I wrote over at SpouseBUZZ about my pre-deployment stress. With the fertility and my husband leaving, I have not been at peak mental performance lately. So how could I make it worse? How about reading the most stressful and awful book I've ever picked up.
I found the book The Airman and the Carpenter: The Lindbergh Kidnapping and the Framing of Richard Hauptmann for fifty cents at the Goodwill. I thought I'd grab it and learn a little about the Trial of the Century.
I can't read this book for more than a chapter at a time. I cry too much. I get knots in my stomach and shortness of breath. I cry out in anguish and my husband has to ask me what they did this time. When I set the book down at night, I rant endlessly to my husband. I pace the room, I raise my voice, and I can't calm down.
I've even dreamt about Charles Lindbergh.
The Trial of the Century was a joke. It was a farce and a disaster. They executed an innocent man because they had no better suspect. Everyone who took the stand lied. Flat out lied: cops, expert witnesses, Lindbergh himself. God, how this book has made me hate Charles Lindbergh. They planted evidence, coached witnesses, tricked Hauptmann into damning himself, destroyed documents and evidence that exonerated him, and laid out a boatload of perjury as the truth.
And Hauptmann lost his life.
This website does a pretty good job of laying out the absurdities of the case and lining up the questions that Hauptmann's defense lawyer should have asked. Only he didn't, because he too thought Hauptmann was guilty. So throughout the entire trial, he only spent 40 minutes conferring with his client.
This book has gotten me in such a tizzy that I can't stand it. I find the whole thing so disgusting and reprehensible. I can't even recommend the book because it's too painful to read. I'm glad I learned about it, but it literally makes me sick to my stomach to read it.
Posted by Sarah at April 25, 2008 08:06 AM | TrackBackHere in New Jersey the case has always been of great interest. A lot of people made names for themselves, including the lawyers. I worked at law firm that one of the lawyers in the case helped establish and this case was always pointed at as "the big one". Imagine that, lawyers making money and everyone else getting screwed.
Posted by: Padraig at April 25, 2008 08:19 AMThought I don't doubt the awfulness of the book and your righteous (and reasonable) response, consider that maybe you're funneling some of your pre-deployment emotions into the book...
Just a thought...
*hugs*
Posted by: FbL at April 25, 2008 09:53 AMLikely one of the first and most memorable cases where celebrity eroded the justice system.
Posted by: Guard Wife at April 25, 2008 10:32 AMYou should read "The Innocent Man" by John Grisham. I started reading it with no idea what the book was about, and was shocked to find out it's based on a true story.
Posted by: MC at April 25, 2008 11:46 AM