Rutgers historian: Was Lindbergh kidnapping an inside job?

Eight decades after the crime that transfixed the world, a Rutgers professor has added a thrilling new chapter – evidence that Charles Lindbergh may have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of his son.

Lloyd C. Gardner, professor of history emeritus, points to Lindbergh’s fascination with Social Darwinism and evidence that health problems plaguing his 20-month-old son Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. suggested the child was far from perfect.

Gardner had painstakingly researched the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the “Little Eaglet,” son of the American hero-aviator and his socially prominent wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. His research included the subsequent arrest, trial, conviction and execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for Gardner’s 2004 book The Case that Never Dies: The Lindbergh Kidnapping, published by Rutgers University Press.

Now, after almost another decade of research, Gardner has added a dramatic afterward to his work – the theory that Lindbergh, the “Lone Eagle,” was somehow involved with little Charlie’s abduction. The author also believes the child’s death could have resulted from an accident during the kidnapping, which, to this day, is still considered the crime of the century....