The three then trudged back inside the house and the Hopewell Police began to attempt an investigation. Assistant Chief Williamson later noted that the other members of the household were understandably nervous and agitated. Yet curiously, although his first and then only child had ostensibly just been kidnapped, Colonel Lindbergh appeared very calm and collected. The investigation made no progress and Williamson noted that no information was learned relative to the kidnapping. Before it could progress too far, officers from the New Jersey State Police began to arrive and the Hopewell Police were only too glad to step aside.
After Colonel Lindbergh's telephone call had been received by the New Jersey State Police, they had immediately put a call out on their wire. The flash was picked up by other departments and acted upon. New York City Police closed down the Washington Bridge as well as other bridge and tunnel connections from New Jersey to the city, searched all cars entering the city from New Jersey and recorded all license plates. The massive dragnet that was to sweep the nation in the coming weeks and months got off to a quick and thorough start that night.
The first State Troopers to arrive at the Lindbergh house were only the beginning of an unorganized horde of police and press people whose continued arrival progressed uninterrupted throughout the night. The New Jersey State Police had put out the word and the name "Lindbergh" prompted all who heard to converge without orders, and without organization. They simply came, and as their numbers swelled the chances of ever finding the truth decreased in direct proportion. Among the first were State Troopers Cain and Wolf from Lambertville; de Gaetano and Bornmann from Wilburtha, Captain Lamb, Lieutenant Keaton, Major Schoeffel and others. And as each rode up on his motorcycle and aimlessly tramped over the grounds he successfully helped grind every available physical clue deeper into the soft mud.
Each trooper was met personally by Colonel Lindbergh and, as was common with almost everyone who met "The Lone Eagle" in those heady days after May of 1927, each man, like Hopewell Officers Wolfe and Williamson, was awed at being in the Colonel's presence.
And the Colonel took advantage of their reaction. He commanded that no one touch the envelope until the fingerprint man arrived and no one did.
The troopers who tramped the grounds that night, obliterating every clue, were not the only arrivees. The initial State Police flash had been picked up by countless news reporters and radio journalists who routinely monitored all such calls. By 10:30 p.m., one half hour after the discovery by Betty Gow, radio stations were already broadcasting their first reports.
Shortly thereafter a steady stream of reporters began pilgrimages to the Hopewell house. As the troopers who arrived early were disorganized and without direction, no precautions were taken to limit the reporters' access to the house or grounds, nor were any precautions taken by the police to preserve the crime scene.
And curiously, Colonel Lindbergh himself, who supposedly was so calm and composed at the time (according to Assistant Chief Williamson), and who supposedly was the only one logical and cool enough to adamantly command that no one touch the envelope, did nothing to stop or stem the onslaught of reporters who added to the melee and trampled the soggy earth.
In fact, Colonel Lindbergh did the opposite. A man who hated the press and who often spoke bluntly and viciously of his feelings concerning what he considered to be its intrusion into his personal life, now acted atypically. As each reporter arrived Colonel Lindbergh met him personally at the door, invited him in, escorted him to the living room, made sure that Whately made sandwiches for everyone and that all had enough to eat, and thanked each one for the concern exhibited and for coming out on such a night. He was courteous, deferential and solicitous. He was not behaving in a manner consistent with his personality.
Eventually the head of the New Jersey State Police, Colonel Norman Schwarzkopf, arrived. A West Point graduate and World War I veteran, Colonel Schwarzkopf had since left the army. At one point he had sunk to being a store detective at Bamberger's Department Store in New York before receiving the appointment by the Governor of New Jersey to head up the State Police, despite the lack of any previous police experience. A political appointee, Colonel Schwarzkopf, like the Hopewell officers and his own troopers before him, quickly deferred to the presence and commands of Colonel Lindbergh. Shortly after midnight the fingerprint expert, Trooper Frank Kelly, arrived. Only then was the envelope disturbed. Trooper Kelly put on a pair of gloves and dusted the envelope with black powder. There were no prints. He then slit open the envelope and dusted the inserted letter. There were no prints there either. The note was handwritten:
Dear Sir! Have 50.000$ redy 25.000$ in 20$ bills 15.000 in 10$ bills and 10.000$ in 5$ bills. After 24 days we will inform you were to deliver the Mony. We warn you for making anyding public or for notify the Police the child is in gut care. Indication for all letters are singnature and 3 holes.
At the bottom of the note was a symbol of two interlocking circles whose overlap comprised an oval. The oval was colored red and the remainder of the circles blue. At the center of each geometric shape was a square hole.
Frank Kelly proceeded to dust the nursery for fingerprints. The popular significance given fingerprint analysis in movies, television and written fiction is greatly exaggerated. It is extraordinary how often television shows "solve" a crime by analyzing a forgotten fingerprint on cloth, clothing or even skin. In reality, fingerprints are not easily made and therefore not readily discoverable. The conditions have to be close to ideal: a hard, flat, clean surface and a distinct and clear pressure from a finger. The print is made when body oil from the finger is deposited on an appropriate surface sufficiently flat and clean so that it will record the ridged impression of human skin.
Fingerprints can rarely be made on cloth, skin, fabric, curtains, masonry, rugs or porous wood. They are useless if smudged. If the receptive surface is oily, greasy or wet they will not take. They are almost impossible to obtain from outdoor surfaces exposed to the elements for any length of time. Best results are obtained from a print on clear glass, flat metal or smooth surfaced wood.
Frank Kelly dusted the whole nursery. Good possibilities for expected fingerprint sources were the crib, rails and headboard, the radiator casing, the window, and perhaps the surfaces just inside the window such as the sill and sash. There was, of course, the risk that a careful kidnapper or gang of kidnappers would have worn gloves. If so, then the criminals would have removed the child from his crib and quickly left the room, leaving whatever residual fingerprints remained from Anne, Betty Gow, the Colonel and perhaps even the Whatelys. Yet the dusting by Frank Kelly revealed no fingerprints. None. Not even a stray print of an innocent household member was found anywhere: on the crib, the radiators, the windows, the walls or any other furniture. None. "I'm damned," said one trooper, "if I don't think somebody washed everything in that nursery before the printmen got there."2 Other cops nodded sagely, yet neither in that immediate investigation nor in the years since has anyone seemed to realize the import of that casual observation.
That evening, a massive investigation began that ultimately involved the total force of the New Jersey State Police, the New York State Police, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies on the State and Federal level. Every lead was tracked down. Thousands of witnesses and potential suspects were routinely picked up and questioned vigorously. In the face of such police interrogation two separate witness/suspects would eventually commit suicide rather than submit to additional police hounding. The reports and investigative notes of the New Jersey State Police alone would total over 100,000 pages.
Citizens got in the act. Reports of children vaguely resembling the Lindbergh child poured in from all over the country. In those years of heady police power before the Supreme Court put teeth into the constitutional protection to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, countless parents in the company of their own young children were arrested, questioned and reluctantly released. One upstate New York couple was stopped so many times in their own town they began carrying a letter from their police chief stating that their child was theirs. They were still stopped. One motorist on a crosscountry trip to California with New Jersey license plates was stopped and arrested twelve times as part of the Lindbergh investigation.
Yet despite the massive investment of police power, no trace of a kidnapping gang was