2025-01 Raynors Historical Collectible Auctions
Absentee bidding for this session ends on Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 10:00 AM EST.
The live portion of this session begins on Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 10:00 AM EST
A pair of Acme Newspictures, each with teletype description on the reverse, of Judge Adam Q. Robbins who presided over the trial of John Hughes Curtis who was charged with obstructiong justice in the search for the kidnapped/murdered Lindbergh baby. The first,6/28, 1932, shows the judge “Leaving the court ... on June 28th, after Charles A. Linbergh had appeared on the stand ...” The second, 6/27/32, shows the robed Judge behind his bench. On April 18, Lindbergh became involved with John Hughes Curtis who claimed to have knowledge of his son's whereabouts. Curtis claimed to be acting on behalf of a Norfolk, VA seaman who claimed to have the baby. Until the baby's corpse was discovered on May 12, 1932 Curtis managed to keep Lindbergh interested in a long, drawn out goose chase. No money was ever exchanged between the men. Curtis claimed he was in contact with the kidnappers. He spoke of Hilda and Inez, members of the Mary B. Moss Gang, Sam Morrie Truesdale, John, and Olaf "Dynamite" Larsen. However, Curtis and his supposed "kidnappers" were considered to be fraudulent when, on May 12, the body of the Lindbergh baby was found - dead. On May 16, 1932, Curtis reluctantly signed a written confession that everything he told Lindbergh had been a hoax. In court, Curtis was pictured as a man broken down by duress, by six days of questioning while he was a virtual prisoner in the Lindbergh home after the baby's body was found. He told his lawyers and he told The Democrat that he had contacted the kidnapper's gang. The whole Curtis trial and the conviction developed from a gang theory. In fact, it was more than a theory because the State presented it as an absolute fact, as evidence.
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