Who Was Detective X? 85 years after the Lindbergh kidnapping, the work of an early forensic scientist comes to light

It was called the Trial of the Century, and on the night it ended, the Hunterdon County Courthouse in Flemington, New Jersey, was surrounded by thousands of people awaiting the verdict. When it came, camera operators on the newsreel trucks launched flares that lit up the night sky and illuminated for their cameras the jeering crowd below. The defendant, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, was found guilty of kidnapping and killing the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann would die in the electric chair the following year. The crime was committed on March 1, 1932.