Death’s Acre by William M. Bass EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Author: William M. Bass
- Language: English
- Genre: Romance
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A DOZEN TINY BONES, nestled in my palm: They were virtually all that
remained, except for yellowed clippings, scratchy newsreel footage, and
painful memories, from what was called “the trial of the century.”
That label seems to get thrown around quite a lot, but in this case, maybe
it was right. Seven years after the Scopes “Monkey Trial” and half a century
before the O.J. Simpson debacle, America was mesmerized by a criminal
investigation and murder trial that made headlines around the world. Now I
was to decide whether justice had been done, or an innocent man had been
wrongly executed.
The case was the kidnapping and death of a toddler named Charles
Lindbergh Jr.—known far and wide as “the Lindbergh baby.”
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh, a former barnstormer and airmail pilot, had
flown a small, single-engine plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, across the
Atlantic Ocean. He did it alone, with no radio or parachute or sextant,
staying awake and on course for thirty-three hours straight. By the time he
reached the coast of France, news of his flight had reached Paris, and
Parisians by the thousands flocked to the airfield to welcome him. The
moment he touched down, 3,600 miles after leaving New York, the world
changed, and so did Charles Lindbergh’s life. His achievement brought him
fame, fortune, and a pair of nicknames: “Lucky Lindy,” which he hated, and
“the Lone Eagle,” which reflected both his solo flight and his solitary
nature.
Five years after he flew into the limelight, Lindbergh and his wife, Anne,
were living in a secluded New Jersey mansion. They had a twenty-monthold son; his parents named him Charles Jr. but journalists called him “the
Eaglet.” It was the heyday of sensational journalism, and savvy reporters
and publishers knew that a Lindbergh story—almost any Lindbergh story—
was a surefire way to sell newspapers. So when the heir and namesake of
Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped, a media frenzy broke out: The case
attracted more journalists than World War I had. The ransom notes—at first
demanding $50,000, then later upping the ante to $70,000—made frontpage headlines and newsreel footage; so did the claims, emerging from
towns throughout America, that the Lindbergh baby had been found alive
and well. But all those claims, and all those hopes, were laid to rest two
months after the kidnapping, when a small child’s body was found in the
woods a few miles from the Lindbergh mansion. The body was badly
decomposed; the left leg was missing below the knee, as were the left hand
and right arm—chewed off, it appeared, by animals.
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