd hit the Trenton libraries, stay at Mt. Holly that night, then head for the trial at Flemington in the morning. I thought we might be able to find the house of Parker's suspect while we were in Trenton and find Parker's grave in Mt Holly. |
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| For all my grumbling, I knew Barbara was right; we had to sit in the jury box for the best view and the best experience. I wondered if we would get to vote. And what would happen if there was a hung jury this time? |
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| Will the jury find Hauptmann guilty again? |
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| What will the files of the Trenton Times reveal? |
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| Does anyone really read these questions? |
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| Don't miss Chapter 9 |
| The Jersey Bounce |
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