Author Archives: Garry Rodgers

About Garry Rodgers

After three decades as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police homicide detective and British Columbia coroner, International Best Selling author and blogger Garry Rodgers has an expertise in death and the craft of writing on it. Now retired, he wants to provoke your thoughts about death and help authors give life to their words.

ON THE FLOOR — NEW BASED-ON-TRUE-CRIME BOOK BY GARRY RODGERS

Savage… Shocking… Senseless… Who would order two seniors to lie on the floor of their gun store, then cold-bloodedly execute these defenseless people with gunshots to the back of their heads? That was the fate of Berndt and Erika Lankenau in their business, Shooting Sports Supply, on Vancouver Island at Canada’s west coast. On The Floor is Book 5 in my ongoing Based-On-True-Crime Series. The other series books are In The Attic, Under The Ground, From The Shadows, and Beside The Road. Between The Bikers is now in the first-draft stage.

On The Floor takes you inside an actual double murder investigation with real police procedures. You’ll travel with the detective and forensic team as they meticulously examine a complex crime scene and you’ll follow a trail of clues that end in a massive confrontation with who committed this heinous crime.

This book comes with a warning: On The Floor is based on a true crime story. It’s not embellished or abbreviated. Explicit descriptions of the crime scenes, factual dialogue, real forensic procedures, and actual police investigation, interview, and interrogation techniques are portrayed. Some names, times, and locations have been changed for privacy concerns and commercial purposes. Here’s the Prologue along with the first two chapters.

On The Floor — Book 5 in the Based-On-True-Crime Series

**New Release — August 2020**

Prologue — Saturday, January 11th – 5:30 pm

“On the floor!”
Erika Lankenau and her husband, Berndt, stood in silent shock.
“Get on the floor! Facedown! On the floor!”
The owners of Shooting Sports Supply, a prominent Vancouver Island gun store, froze.
Erika’s mouth opened. No words came out.
Berndt Lankenau hesitantly raised his hands.  His empty palms faced forward.
“You heard it! Get on the fucking floor! Right fucking now!”
“Vat… vat is dis business?” sixty-nine-year-old Berndt asked in his German accent.
“Just do what you’re told and no one gets hurt.”
Erika, sixty-four, bent her knees. “Do as ve’re told, Berndt. Do as ve’re told.”
“Listen to her, old man. Get your face down on the fucking floor, or you’re dead.”
Berndt swallowed. He kept eye contact. Slowly, Berndt lowered to one knee and put his right hand on the hard floor. “Ve don’t vant no trouble.”
Erika lay in a prone position, face on the cold concrete with her left arm stretched ahead. Her right hand felt for Berndt.
Berndt also obeyed. His arms reached beyond his head and his face was on the floor.
“One… Two… Three.”
Ba-Bang! Bang!

Chapter One — Sunday, January 12th – 9:15 am

My cell toned. I looked at the call display. Oh… Oh… It’s Leaky and it’s Sunday morning.
“Hey, Jim.” I called him by his real name, Detective Staff Sergeant Jim Lewis. Not by his nickname, Leaky Lewis.
“Hope you have no plans for the day.” Leaky sounded serious, and he was.
“Nothing that important.” I did, but I knew this would trump what I was in the middle of.     “What’s up?”
Leaky paused, then told me, “Looks like we got two bodies in Shooting Sports Supply. They’re motionless. Facedown on the floor.”
I paused, too. I knew the business, including the owners, Berndt and Erika Lankenau. I also knew Ripley Rafter who worked with the Lankenaus. Ripley—everyone called him Rip—was a retired patrol sergeant from our department and a gun enthusiast, through and through.
“Uh-oh. What does it look like?” I felt like I’d just received a next-of-kin notification.
“I haven’t been there yet.” Leaky hadn’t. Leaky rarely went far from the office or his home because he suffered a chronic case of urinary drip.
“Who has the scene?” I was mentally preparing. My gut said this wasn’t good. And it wasn’t.
“Uniforms have it secured. No one’s been in yet. The placed is locked like a vault. Unless we get keys, we’ll have to cut our way in.”
I tried to picture it. I’d been in Shooting Sports Supply many times over the years that I served as a detective and Emergency Response Team marksman, or sniper as some call it. Shooting Sports Supply was the leading gun store in Nanaimo, a seaside city of a hundred thousand on the southeast side of Vancouver Island in British Columbia on Canada’s west coast. Nanaimo is right across from the City of Vancouver—one of the most exotic, erotic, and expensive places on the planet.
“How do you know… can you see them through the windows or something?” I envisioned standing outside Shooting Sports and looking through the bars behind the glass.
“That’s what I understand.” I knew Leaky nodded. He talked on the phone like he spoke in person. Leaky was an amicable guy and my supervisor at the Serious Crimes Section. He was junior to me in service but then, so was everyone else. I was the oldest on the detective squad and mulling retirement.
“So, is someone locating the keys, or a torch, or something?” I asked a logical question.
Leaky probably nodded again. “Yeah, Harry is tracking down the owners’ son. Our property index shows the primary contact as Mister and Missus Lankenau. They didn’t answer their phones, and there was no one home at their house. Speculation is it’s them dead on the floor.”
“Wait.” I processed this. “How do you know they’re dead?” Something wasn’t making sense.
“Well, ah… you can see through the window.” Leaky sounded slightly annoyed.
“I know you can see through a window, but how do you know there are two dead bodies?”
Leaky hesitated, then slightly chuckled. “Who’s on first… No. I haven’t been there myself. Harry has. She was in the office when the call came in reporting something suspicious inside. A uniform dropped by to check. The lights are on inside, but the doors are locked. He, the uniform, could see the shapes of two people lying face down about twenty-five feet ahead along the main aisle. So the Watch Commander called for Serious Crimes and Harry just happened to be in the office. Harry says it sure looks like two dead bodies to her, so she’s now on a mission to get in.”
Harry was my partner on the Serious Crimes Section. Her real name was Sheryl. Sheryl Henderson. Sheryl was a large lady with large hair and an even larger personality. We called her Harry after the Bigfoot on the movie Harry and the Hendersons.
“Okay.” I slowly got the picture. “So how did this start? Who first found it and called it in?”
I could hear Leaky sipping his coffee. I’d hinted Leaky should cut coffee out as it only made his incontinence worse.
Leaky continued. “From what I understand… and this is hearsay… a customer dropped by to see if Shooting Sports Supply was open, even though it’s Sunday. The front door was secured, but he was puzzled because the lights were on and it looked like they were open. He… the customer who I think is one of our reserve officers… don’t quote me. He rattled the door, tapped on the glass, and peered through the main window.”
“Okay.”
“So the customer takes a jolt when he sees the forms of two people that looked like they were facedown on the floor half-way down the aisle. At first, the guy thought they were dummies. Like, placed there as some sort of weird scarecrows in case someone planned a burglary. Then, he does a double-take and sees what looks like dried blood pools around their heads.”
“Uh… oh…” I pictured it.
“Yeah. Sure doesn’t sound like an accident or kinky double suicide to me.”
“No…”
“I think we got something nasty here. I want us getting inside as soon as possible. Also, I want to ass-cover with paramedics just in case there’s still life.”
“Doesn’t sound hopeful.”
When Leaky said dried blood around the head and face down on the floor, it hit home.
I feared they’d been executed in a robbery.

Chapter Two — Sunday, January 12th – 10:05 am

I pulled my unmarked Explorer into the Shooting Sports Supply parking lot. It was a small strip mall in a light industrial area of central Nanaimo, across from the main Golf & Country Club. The complex had mixed-use businesses surrounding the gun store that ranged from a fireplace dealer to a karate school.
There was a small group mustered outside the front door. They were adjacent to a large, freestanding electric sign that bore the triple-S logo set in a circle and designed to represent a telescopic sight with crosshairs. Two marked police cars sat without their emergencies flashing, and two uniformed officers stood with their hands in their pockets. I recognized both, but I was lost for their names. Our department now exceeded one hundred and eighty sworn officers. Then, we employed a host of civilians in support roles.
I recognized another guy dressed in combat pants with a duty vest overtop of his issue jacket. He was Matt Halfyard, an understudy with the Forensic Identification Section. We called Matt Eighteen Inches.
I also recognized a reserve officer who’d been with our force for a long time. Randy Mellow shuffled from foot to foot and kept blowing on his hands. I didn’t know if he was trying to warm himself or if he was shaken up.
I didn’t blame him for wanting warmth. Even though the Nanaimo area of Vancouver Island has the mildest climate in Canada, the winter months are wet and chilly. The low temperature especially affected me as I suffered from Reynaud’s Syndrome. That’s a hereditary condition where I lost feeling in my fingers and toes when the mercury dropped below 40 Fahrenheit. Fortunately, my wife had bought me a pair of electric mitts, and I wasn’t afraid to wear them.
“What does it look like, Matt?” That was my standard opening line.
Matt also looked cold. He’d already recorded the outdoor scene temperature. It was 36 degrees, slightly above freezing, and it wouldn’t get much warmer for a few days yet. The overnight rain had stopped, but the clouds hung low. A haze shrouded the golf course across the street. It looked… ghostly.
“This is nasty. Real nasty.” Matt pulled no punches. “I’ve called Cheryl to attend. I think this scene is over my head.” Matt referred to Sergeant Cheryl Hunter, our senior forensic examiner. She was also Matt’s tutor and mentor.
“What’s happening with keys to get in?” I hadn’t talked to Harry yet. I phoned her, but she didn’t answer. That wasn’t unusual. I also didn’t leave a voice message for Harry because her greeting quite annoyed me.
“We’re waiting for Sheryl Henderson,” Matt said. “She couldn’t find the gun store owners… I think obviously… and their son, their next-of-kin, is listed as a contact person in case of an emergency. His name is Mike… Mike Lankenau and Sheryl can’t track him down either. We might have to call a locksmith.”
“Let’s hold off on that.” I shook my head. “I don’t want anyone involved with the scene more than absolutely necessary.”
One of the uniforms gave me a sideways look.
“Naw.” I shook my head. “That doesn’t include you guys. We need perimeter security, and we’ll have to clear the building before any scene exam starts. Tell you what. You two can start with a walk around the site. See if anyone is around and if they saw or heard anything. Also, look for unusual stuff. You know… something discarded from the scene, like in the dumpsters.”
The two uniforms spread out. One started a clockwise trip through the complex. The other went counterclockwise.
I turned to Randy. “I take it you found them. Has anyone taken a statement from you yet?”
“Yes. I reported it.” Randy nodded. “And no. No statement yet.” He shook his head.
“All right.” I motioned to my vehicle. “While we’re waiting to get the building open, jump in my Explorer and I’ll turn a recorder on.” I also turned on the heat which pleased both of us. This is what he told me:

——

“Okay, my name is Randy Mellow and I’m a reserve police officer with the Nanaimo department. I also work in my day job as a security systems technician. Just after nine a.m. this morning, I stopped by Shooting Sports Supply. I know it’s Sunday, but Berndt and Erika often stay open weekends. I left a rifle here to get a new scope mounted and… and I wanted to see if it was ready so I could go to the range and sight it in.
“First thing I noticed was the lights were on so I thought Great. They’re open. So I went up and pulled on the door and it was locked. That’s funny, I thought. I could also hear noise coming from inside like a loud radio playing.
“So I looked in the front window… I had to shield the glare… but I didn’t see anyone. I rapped on the glass and called out… loud… to get over the radio but no one answered. I gave it a few minutes and a few more knocks because I thought they might be in the back. In the gunsmithing shop. Not the retail area.
“Then I realized something was wrong. Like real wrong. They stood out… the bodies on the floor. At first, I thought they were a couple of dummies or mannequins as some kind of a joke or to scare off anyone trying to break in. Then I realized they were real… real people.”

——

Randy stopped. He caught his breath, swallowed, and carried on.
“I called it in to 911 and I waited here to give a statement. I knew I’d have to.”
“Describe what you saw.” I gave him a prompt.
“They were… they are… side by side lying on the floor with their faces down in the main aisle… about twenty or twenty-five feet in from the front door. I know it’s Berndt and Erika. I can tell from their looks and their clothes. I know… knew… them well. A lot of officers do… did.” Randy choked up.
“It’s okay. Go on.”
“Anyway… Erika is lying to the left. Berndt is lying beside her to the right. Their heads are facing away from the door… what direction is that… I guess kind of south.”
“Please describe their condition.”
He swallowed and continued. “To me, there’s no question they’re dead. No question. They’re in a facedown position on that cold concrete floor and are motionless. There is also…”
He halted. I thought he was going to break down, but he sniffed and went on.
“Please excuse me. Berndt and Erika are… were… my friends. They’re friends to a lot of us on the force. You, too, I imagine.”
Randy was right. The Lankenaus weren’t close friends of mine, but I certainly knew them from going in their gun store over the years. I was also friends with Rip Rafter and he hadn’t been located. I feared Rip might also be dead on the floor in the back.
He went on. “You can see brown staining on the… on the floor underneath them. To me, it looks like… dried bloodstains.”

——

Harry drove up. She was in her personal vehicle—a brand new silver-gray Range Rover. I finished recording Randy Mellow’s statement and got out. Harry got out, too.
“No luck with the goddam keys.” Harry shook her head. “I think the only fucking way we’ll get in there is a locksmith. Cutting the bars and smashing the glass sounds a little harsh. Especially since they’re already toast. Have you seen them?”
“No, I haven’t.” I knew I had plenty of time to do that. “What about Rip Rafter?”
Harry slurped from her stainless steel Starbucks mug. “I phoned there and then drove over. No one’s home, but Rip’s truck is gone. So is his boat. I think the old fucker’s gone fishing.”
That was a relief. I also didn’t see Rip’s truck in the Shooting Sports Supply lot, but the Lankenaus’ Jeep Cherokee was here. Locked up.
“And you can’t find the son… Mike Lankenau?” This concerned me. I knew a bit about the Lankenau family history, and some of it wasn’t smooth.
“Nope.” Harry slurped again. “He’s not answering the phone number we have on file, and there’s no one home at the address we have for him. But… that doesn’t mean either one is current. You know how accurate our contact system is, eh?”
I nodded. “And you went by Berndt and Erika’s place?”
“Yeah. It’s as dead as they are.”
“Okay. A locksmith it is.”
I Googled Gallazin Locksmiths, got their emergency number, and made a call.

——

Harry and I waited in my Explorer. We kept Randy Mellow at the scene. I had him stay out front of Shooting Sports and keep watch for any unexpected, although highly unlikely, movement inside. The two uniforms were still dumpster diving, and Matt Halfyard wandered around taking exterior photos and video.
It was Harry who said it.
“Don’t you find it strange these people are locked inside their own store? Like, that’s a manual deadbolt on the front door. It doesn’t lock automatically. Whoever did this had to have locked the door from the outside when they left and took off with their fucking keys.”

You can read the rest of On The Floor at Amazon, Kobo or Nook.

 

 

WHO REALLY KIDNAPPED AND KILLED CHARLES LINDBERGH’S CHILD?

They call it The Crime of the Century—the 20th century that is. On March 1st in 1932, famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s twenty-month-old son was brazenly snatched from his second-story nursery at the Lindbergh mansion outside Hopewell, New Jersey. The boy was found dead in nearby woods on May 12th. In 1934, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was charged, convicted, and executed in the electric chair for being the sole perpetrator of the crime. But was he?

The “Little Lindy Case” is an armchair detective’s delight. It’s been one for nearly ninety years and shows no sign of going away. There are dissenting sides in the Bruno Hauptmann camp. Some say he was guilty as hell. Some say he was totally innocent—as he steadfastly proclaimed up to the moment they ran 10,000 volts through his head. And some say he had a part, for sure, but other co-conspirators were involved.

Hauptmann was caught red-handed with marked ransom money as well as being linked to the crime through indisputable physical evidence. There’s no denying this. However, there were no eyewitnesses or anything other than circumstantial factors that secured Hauptmann’s fate. He never confessed and proclaimed total innocence to the end.

Were there others who kidnapped and killed Charles Augustus Lindbergh Junior or “Little Lindy” as he was known? Let’s look at the case facts that have been so well presented and preserved over the years.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh Senior was nothing special before he burst into fame. Lindbergh was the first man to fly solo and non-stop from America to Europe in 1927. A relative once said, “If it weren’t for surviving that flight, he’d have ended up running a gas station in Minnesota.”

But the world was ready for a hero like Charles Lindbergh in the pre-depression days when heroes were rare and the markets were tanking. Lindbergh was a poster boy of bravado, daring, and handsomeness and that led him to money. He married millionaire socialite Anne Morrow in 1929 and they produced a son, Charles Jr. in 1930.

Charles and Anne Lindbergh relished privacy after being world-famous celebrities. They’d hobnobbed with presidents and royalty and business leaders and everyone in the ranks of entertainment, publishing, and charity. They needed a getaway and built a home in rural New Jersey which was far from the New York madness.

A nanny laid Little Lindy to rest in his crib at nine p.m. on the night of March 1, 1932. She returned for a check at ten and the toddler was gone. Charles Lindbergh was in the home at the time and he took over—finding a handwritten ransom note near the sill of the open window. It demanded $50,000 for the child’s safe return.

The local police contacted the New Jersey State Police for help. A search of an already-contaminated crime scene (caused by the Lindbergh family interference) found three clues later proving vital. First was the note that was handled by many. Second was a home-made wooden ladder with peculiar construction thought to be used by the perpetrator(s) to climb to the second-floor window for access. Third was a wood chisel found lying on the ground below the window.

By the next day, the Lindbergh kidnapping news hit the wire and went world-wide. Masses of curiosity seekers plagued the mansion scene and any attempt to keep negotiations secret was shattered. Already, theories formed and frauds threatened to take a focused investigation into the gutter.

On March 5, Charles Lindbergh Sr. got a follow-up communication in the mail. It was also handwritten and obviously done by the first note’s hand. This led to an intermediator being appointed to negotiate with the note writer. A series of fifteen hand-written notes or communiques followed before the $50,000 in ransom was delivered to a shadowy man with a German accent in a dark New York cemetery.

Charles Lindbergh Jr.’s body was accidentally discovered on May 12, 1932. It was 75 feet off the road, 2 miles from the Lindbergh home. The remains were decomposed and consistent with death occurring at the same time of the abduction. An autopsy found a fractured skull, but the true cause of death couldn’t be established.

All law enforcement levels helped in the Lindbergh case. One was the Internal Revenue Service who devised a clever plan to mark the ransom money. They used a controlled amount of “Gold Currency Notes” that had individual serial numbers, therefore being identifiable to the Lindbergh case.

The genius of the “Gold Notes” is that the U.S. Treasury already planned to move off a gold-based currency system by 1933. This wasn’t public knowledge at the time of the ransom payment and the bills would be recognized as common tender. The IRS people knew, however, that these notes would soon be publicly recalled and note-holders would be required to cash them in or lose the value. That would force the ransom notes to be circulated instead of hoarded.

The plan worked.

Shortly after the payment, the IRS and the police distributed a serial number list of ransom Gold Currency notes to all banks in the New York and New Jersey area. Sporadically, marked bills showed up in the Bronx region but no pattern emerged. But once the Gold Note recall came, marked bills flooded the region.

In September 1934, a Bronx service station manager received a $10 Gold Currency note. He knew nothing of the trap, but he knew of the recall and protected himself against counterfeit by recording the passer’s car license number on the bill—New York marker 4U-13-41. The manager deposited the marked bill at his bank where an astute teller checked the serial number and found it was a Lindbergh bill.

The police ran the plate. It came back to Bruno Richard Hauptmann of 1279 East 222 Street in the Bronx. They surveilled the place, arrested Hauptmann leaving home, and found another marked Gold Currency bill in his wallet. The search of his home found a lot, lot more.

Bruno Hauptmann was a thirty-five-year-old illegal immigrant from Germany. He was once deported from the US because of his European criminal record—a loner and cat-burglar with an MO of using ladders to access second-story windows. Hauptmann also had a carpentry background with the skills and tools to make a wooden ladder.

The police searched Hauptmann’s premises. In his garage was over $13,000 of the marked ransom money cleverly rolled up and hidden inside specially-made wooden boxes. That included more Gold Currency notes as well as standard United States Treasury bills.

The police also found materials and tools consistent with building the wooden ladder found at the scene, a matching toolset to the scene wood chisel, and significant writing samples that linked Bruno Hauptmann to the fifteen notes written to the Lindberghs.

Bruno Hauptmann was tried before a New Jersey jury in 1935. It was the “Trial of the Century” by any standards and was a media circus. After weeks of evidence from hundreds of witnesses, the jury unanimously convicted Hauptmann of kidnapping and murdering Charles Lindberg Jr. in the first degree.

There were motions and appeals and short stays, but Bruno Hauptmann lost his life to Old Sparky on April 3, 1936. He never confessed or named accomplices. Till the switch was thrown, Hauptmann denied all involvement.

Despite what seemed like a clear-cut case, this muddied matter has had intense scrutiny since day one. It still has. There are online cults that would slit their wrists for a chance at post-death clemency for what they believe was a wrongful conviction and the execution of an innocent man.

Why do they believe that? It seems like despite the evidence and how fair the process, it’s simply impossible to convince some people of the truth when they already have a mindset to want the alternative. Here are the main evidence points in what led to Bruno Hauptmann’s conviction.

The Ransom Notes

The first note surfaced inside the room where Charles Lindbergh Jr. was abducted. It was hand-written in particular ink on particular paper. The writing was unique in that it was script with printed numerals and the signature was absolutely outstanding.

The note writer used a pattern of two colored and overlapping dots with three holes perforated through them. No doubt, this was foreplaning to identify the real kidnapper from copycats. This signature remained consistent through the subsequent fourteen more notes delivered to the Lindberghs.

Hauptmann’s known handwriting specimens matched the ransom notes. The best experts in the fields agreed on this. The defense, at trial, could not rebut this. Also, similar paper with matching tears was in his house as well as matching writing implements and the hole-punching tool. Bruno Hauptmann wrote those notes and there was no denial.

The Wooden Ladder

The homemade wooden ladder also sunk Bruno Hauptmann. It was found fifty feet from the abduction second-story window and it was unique. It was made, according to professional opinions, by someone with carpentry skills and was designed to be disassembled in three pieces so it could be transported in a passenger car.

A wood expert with impeccable credentials testified about the ladder at Hauptmann’s trial. He was able to trace wood components in the scene ladder to pieces Hauptmann had sourced at a lumber supplier Hauptmann had worked for as well as boards coming from the attic floor in Hauptmann’s house.

The expert physically matched what’s known as “Rung 16” to Hauptmann’s attic boards through wood grains, nail holes, knots, cuts, plane marks, and species. There was no question—in the expert’s or the jury members’ minds—that Bruno Hauptmann personally manufactured this ladder with materials and tools found at his home.

The Tools

The scene search at the Lindbergh residence found a wood chisel on the ground below the nursery window. It was a “Buck Brothers” brand with a ¾ inch cutting width. When the police searched Bruno Hauptmann’s garage/workshop, they found a matching set of “Buck Brothers” wood chisels. It was complete, except for the ¾ inch tool.

The police also found a wood planning tool in Hauptmann’s shop. It had a particular 2-degree bevel cutting edge with striations on the blade that physically matched the plane marks on ladder members. This was proven at the microscopic level and was a breakthrough in the courts accepting forensic toolmark evidence.

Furthering toolmark evidence, the investigation team also proved that a handsaw in Hauptmann’s tool kit cut and prepared sections of the homemade ladder. The saw kerf width, teeth settings, and stroke angle were consistent with cuts on the ladder’s members.

Then there were the nails. The nails in the scene ladder precisely matched a stock of nails found in Bruno Hauptmann’s garage. The size, shape, length, and materials were identical to what nails were in the Lindbergh ladder.

The Money

Without question, Bruno Hauptmann had the Lindbergh ransom money. And without question, no one else had a stash of it either. That’s because Hauptmann acted alone and there was no one else to share it with.

The forensic accountants did an amazing job for their time. This was before the computer and online banking days when transactions got recorded in ledgers and on carbon paper receipts. The banking sleuths followed the money and they sealed the case.

Bruno Hauptmann received $50,000 in various forms of United States negotiable currency. The forensic accounting team accounted for $49,986 of this going through Bruno Hauptmann’s hands. That was from cash-on-hand, bank deposits, transfers, withdrawals, purchase receipts, and stock market investments. The team estimated Hauptmann lost over half on bad investments.

Were Other Parties Involved in the Lindbergh Kidnapping and Killing?

The short answer is “No”. There’s not the slightest suggestion—based on evidence—that anyone else was involved in the Lindbergh plot. During Hauptmann’s trial, his lawyer Edward Reilly tried to build a smokescreen around Hauptmann being a participant rather than a killer. Reilly wasn’t the most effective barrister in the barn. His nickname was “Ed – Death House – Reilly” as he had a somewhat abysmal track-record of losing capital murder cases and sending his clients away.

No, there is no evidence of anyone co-conspiring with Bruno Hauptmann to kidnap and kill baby Lindbergh. That’s because non-events leave no evidence. It didn’t happen any other way than Bruno Hauptmann—acting alone—planned and carried out this heinous crime.

Why did he do it? Money. Pure and simple. He wanted the money and the prosecution did a marvelous job of painting Hauptmann from a pauper to a prince pre-and-post crime. He lived high off the hog for a few years after collecting the ransom, then he got piggishly careless and was caught.

How did he do it? This takes a bit of analogy. For one thing, this action of climbing to a secondary window in a high-profile mansion and stealing a child while the house is full of awake adults takes a lot of balls. Maybe a lot of stupidity, but no one anytime ever said Bruno Hauptmann was stupid.

There’s plenty of evidence that this crime was planned out far in advance. One of the ransom notes said it was planned for a year. The ladder-building—so planned that it was built in three sections so it could be disassembled and transported in a passenger car—to the ¾ inch chisel probably used to pry open the window implies planning. Then there was the child removal.

It makes no sense that a cat-burglar kidnapper would climb a rickety, three-piece home-made ladder and pry open a window to a nursery to abduct a live twenty-pound child and carefully carry him down by the same route. The most logical scenario is the perpetrator killed Little Lindy in his crib—probably by smothering or strangling— and tossed him out the window (accounting for the skull fracture), then descended to ground, picked up the deceased and took the little boy down the road where he dumped the toddler’s body in the bush.

There are details about the “Crime of the Century” that’ll never be known. But one thing’s for sure based on evidence and common sense. Bruno Richard Hauptmann really did kidnap and kill Charles Lindbergh’s child.

DO HEADHUNTING CANNIBALS STILL EXIST?

It’s a excruciating way to die. Imagine the panicked horror. Tearing through the jungle on a hot tropical island being chased by primitive men armed with sharpened stick spears, bows and arrows, and razor-edged bamboo knives. You’re viciously overpowered,  savagely beheaded as a manhood trophy, then your limbs are cruelly hacked and severed from your torso which is packed off and cooked over an earthen-pit fire to be ritualistically devoured in a secret stone-age ceremony.

This stuff was real. This business actually occurred some time in the past. The question is — do headhunting cannibals still exist?

I watched a National Geographic Special hosted by Piers Gibbon titled Search for the Cannibals of the South Pacific. The film crew traveled to remote parts of the region of Oceania in search of the answer. What they found was fascinating. That is, if you’re curious as to whether there still are active headhunters who consume human flesh.

To start, there’s a difference between headhunters and cannibals. Not all headhunters are cannibals and not all cannibals are headhunters. I’m sure you’re aware of relatively recent North American cannibal named Jeffrey Dahmer who serial-killed gay men and ate them. Dahmer was a bit of a one-off, though. What I’m referring to is an organized culture that endorses inter-tribal warfare where men battle other men and then behead them a prized proof of manhood.

But, it’s an entirely different level to go ahead and eat them.

There’s no question headhunting and cannibalism once existed in places like Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Indonesia. There are historic reports of the practice in The Philippines, Borneo, and Taiwan. Then, there are primitive tribes protected in the Amazon rain forest. Who knows what they did or they do.

A very famous victim of headhunters and cannibals was Michael Rockefeller. Yes, the son of New York Governor and United States Vice president Nelson Rockefeller (also grandson of financier J.D. Rockefeller). In 1961, this entitled and arrogant young fellow thought it was a good idea to check out the natives in West Papua and see if he could collect (steal) some of their art for his museum.

That didn’t turn out so well for Rockefeller III. Here’s an account from the book Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest by Carl Hoffman on what demise fell upon the poor soul:

One of the tribesmen drove a spear into Michael Rockefeller’s ribs as the young man was swimming for his life. After being beheaded, his head was scalped, cut across the face from the root of the nose to the nape of his neck. His ribs were broken with an ax, his sternum ripped out, his arms and legs cut off, and entrails pulled out. Some of them were eaten straight away. The others cooked individually. A big feast for the tribe started with chanting. Then the tribesmen had sex with each other, shared their wives, and drank their urine. Afterward, they spread Michael’s blood all over their bodies and danced wildly like possessed.  

No, thank you.

I’m sure there’s a psychology behind taking heads and cooking humans. From what I’ve read while researching this piece is that, historically, these acts came down to animism. That’s the belief that everything has a soul or spiritual power. It seems the act of beheading a foe is to take the power stored in that being and transferring to one’s self.

And, I’m certain that ritualistic cannibalism wasn’t necessary for subsistence. You probably heard the story of the Andes aircraft crash where survivors resorted to cannibalism so they could stay alive. No, ritualistic cannibalism wasn’t about protein fulfillment. It, too, must have been some sort of power trip.

Part of my brief research into this not-for-all topic was finding an article titled Fiji: Still the Cannibal Island. It was written in 2014 by Tanja Laden who purports to have interviewed a modern-day cannibal on the island of Taveuni. Here’s an excerpt:

Rapuga and I sat down to discuss how cannibalism first became a ritualized practice in Fiji when European settlers arrived in the 19th century. He told me Fijians would eat people from other “races” to protect their property and as a form of revenge. When hunting down and eating their enemies, locals used a stone ax (matau vatu) and a spear (moto), along with an eye-gauger (totokia) and a sea (pronounced say-ah), which was like a brain-smasher. Then they’d eat their victims with a special cannibal fork called an ai cula ni bokola.

After Fijians killed their enemy, they’d drink the blood in order to become more powerful, because, as Rapuga noted, “the blood runs through the entire body.” The corpse would then be divided into portions, with the chief eating the heart and brain because everyone believed he’d literally “absorb” his enemy’s knowledge and courage. Next, a village priest would perform a ritual to one of the gods and the tribe would gather for a big celebration under the moonlight, dancing with their spears around a bonfire while the feast was cooking.

I asked Rapuga how humans tasted, and whether cannibals would serve the meat with any side dishes like vegetables. He said humans tasted like pork but sweeter, and that they’d cook the meat in an earth oven and serve it with breadfruit and yams.

Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know. But, it makes for an interesting story. It also jives with conclusions on the National Geographic Special.

So, if headhunters and cannibals still exist, who are the usual suspects? There’s a lot of information on the net that I tapped into. This material is not from personal experience, and I had no intention of making a field trip to find out. Here is another excerpt. It’s from from The Last Cannibals (5 Tribes With Dreadful Headhunting History) which sums up the situation far better than what I can write:

DANI TRIBE — “THE DEAD BIRDS”

The Central Highlands of West Papua is home to the Dani people who had been waiting a long time to be discovered. They live in so-called “honai honai”, tiny mushroom-shaped huts made out of thatch and reeds and they are hunters. Men spend most of the time preparing primitive weapons, hunting and treating resulting injuries while women look after the youngsters, grow sweet potatoes and tobacco.

Like most of the ethnic groups in New Guinea, Dani tribe lives in its own world full of odd rites and rituals. A big part of funeral ceremonies is finger amputation of the female members for each death in a family or multiple pig slaughtering during celebrations to show the success of the community. Pig feasts and cooking rituals are a big part of every important event when several pigs are killed using a bow and arrow, portioned, wrapped in a banana leaf, and traditionally cooked in the earth oven together with potatoes and cassava.

Small-scale warfare between villages is integral to traditional Dani culture. The emphasis in battle is to insult the enemy and wound or kill token victims, as opposed to capturing territory or property or vanquishing the enemy village. Afterward, their remains are kept for a big feast, weapons are decorated with the ornaments made out of the victim`s body and trophies such as the skull, bones, and hair are displayed in the most respected part of the village.

YALI TRIBE — “THE DWARF WARRIORS”

Sharing the territory of Baliem Valley with Dani people, less-visited Yali subgroup, only discovered in the early 60s, is known as a “tribe of dwarfs” due to their short height (150 cm on average). The access to these villages is somehow limited, not only because of their altitude of about 2,500 m but also the fact that the only way how to reach these settlements is a several-day trek through thick vegetation and rugged, steep mountains of Jayawijaya.

Similarly to the Dani tribe, the Yali walk around rather naked, men solely protect the most important part – their penis, using a tube-like gourd, called “koteka”, and topless women only wearing a skirt made out of grass and other natural material. Pigs are considered to bring wealth and they are only eaten on special occasions.  It is quite a spectacle to see the indigenous women cuddling the snorting animals before they kill them and steam the meat on hot rocks.

The Yali were also ill-famed hunters and reputed cannibals, once used to eat the flesh and brain of their enemies while still warm, grind the bones to dust and throw it into the deep valley to prevent them from returning.  The region is so remote and inaccessible that even the neighboring ethnic groups rarely used to get in contact with each other. That resulted in a different development of each individual language, so the minorities of this territory often do not even understand each other.

ASMAT TRIBE — “THE HEADHUNTERS”

The tidal swampland of West Papua`s southern coast is some of the least accessible parts of the world. This is the domain of the Asmat tribe famous for their spectacular wood carvings, considered to be among the world’s finest, but more importantly for being the legendary Head Hunters.

Once, in the time of war, they ate brains of their enemies mixed with sago worms – that all served on the halved skull. Afterward, they cleaned it and used it as a pillow to evoke respect and fear. They did not kill for food or not even the skull as a trophy but they worshipped the skull as a sacred object and it was believed to have special powers.

After the skull was stripped of the soft parts, e.g. brain, eyes, and skin the nasal nostrils were closed to prevent the evil spirits to enter the household were the decorated skulls were displayed. The Asmat warriors and their children would inhabit the names of enemies they had killed.

KOROWAI TRIBE — “THE TREE PEOPLE”

The Korowai are neighbors of the Asmat, occupying the inland territory of Yaniruma, near Senga and Dairam rivers. These tribes live in the tree houses built up to 30-50 m above the ground, in the rainforest clearings of the deep southern jungles.

This ethnic group is to be one of the most isolated ones and believed to continue practicing rites related to cannibalism still today. The difficult access did not allow the missionaries during the Dutch colonial period to come to these areas so they could civilize the Korowai people. Those few who made it to the outlying villages were eaten or driven away.

The Korowai are quite a fascinating subgroup and they are often called “Bedouins of Jungle” for their continuous moving from place to place in order to find food and hunt for crocodiles. They build and move their treehouses on a regular basis which makes very hard for scientists to study them. Except for a nutshell covering their penises men do not wear clothes. Women only use a basic skirt made out of sago leaves.

KOMBAI TRIBE — “THE ENDO-CANNIBALS”

The Kombai tribe is another “tree” community building their homes high in the canopy. They live in clans along the Buzza River. The closest relatives to the Korowai, they have a very similar cultural background. Men wear a hornbill head instead of the gourd and a bird beak used as a protection for their genitals. Women are traditionally in charge of making sago – the starch obtained from the sago palm tree. Pigs serve as a currency and they are sacred animals that get only sacrificed on a special occasion and cooked on the traditional earth-oven.

The people of Kombai still strictly hold on their ancient animist beliefs. Leadership structures are based on the quality of a strong man – and that has to be proven by their hunting skills. The Kombai used to kill their enemies for their organs and blood which were eaten and the bodies were stuffed with leaves and grass.

The Kombai  are associated with endo-cannibalism – a ritual cannibalism within the same community. In the belief of gaining some of the qualities of the beloved person, family members would kill and eat internal organs and drink the blood of their own relatives. Totemism, black magic, witchcraft, and sorcery are an important part of their cultural heritage.

*   *   *

Although these five Oceanic tribes do exist and walk among us, I couldn’t find any proof that they still practice headhunting and cannibalism today. Even National Geographic couldn’t make that finding. However, the practice was certainly active in 1951 when Doctor Willem Vesser traveled with Papuan New Guinea people and witnessed firsthand what went on in their world. Here’s an excerpt from a paper titled Headhunting on the South Coast by Dr. Vesser with actual photos from the paper:

The Papuan is still a traditional savage, a cannibal who headhunts and lives in constant fear. Fear of their own kind and fear of evil spirits. An individual cannot be sure of his life from one moment to the next and there are all sorts of primitive rituals to ward off the unknown. 

A head-hunting trip is usually a cowardly attack. The enemy village is surrounded at night.  All possible escape routes are cut off, and around sunrise it is time to attack. Bamboo trumpets wake the victims who are initially paralyzed with fear and who then take off in an attempt to find shelter. But mostly they end up running straight into the head hunters’ lair. Especially the women and children are easy victims. The captives are killed off brutally. And then the ritual slaughter commences. The muscles and tendons of the neck are cut through with a bamboo knife. The spine is rotated and crunched. The torso is cut open on each side. After removing the intestines, the arms and legs are severed and loaded onto the prauwen (canoes).

The women await in the village. From afar, they can ascertain that the trip has been a success. The meat is roasted and eaten. A hole is made in the skull with a special chisel and both the brains and the jaws are removed. The tongue is also roasted and eaten. There is drumming and dancing, the party continues until sunrise. The monotonous singing can be heard far and wide. Nightfall in the jungle closes in on the dancing barbarians. The song of chirping crickets reaches a crescendo and merges with the drone of male voices: A primeval melody from the Stone Age.

All this sounds very savage, indeed. I have no doubt that Dr. Vesser’s account is true and that this actually happened seventy years ago. But, what about today? In 2020? Do headhunting cannibals still exist?

National Geographic’s conclusion was yes and no. They located and interviewed elders who claimed to have participated in these rituals back in their youth. They admitted to severing heads and eating human remains. But, the elders said this no longer takes place.

That makes sense. It also makes it much safer, now, in traveling to exotic places like the jungles of New Guinea, Fiji, Borneo, and the Solomon Islands. Let me know how you make out if you go.