Check out this NYT article about renewed interest in the 1932 case of the abduction and murder of 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh, Jr.
Bruno Hauptmann was executed for the crime in 1936. Hauptmann’s great-great-niece and the niece’s aunt recently provided DNA samples hoping the New Jersey courts will permit modern DNA testing to shed light on the truth in this case. Was an innocent man executed?
Part of the article examines claims by an author that Charles Lindbergh himself was involved in the homicide, having allowed the baby to be subjected to scientific experimentation of the type favored by the Nazis in an effort to help Lindbergh’s sister-in-law, who had a damaged heart valve.
The article explains that there is already an unrelated legal challenge in New Jersey over a request to test the salvia on the stamped ransom envelopes for DNA. The lower court’s ruling against release of the envelopes for testing is on appeal. The New Jersey attorney general’s office has opposed the request, arguing that the integrity of the historical items outweighs the interest in DNA testing and will “permanently alter and potentially damage the items.” (WTF?)
Check this out: In 1981, the New Jersey governor issued an executive order making all records in the Lindbergh investigation available to the public for research. An archivist at the New Jersey State Police H.Q. oversees 225,000 documents in the case.
Maybe in 2065, the Michigan State Police can open their archives in the Oakland County Child Killer case for the public to do research/their jobs for them.
There is also a stamped envelope in the OCCK case, the “Allen” letter, written by an alleged accomplice of the OCCK and sent to Dr. Bruce Danto. When I wrote this post in 2022, I did not have confirmation about whether the Allen letter was in evidence. https://catherinebroad.blog/2022/08/22/dna-from-letter-helps-solve-34-year-old-cold-case-murder-of-pa-mom/ . I’ve since learned it very much is.
In 1979, a 90-second segment of a tape of a phone call to Dr. Bruce Danto on April 10, 1977, was aired on WXYZ radio. The caller claimed to know who the OCCK was and was thought to also be the author of the “Allen” letter.
The contents of the letter were reported in the press back in the day, but to my knowledge the state police never shared a copy of the actual written letter.
The letter and stamp should be tested for DNA. As a reader recently pointed out, this letter seemed to have been written by someone of limited mental capacity such as John Crosbie, one of the last people to see Mark Stebbins alive at the VFW Hall before he was abducted.
The reader also reminded me of mistakes made in what DNA testing has been done in this case. First of all, police officers document that the DNA evidence of Mark’s crime scene, John Crosbie’s car, and Arch Sloan’s car were intermixed. That means the unknown DNA may have originated from Crosbie’s car and not Sloan’s car as suspected. (You didn’t report on that little problem at your press conference in July 2012, did you Jessica Cooper? You didn’t even understand the evidence described to you.)
Adding to the problems here, the reader points out the source of DNA for Crosbie was his sister. They share mDNA. His sister does not have Y-str DNA given she is female and has no Y- chromosome. If the Y-str DNA found in Kristine was from Crosbie then the DNA of Crosbie’s sister would miss it.
Likewise the source of DNA for Crosbie’s criminal sidekick, Yarbrough, seemed to be his sons. Father and sons do not share mDNA. Males receive mDNA from their mother but males can not pass it on. If the mDNA at the crime scenes and in the car were Yarbrough’s then the DNA from the sons would miss it.
Unlike the Hauptmann case, there is no potentially innocent man who could be cleared. Police and prosecutors had no intention of putting a “nice little bow” on the OCCK case. Not then, not now. Limbo is much better for them.
There is DNA from numerous suspects in this case–none of them ever cleared–primarily because for reasons known only to the state police and the state lab, there is a steadfast refusal to have a third-party lab evaluate the evidence in this case. They’ll polygraph and clear anybody, but additional DNA testing of the evidence. . . now that’s asking an awful lot. We reserve that for the easy cold cases where the evidence was properly collected and stored.
Digitize the entire OCCK case file. Minimally redact it as you go and no illegal redactions. Make it available to the public. Submit the “Allen” letter and envelope to a third party lab, not your pals at the state lab, and test for DNA. Consult with Othram on this case and test or retest every viable piece of evidence in this case. Report publicly on the results, as we know you will never charge anyone in this case. Fucking apologize to the memory of those four kids and every citizen of Michigan for your failures in this case and take steps to make sure you never pull this shit again. And, Karen McDonald, when you are done with the mass shooter’s father next week, do what you promised and speak to survivors of your county’s child sex rings from the OCCK era. The truth matters and so does your word.
Hauptmann’s great-great niece said in the above article that her goal “was to expose the limits of science and justice in the 1930s.” I have already exposed that the limits of science and justice in the OCCK case remain stuck in 1977, when they were under the control of the least trustworthy and most criminal prosecutor ever to hold office in Michigan. So much for your J.D. version of eugenics, you freak.
Today the county and state remain immovable. They remain mute. Maybe readers of the NYT in 2069 will read about the continued efforts to get you and then your successors to do the bare minimum. More likely, and as planned, none of it will never be proved, one way or the other.
