By Howard Chua-Eoan of Time Magazine. Thursday, Mar. 01, 2007:
On a winter’s night 75 years ago, a child was stolen out of a house in New Jersey. He was no ordinary infant but the “Eaglet,” the 20-month-old son of the aviator Charles Lindbergh, America’s great hero who, just five years before, had become the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. For the next two and a half months, America and much of the world were riveted by daily updates and speculation from the police search for baby Charles. Suspicion spared no one — not even the Lindberghs. In April, news spread that a ransom had been paid but still no child was recovered.
Finally, in May, a battered, mutilated little corpse was found by the side of the road, not far from the Lindberghs’ home. Baby Charles had been bludgeoned to death not long after he had been kidnapped. The resulting trial, sentencing and execution of German carpenter and ex-convict Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the crime would extend the infamy of the case four more years. But the Lindbergh kidnapping had become more than just a particularly heinous act. It had become the Crime of the Century. Many other crimes have earned the distinction — but what makes an infamous event deserving of the title Crime of the Century?