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SPRING 2018
[15]
Handwritten on the brace in
German, the confession reads, in
part, "I was one of the kidnappers
of the Lindbergh baby and not
Bruno Richard Hauptmann."
[16]
Originally surfacing in South
Plainfield in 1948, the "table
confession" was dismissed as a
hoax by the state police based on
handwriting analysis. Why, then,
was it confiscated and logged into
evidence?
[14]
Falzini found the table brace,
originally used to join a tabletop
to its base, in 2003 in a
warehoused crate. It has been
called the most important new
piece of evidence since the trial.
THE TABLE BRACE
e archivist uncrates a clue.
"The trooper who was there will tell you the color drained from my face. I put this
block of wood
[14]
on the light box and then the first note, the nursery note, on top, and
the three screwholes in the center of the brace line up with the holes in the note.
And if you take all the ransom notes, all 11 with the authentication symbol, and stack
them, they all line up perfectly. And then, of course, there's the confession.
[15]
I have
no idea what it all means. Is it a template? Is it a coincidence? That's for others to
figure out."
[16]
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