Native Language Analysis for German Transference Features in the Lindbergh Kidnapping Notes

The Nursery Note

One of the most famous kidnapping cases in American history is that of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. The child’s father and namesake was Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator. Lindbergh, Sr. had completed his record-breaking transatlantic flight in 1927, and he was still a prominent celebrity when his 20-month-old son was kidnapped from his nursery on the night of March 1, 1932. The infant was not recovered until May 12, 1932, when his body was discovered near the Lindbergh home. Investigators determined that he likely died shortly after he was taken. Between the night of March 1 and when ransom is delivered on April 2, 1932, the abductors delivered a total of 15 notes. In September 1934, a German immigrant was seen spending one of the gold certificates used to pay the ransom and was soon arrested. He was convicted and executed in 1936. 

Mark Falzini, the archivist of the New Jersey State Police Museum in possession of the notes and other evidence, is a great source for more details on the case. Mr. Falzini kindly provided me with his transcriptions of the notes, the text of which comprise an evidence corpus of 1768 words. This evidence corpus is examined using the prototype German transference catalog and the NLA methods of my thesis.

A total of 43 transference error types were identified and tagged. The table below describes the 12 most frequent transferences identified within the evidence corpus, organized according to frequency of occurrence.

These results demonstrate that roughly 50% of the transference features observed in the evidence corpus were predicted by the prototype German transfer feature catalog. Of the 12 most common errors, six are consistent with the 12 error types presented in this study’s German catalog. As described by the final column, none of the errors appear in a similar order of frequency, and some errors could fit into multiple categories. For example, errors of Punctuation-Overuse (7) and Punctuation-Choice (11) both resembled Punctuation-Overuse/Choice errors ranked 2 in the German catalog, based on the complexity of the errors; i.e., inserting unnecessary hyphens as exemplified in line 7.

There are a number of forensic linguistic aspects to consider regarding the analysis of the Lindbergh kidnapping notes using this German feature catalog. Most importantly, attempts at disinformation are always a potential language feature to beware in forensic linguistic analysis. Dr. Leonard explains linguistic disinformation as attempts made by authors to either disguise their normal language usage or to assume the language patterns of a different person, real or imaginary. As this language evidence comes from the context of a kidnapping case, it is entirely logical to presume that this language is at least partly disguised. Though beyond the scope of my thesis, the language data supports the presumption of disguised language, especially considering the inconsistencies in some of the most common errors. 

As discussed in previous posts, native speakers of particular languages make predictable linguistic choices in particular target languages; predictably so that those choices can be quantified and observed as patterns. A lack of consistent patterns in linguistic choices is, characteristically, indicative of disinformation. For example, many of the Spelling-Choice errors tagged in the corpus include swapped letters, such as d for t or th. However, these spelling choices appear inconsistently and are sometimes, seemingly, forced; e.g., how the word “diet” is spelled correctly in Notes #2 and #4, but spelled “tied” in Note #9.

Regardless of this potential disinformation, it is still not possible to confidently prove or disprove German as an interfering native language in the Lindbergh evidence corpus. There are several features that may indicate L1 German influence, such as Verb-Underuse (12) and Punctuation-Overuse (7), which align with transference features predicted by the German catalog. Additionally, in Note #9, the sentence “after 8 houers we have the money received we will notify you where to find the baby” includes an example of a dependent clause following the verb-final word order required in German dependent clauses: “we have the money received.” However, this German influence is belied by the spelling of “frankfurter” – a German word – as “frank-further” in Note #7.

A German immigrant, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, was convicted and executed for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. Among the many theories regarding this case, it is speculated that Hauptmann did not act alone, though he maintained his innocence and never implicated any accomplices. Especially considering the potential disinformation in the writing of the kidnapping notes, I consider these results inconclusive. It is beyond the scope of my thesis to determine if the language of the kidnapping notes is in fact influenced by L1 German, or if it is perhaps the product of its author(s) attempting to disguise that L1 German influence.