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Arts & Culture

NOVA: Who Killed Lindbergh's Baby?

Charles and Anne Lindbergh. NOVA reopens one of the most confounding crime mysteries of all time — the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby and the trial and execution that followed.
Courtesy of WGBH Boston
Charles and Anne Lindbergh. NOVA reopens one of the most confounding crime mysteries of all time — the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby and the trial and execution that followed.

Airs Wednesday, July 31, 2013 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV

In the aftermath of his 1927 solo transatlantic flight, Charles Lindbergh became the most famous human being on earth. When he and his wife, Anne, had a son, Charlie, the press dubbed him Little Lindy.

Baby Lindbergh with a piece of his first birthday cake.
Courtesy of WGBH Boston
Baby Lindbergh with a piece of his first birthday cake.
Baby Lindbergh Wanted Poster, 1932.
Courtesy of WGBH Boston
Baby Lindbergh Wanted Poster, 1932.

On March 1, 1932, kidnappers snatched Little Lindy from the family home near Hopewell, New Jersey. Negotiations stretched out for weeks, but Charlie never returned. His body was discovered not five miles from Hopewell.

Now, in "Who Killed Lindbergh's Baby?," NOVA is reopening one of the most confounding crime mysteries of all time as a team of expert investigators employs state-of-the-art forensic and behavioral science techniques in an effort to determine what really happened to Lindbergh’s baby — and why.

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The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation is on Facebook, and you can follow @LindberghFdtn on Twitter.

THREE ADVANCES IN FORENSICS

Imagine placing the entire population of Wyoming’s capital city behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Studies estimate that roughly that number of people, or between one and five percent of the two million people in U.S. prisons, have been mistakenly convicted.

One reason for these wrongful convictions is the fallibility of many of the methods currently used in forensic science. Read the entire article by Kate Nussenbaum for NOVA.

STRANDS OF EVIDENCE

You are what you eat, and what you eat ends up in your hair. Scientists in the U.S. and Europe have used this basic idea—and some sophisticated isotopic analysis—to devise a sort of hair-based GPS tracking system. A single strand contains information on your whereabouts over the past few months, a fact that law enforcement agencies are now using to solve crimes. Listen to the story by Ari Daniel Shapiro for NOVA.

NOVA is on Facebook, and you can follow @novapbs on Twitter. Full episodes of NOVA are available for online viewing after their broadcast date.

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Watch Who Killed Lindbergh's Baby? Preview on PBS. See more from NOVA.