Stolen Away

Slim Lindbergh went on to have something in common with Dick Hauptmann: both of them suffered due to anti-German sentiment. Lindbergh, while living in England, was invited by Major Truman Smith, military attaché at the American Embassy in Berlin, to inspect the German air forces, with the blessing of General Goering, head of the Luftwaffe. Here began Lindbergh’s ill-fated association with Germany—he at one point accepted a Service Cross from Goering—which resulted in his isolationist stance concerning the war in Europe. He was branded pro-Nazi by the press and public who had so recently idolized him; after America’s entry into the war, he flew as a test pilot and on combat missions—but the Nazi-sympathizer image stuck. Perhaps this wasn’t all bad—he finally could have the anonymity and privacy he’d craved. He continued his research on matters aeronautic and otherwise, including inventing an early artificial heart. He and Anne raised four more children. In 1974, he died on the island of Maui, where he had lived, and where he is buried.

Some of the others are, as I write this, still alive. Several of the cops and reporters. Betty Gow, still in England. Anne Lindbergh, whose literary skill has won her fame of her own. Anna Hauptmann, who after quietly raising her son in obscurity, reentered the public eye in the 1970s, fighting in the press and in the courts to clear her husband’s name.

Over the years a number of men came forward claiming to be, or expressing the suspicion that they might be, Charles Lindbergh, Jr. One of these was an advertising executive from Michigan who, starting four or five years ago, contacted me several times for information about the case.

His name was Harlan C. Jensen—the “C” stood for Carl—and he was always quiet and respectful in our several phone conversations; he seemed not at all a crank, but I wasn’t terribly cooperative. I did hear him out on a couple occasions.

He had been raised in Escabana, Michigan, by Bill and Sara Jensen. When he was a young boy, he was told (by an uncle) that his mother and father were not his natural parents; naturally, he wondered about this, and as a young teenager confronted his father, who said only that “you’re legitimate.” Before he went to Korea, for combat in 1952, his mother’s cousin had confided in him that “family rumor” had it that he was Charles Lindbergh, Jr.

Several years later, on his honeymoon, Harlan and his wife had been in a boatyard in Wickford, Rhode Island, where they were enjoying the nautical scenery while they waited to catch the ferry to Cape Cod. An elderly woman approached, with a redheaded woman in her twenties, and introduced herself as Mrs. Kurtzel. She said to Jensen, “You were with us as a baby—I helped care for you. This is my daughter—she was like your sister.” Jensen had been understandably taken aback, but then the woman said, “May I feel the dent in your head?” Shocked that a stranger knew about this defect, which he’d been told was from a slip of the forceps during delivery, he allowed her to touch the back of his head.

“You are the Lindbergh baby,” she said. “I helped care for you.”

At this point, the ferry arrived, and Jensen and his bride left, covering their confusion and fear with nervous laughter.

He began to read about the Lindbergh case, but rejected the notion that Bill and Sara Jensen were not his real parents. He never talked to them about the “family rumor,” but on their respective deathbeds, each parent had tried to tell him something. His mother had become ill while he was in Korea and had lapsed into a coma before he could get home to be at her side; his father, suffering a stroke in 1967, struggled to give his son some message, but could not make himself understood.

Years later, in a medical exam for recurring headaches, Jensen was shown X-rays and told by a doctor that his skull had been severely fractured in his early childhood. Also, the doctor asked why he’d had so much plastic surgery as a child—Jensen said that he wasn’t aware that he had. But the doctor demonstrated on the X-rays that reconstructive surgery had taken place beneath his eyes and on his chin, possibly removing a cleft.

He had begun, then, in earnest, making a search for his identity his spare-time obsession. Unlike the others who claimed to be Charles Lindbergh, Jr., Jensen had disclaimed any rights to the Lindbergh estate, putting that in writing in a letter to the probate judge on Maui.

There was more, but I wouldn’t let him tell me. I told him I was retired from the detective business, that the Lindbergh case was something I didn’t think about anymore, and had no interest in discussing with anybody. He called, I think, three times, telling me a little more of his story each time.