The mysterious kidnapping of famed American aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby could finally be solved.
Experts say one of the envelopes from the ransom notes could hold damning evidence revealing Bruno Hauptmann, who was executed for the shocking crime, may have been the wrong man.
Attorney Kurt W. Perhach has filed a bombshell lawsuit on April 25 in Mercer County Superior Court against the New Jersey State Police seeking to force the police to allow DNA testing on the envelopes used by the kidnapper(s).
There were a total of 13 ransom notes sent, and the lawsuit calls for new forensic testing to find out who licked the envelopes. The lawsuit states that the plaintiffs have complied with the New Jersey Open Public Records Act and the common law right to access public records.
Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., was kidnapped from the bedroom of his Hopewell Township, New Jersey, home on March 1, 1932.
Over the decades, the murder prompted a number of conspiracy theories as to whether Hauptmann acted alone.
Lindberg paid $50,000 in ransom, but some argued that the famed aviator may have been involved in his son’s abduction.
‘The ability to test these envelopes for DNA is a serious opportunity to see who really sent them,’ Perhach told Daily Mail.
‘Why would the state of New Jersey not want to be able to use that method that just helped us net Rex Heuermann. What is the state of New Jersey afraid of?’ he asks.
Sgt. Jeffrey Lebron, from The New Jersey State Police’s office of public information, declined the Daily Mail’s request for comment, saying, ‘State Police does not comment on pending litigation.’
Perhach, who is an attorney for a pharmaceutical firm and the Army reserve, calls the Lindbergh case his ‘passion project’.
‘I stand for transparency, justice and truth,’ he said.
He filed a lawsuit against the state of New Jersey in 2022. He told the Daily Mail that at the June 2023 hearing for that lawsuit, he was handed a 16-page court decision informing him that he lost the lawsuit. He then appealed that decision, and went before the judge once more in October 2024, but it was unsuccessful.
In April, he filed a second lawsuit against the state of New Jersey. There is a hearing scheduled for June 25 with Judge Robert Lougy.
His new suit names three plaintiffs: history professor Jonathan Hagel, developmental psychologist Catherine Read and retired teacher Michele Downie.
He also provides detailed exhibits and a petition signed by people from more than 25 states and seven countries advocating for this forensic testing, among other documents.
‘I have a lot of letters from subject matter experts on the case who have written books about it, retired FBI agents and forensic scientists who talk about how easy it is to scan and pull DNA from pieces of paper,’ he explains.
One of the experts cited in the lawsuit is a genetic genealogist who writes, ‘it has only been recently that DNA testing and analysis have evolved with the potential of testing those envelopes to produce definitive investigative leads that could resolve lingering uncertainties’.
The Lindberg archives are housed in the New Jersey State Police Museum in West Trenton.
In-house archivist Greg Ferrara told the Daily Mail the museum contains original investigation reports and approximately 225,000 documents – including trial documents, correspondence and original state police reports among other things.
He was unable to speak on the lawsuit.
Recently, similar forensic DNA testing was used to identify a group of women found along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County, Long Island.
Valerie Mack, one of the alleged victims of Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann, was identified through mitochondrial DNA analysis.
Karen Vergata, a former Jane Doe, was recently identified through investigative genetic geneology (IGG) along with Tanya Denise ‘Peaches’ Jackson and her child, Tatiana.
Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect Rex Heuermann has been charged in the murders of seven women: Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor and Sandra Costilla.
He has not been criminally charged with the murder of Vergata, Jackson or Tatiana.
Perhach said he is familiar with the Gilgo case but does not claim to be a forensic scientist or expert on the matter – though he is certain the envelopes hold critical information for the Lindbergh case.
‘There are three types of techniques used in cases like these,’ he explained. ‘The easiest one is being able to swab underneath the adhesive that is still attached to different pieces of paper and then collect the sample that way which is usually saliva.
‘Saliva stays for a very long time on adhesive and it is extremely likely that, because the stamp is still attached to the piece of paper and the letters were opened with a letter opener, there would still be DNA.’
He believes it’s ‘more likely than not that the person convicted and executed did not send these notes.’
Perhach explained that ‘everybody who looked at this case from a serious scholastic standpoint, including the police on the scene that night, thought it involved multiple people.’
‘The case would not be alive anymore if everybody thought it was plausible that one person did it and that we got the right person who is the only person,’ he said.
‘It is the crime of the century,’ Downie, one of the plaintiffs, told the Daily Mail.
‘Many cold cases have been found by going back through the DNA,’ she said, adding that there is now technology that didn’t exist 90 years ago. ‘Why not use this technology to close those books?’
The next hearing in the case is due on June 25 and involves a request for DNA testing.
In 1927, Lindbergh changed the face of aviation. He became an American hero after he was the first to pilot a nonstop transatlantic flight, which left from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, and landed in Paris, France. He flew his custom-built aircraft nicknamed Lucky Lindy.
The solo flight brought him instant fame, a $25,000 prize by a prominent French businessman and a distinguished medal from President Calvin Coolidge.
While the recognition was positive, it also meant that the kidnap and murder of his son gained international attention.
Police linked Hauptmann, a carpenter from Germany and immigrant who came to the United States illegally in 1923, to the crime.
The FBI found that tool marks on the ladder matched tools Hauptmann owned and that wood in the ladder matched wood used as flooring in his attic.
His handwriting matched samples from the ransom notes, and the telephone number and address of Dr. John Condon, a representative of the Lindbergh family, was scrawled on a door frame inside a closet in Hauptmann’s home.
Hauptmann was arrested and charged with extortion and murder. Though Hauptmann declared his innocence, he was executed in 1936.
Speculation as to whether he was truly responsible and if he acted alone has remained since.