Evening star., 1935-01-24
LADDER IS TRACED
/ .1TOBRUNO'S HOME
Expert Says Wood Came
From Accused Mans
Bronx Attic.
By the Associated Press.

PENNINGTON, N, j., January "a
Bruno Hauptmann's carpenter tools
a piece of his Bronx attic floor and
the baby Lindbergh kidnap ladder
were Joined yesterday before Jersey
Jury to seal the States murder
charge.
Anxious to close their direct case
prosecutors put Arthur J. Koehler
Federal wood expert, on the witness
stand-a witness who even worked
with Hauptmann's own plane to show
the jury that its faulty blade SCARED
the grim and broken ladder.
The State still was drawing upon
the experts direct testimony when
court adjourned, and he had yet tc
face a cross-eXamination that prom
ised to be long
Hauptnlann's eyes, usually cold and
indifferent, snapped in annoyance as
his tool chest was thrown open to the
gaze of a crowd that braved a driving
snowstorm to jam the tiny Hunterdon
County court room.
He hunched his shoulders and
braced himself in his chair as KoehleI
calmly improvised little work table
on a corner of the judges bench and
sent crisp pine shavings curling tC
the court room floor with Haupt-
mann's Well-Worn plane,
Pieces of Wood Matched.
Carefully, he explained to the jury
how an upright of the ladder from
which the famous baby allegedly fel
to his death matched perfectly piece
of flooring taken from the attic Of
the Bronx house in which Hauptmanr
lived at the time of the kidnapping
March /, 1882.
LAS a result of a careful study o.
the two" the expert testified, Il have
come to the conclusion that those two
pieces at one time were one piece
They have been cut in two"
Koehler recited his painstaking
tracing of the ladder lumber from e
South Carolina mill to a Bronx lum'
Der yard and thence to Hauptmann'i
garage.
He recounted how he had matched
nail marks in an upright of the ladder
with the nail marks in two beams
in Hauptmann's attic, using enlarged
photographs to make his statements
more vivid.
He testified, too, that wood chisel
found on the Lindbergh estate neal
the ladder on the night of March l
1882, of the same size and make as
one missing from Hauptmann's too
chest. had been used in cutting out
the recesses for the ladder rungs.
He told how saw and the wooc
clamps in Hauptmann's kit were
similar to those used in constructing
the ladder.
Missing from Attic.
Through three early witnesses, De-
tective Lewis J. Bornmann, OF the
New Jersey State police. and two
New York police department car
penters, Charles F. w. Enkler and
Anselm Cramer, the prosecution had
established not only that a board
was missing from the attic, but that
the attic itself could be reached with
difficulty only through Hauptmann's
apartment after taking down the
Shelves of linen closet.
A detailed examination and cross
examination left the State prepared
to call Koehler, an expert stationed
at the United States Forest Products
Laboratory. Madison, Wis.
His qualifications were impressive
he has testified in numerous civil and
criminal suits the country over and
- ~ IN "a
wood identification.
But the defense fought his entrance
to the case vigorously, though there
was little doubt from the start that
Supreme Court Justice Thomas w.
Trenchard would qualify him.
Once qualified, Koehler set to work
at once to show the relation of the
piece of wood in the ladder and the
piece taken from the attic by the
State after Bornmann discovered a
section had been removed.
Nails Fit Into Wood.
With the State-removed piece
Koehler demonstrated.
These two pieces Of wood at one
time we're one piece. A little gap has
UP6Il CuG Jul 44IdO Noo dNOuV IllCIA.
relative position in the original
piece" he said, illustrating his words.
He then showed how four nails,
taken from the piece of board in the
attic, fitted perfectly the holes in the
ladder upright.
There we're nail holes in. these
joists along the south side of the
floor and the west half of the floor
and I found that these protruding
nails stuck into this rail. fit exactly
in the four nail holes which were in
those joists."
A moment later he said:
In my opinion that rail had a:
one time been nailed down there on
those joists, because it would be in
conceivable to th.nk-"
Frederick A. Pope, associate de-
fense counsel, interrupted with an
objection. but Justice Trenchard per-
mitted Koehler to finish.
There are four nail holes a GER
tain distance apart and a certain di-
rection from each other and in my
opinion it wouldn't be possible that
there would have been another board
somewhere with cut nail holes in
them, spaced exactly like those nail
@ III