Bruno Richard Hauptmann (26 November 1899-3 April 1936) was a German-American carpenter who was convicted of and executed for the 1932 abduction and murder of the 20-month-old child Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr..
Biography[]
Bruno Richard Hauptmann was born in Kamenz, Saxony, German Empire, the youngest of five children. In 1917, his father and his two brothers died at the same year, with his brothers being killed in action in France and Russia during World War I. Hauptmann himself served in the Imperial German Army during the war, serving as a machine-gunner and fighting at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, being wounded in a gas attack, and again being wounded by shrapnel. In 1923, he stowed away aboard a passenger ship bound for the United States, arriving in New York City in November 1923. Hauptmann became a carpenter and married a fellow German immigrant. In 1932, he was accused of the kidnapping of the infant Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr. on 1 March, and he was arrested on 4 September 1934 after a bank teller recognized that the serial number on a gold certificate given to him by Hauptmann matched that of a bill used for Charles Jr.'s ransom payment. Hauptmann was never proven to have been at the scene of the crime, none of his fingerprints were found on the ladder used to abduct Charles, and there was also no trace of his DNA on the ransom notes or in the nursery. On 3 April 1936, he was executed on the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. He maintained his absolute innocence until his death.