ptmann verdict, and indeed the entire investigation that led to Bruno Hauptmann's arrest, conviction, and execution. In its most dramatic form as presented, for example, by Anthony Scaduto2 this view argues that the entire case against Bruno Hauptmann was a frame up, and the legal proceedings a railroad. The authorities, according to the Scaduto school of thought, were under tremendous public and political pressure to solve the high profile Lindbergh kidnapping case. When no genuine suspect emerged, they used a mixture of real circumstancial evidence and bogus "scientific" evidence to pin the crime on Hauptmann.
Scaduto goes further however, to suggest that in fact the investigators not only had reason to know that Hauptmann had not committed the crime, but to believe that one Paul Wendel, a
1Newman Levy, "Justice Goes Tabloid," The American Mercury, 34 (April, 1935), 385 92.
2Anthony Scaduto, Scapegoat: the Lonesome Death of Bruno Richard Hauptmann (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1976).
...