1932 - Crime

Crime

The kidnapping of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. March 1 makes world headlines. The aviation pioneer pays a $50,000 ransom for his child's safe return, but the decomposed body of the 20-month old infant is found 2 months later on Lindbergh's New Jersey estate while 5,000 federal agents comb the country (see 1934).

Indiana-born Phoenix medical clinic secretary Winnie Ruth Judd (née McKinnell), 26, arrives by train at Los Angeles, October 18 accompanied by two trunks and several valises. A baggage handler notices what appears to be blood dripping from one trunk and notifies police. Detectives open the trunks; inside one they find the body of Agnes Anne LeRoi, 32, and in the other the remains of Hedvig Samuelson, 24, whose body has been cut into three pieces (a fourth body section is then found in one of Judd's valises). Police arrest Judd October 22, she maintains that she shot her two friends in self defense, but a Phoenix jury will find her guilty of murder next year. Sentenced to be hanged, she will be declared insane and sentenced to a mental institution for life, but she will escape seven times, be at large for 7 years from 1962 to 1969, and be paroled in 1971.

Brooklyn-born bank robber William Francis "Willie the Actor" Sutton Jr., 31, escapes from prison. He embarked on his criminal career 5 years ago and quickly acquired the nickname "the actor," a reference to his many costumes and disguises (see 1948).

Charles A. "Pretty Boy" Floyd robs the Coolson Bank at his native Sallisaw, Okla., of $2,400 November 1, killing a bounty hunter in a felony that costs him much of his public support (see 1931; 1934).