Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 19, 1994 TAG: 9410190058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA LENGTH: Medium
Anna Hauptmann died Oct. 10 at a hospital in Lancaster, Pa. She was 95. The Lancaster New Era newspaper reported her death Tuesday.
Hauptmann had spent her final years trying in vain to clear her husband of the 1932 killing of the 20-month-old son and namesake of aviator Charles Lindbergh.
``In my mind, Anna Hauptmann was a heroine,'' said Robert Bryan, a lawyer who helped her investigate the case. ``She deserved better than what the world gave her.''
Bruno Hauptmann, a German immigrant carpenter, was accused of kidnapping the boy from the Lindbergh nursery in Hopewell, N.J. Hauptmann denied it. His wife insisted he was with her the night the child was taken.
Prosecutors said Hauptmann made a ladder to reach the nursery window, but that when the ladder collapsed, the child was killed. Two months later, the body was found in a shallow grave several miles away.
The evidence against Hauptmann included ransom money found in his garage and a handwriting analysis that indicated he wrote 14 ransom notes. He was convicted in 1935 and executed in 1936.
Anna Hauptmann, who never remarried, hired Bryan, a San Francisco death-penalty specialist, to help her cause in 1981.
``God knows that my husband was innocent,'' she said in 1986. ``I'm going to fight for him until the very last. He had to die because people lied.''
Her lawyer said documents released in recent years showed that police and prosecutors threatened and bribed witnesses to testify against her husband. However, her lawsuits against the state of New Jersey, alleging fraud and wrongful death, were rejected.
Most scholars believe Hauptmann was guilty.
``I'm absolutely convinced of her sincerity, which is really a testimony to how a person can delude themselves into a false belief,'' said James Fisher, author of the 1987 book ``The Lindbergh Case.'' ``She simply could not accept the fact that she had been married to a man who had done something so despicable.''
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.