Norman Schwarzkopf , Sr . Major General Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf ( August 28 , 1895 – November 25 , 1958 ) was the first superintendent of the New Jersey State Police . He is best known for his involvement in the Lindbergh kidnapping case . He was the father of General Norman Schwarzkopf , Jr . , the commander of all Coalition forces for Operation Desert Shield / Storm . Early life . Schwarzkopf was born in Newark , New Jersey , to Julius George Schwarzkopf and Agnes Sarah Schmidt , of Germany . He attended the U . S . Military Academy at West Point and graduated in March 1917 . Career . Military service and New Jersey State Police . After receiving a commission as a second lieutenant in the cavalry , Schwarzkopf was sent to Europe as part of the American Expeditionary Forces . He was gassed with mustard gas , making him susceptible to respiratory illnesses for the rest of his life . During the occupation , he served as a provost marshal , partially because of his organizational skills and partially because of his fluency in German . After returning to the United States with the rank of colonel , Schwarzkopf was appointed in 1921 by New Jersey Governor Edward I . Edwards to head the newly formed New Jersey State Police . He personally trained the first 25 state police troopers and organized the state police into two troops : a northern troop , utilizing motorcycles , to patrol the Mafia - controlled narcotics , whiskey , rum - running , and gambling rings in the New York City area ; and a southern troop , with troopers on horseback , to crack down on moonshine rs . He left the force in 1936 after being relieved of his duty by a governor with whom he frequently clashed . Military decorations . World War II Victory Medal Army of Occupation Medal with Germany clasp The Lindbergh kidnapping . On the evening of March 1 , 1932 , Schwarzkopf , then 37 , and the chief of the New Jersey State Police , was among the officials called to the East Amwell residence of Charles Lindbergh , following the kidnapping of his 20 - month - old son , Charlie . He arrived on the scene with his second - in - command , Major Charles Schoeffel , and established a police command post in the three - car garage on the side of Lindbergh ' s house opposite the nursery , though he found it impossible to protect the area from contamination . Further complicating the investigation was the fact that the controlling Lindbergh used his fame and influence to exert authority over matters , which meant that Schwarzkopf had to essentially work around him , despite ostensibly being in charge of the investigation , a fact for which Schwarzkopf has been criticized by experts such as FBI profiler and author John E . Douglas . Schwarzkopf requested a list of all the employees who worked on Lindbergh ' s house , which was constructed following Charlie ' s birth , as well as those who worked in the house and at Next Day Hill , the palatial Englewood estate of Lindbergh ' s inlaws , Dwight and Elizabeth Morrow , where the Lindberghs stayed during the week prior to the completion of their own home . Although they only stayed in the incomplete home on weekends , they did not return to Next Day Hill by Tuesday , March 1 , because Charlie was ill . Schwarzkopf believed the kidnappers were local and nonprofessional , based on the their apparent familiarity with the Lindbergh house , the location of the nursery from which the infant Charlie was abducted , and the relatively modest ransom request of $ 50 , 000 . Schwarzkopf suspected gang involvement , as kidnapping was a common criminal enterprise during the Great Depression , and wanted to contact members of the underworld , but during the course of the investigation , John F . Condon , a 72 - year - old retired Bronx school teacher , became an intermediary between Lindbergh and the kidnappers after he placed an ad in " Home News " , to which the kidnappers responded . Schwarzkopf wanted to place a trace on Condon ' s telephone , but Lindbergh overruled him , and setting up a trap would have been made difficult or impossible by Lindbergh ' s management of the case . Schwarzkopf reluctantly agreed to keep law enforcement away from the arranged ransom drop . Although the man Condon gave the ransom money to in Saint Raymond ' s Cemetery in the Bronx on April 2 gave Condon a note describing a boat where Charlie could be found , no such boat was found . When Charlie ' s skeletonized corpse was found by a truck driver on May 12 , Schwarzkopf inspected the shallow grave , four miles from the Lindbergh home , whose lights were visible from the site . Following identification of the corpse as Charlie , and the determination from the level of decomposition that he was killed immediately after abduction , Schwarzkopf informed Charlie ' s nursemaid , Betty Gow , and Elizabeth Morrow , who then informed Charlie ' s mother , Anne Lindbergh . Charles Lindbergh ' s need for control over the case was now over , and by the time the case was months old , and trails had gone cold , Schwarzkopf was the target of widespread and recurring criticism . Following the suicide of Violet Sharpe , a maid for the Morrows who had been acting suspiciously before the incident and during its investigation , some , such as Violet ' s sister , Emily Sharpe , accused Schwarzkopf and Jersey City Police Department investigator Harry Walsh of harassing her to death with their rough interrogations , but experts such as Douglas have disputed this notion . To test the theory of how the baby was abducted and then killed early on , Schwarzkopf had duplicates constructed of the makeshift ladder used to climb into Charlie ' s second - story nursery window and the ransom letter , and reenacted the crime himself . The 165 - pound Schwarzkopf carried a sandbag weighing the same as Charlie down the ladder , and when he stepped onto the highest rung of the lower portion of the wooden ladder ( which , like the real one , consisted of two hinged sections and a third one attached at the crime scene ) , the side rail split , just where it had on the real ladder . Schwarzkopf dropped the bag , and it struck the cement windowsill of the library , echoing the massive skull fracture that served as Charlie ' s cause of death . Schwarzkopf had the written communications in evidence sent to graphologist s , who concluded that they were all written by one person , most likely German in origin . In the fall of 1932 , Schwarzkopf was put in touch with New York psychiatrist Dudley D . Schoenfeld , who concluded from the kidnapper ' s writings that the perpetrator was a mechanically inclined , 40 - year - old German suffering from dementia paralytica , caused by feelings of powerlessness , which is considered an impressive early example of criminal profiling . Schwarzkopf also had pieces of the ladder analyzed by wood technologist Arthur Koehler , who determined from four extra nail holes that rail sixteen of the ladder , unlike the wood used to make the rest of the ladder , had been previously used for some other purpose . It was presumed that this was because the kidnapper ran out of lumber and cannibalized whatever wood was on hand for that rail . Koestler concluded on November 19 , 1933 , that side rails twelve through fifteen came from National Lumber and Millwork Company in the Bronx . Investigation of bills from the ransom money that turned up in circulation led to the September 19 , 1934 , arrest of Bruno Hauptmann , a 35 - year - old German skilled carpenter who once worked at National Lumber and Millwork , which was ten blocks from Hauptmann ' s residence . By matching grain patterns and nail holes , Koehler determined that rail sixteen had been removed from Hauptmann ' s attic , which was missing a floor board , and featured nail holes in four successive joints where it would have been hammered down . Hauptmann was tried and convicted for murder , and was executed on April 3 , 1936 . Return to U . S . Army . In 1936 , Schwarzkopf was fired from the New Jersey State Police after a personality clash with a new governor and went on to narrate the radio program " Gang Busters " for a short period of time ( he can be heard in the March 28 , 1941 , episode " The Case of the Nickel and Dime Bandits " ) before reenlisting in the U . S . Army with the onset of World War II . Schwarzkopf was posted to Iran in 1942 owing to the efforts of Mohammad Vali Mirza Farman Farmaian and was tasked with organizing the Iranian police after the UK - Soviet intervention that made Iran an Allied protectorate . His recruits , the Gendarmerie , were active in suppressing the Soviet - inspired attempt to destabilize Iran by backing separatists in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan ( Mahabad ) . After World War II , he was promoted to brigadier general and in the late 1940s was sent to occupied Germany to serve as provost marshal for the entire U . S . sector . Before retiring from the Army in 1953 with the rank of major general , Schwarzkopf was sent by the Central Intelligence Agency as part of Operation Ajax ( correct name TPAjax , TP meaning Soviet backed Tudeh Party of Iran ) , to convince the self - exiled Iranian monarch , Mohammad Reza Shah , to return and seize power . Schwarzkopf went so far as to organize the security forces he had trained to support the Shah , and in so doing he helped to train what would become later known as the SAVAK . Schwarzkopf was appointed by New Jersey Governor Robert B . Meyner to " examine and investigate the management by Harold G . Hoffman , " a former governor of the state and director in the division of employment security . Death . Schwarzkopf died in 1958 from complications of lung cancer and is buried at West Point Cemetery , on the grounds of the United States Military Academy . He was married to Ruth Bowman ( 1900 – 1977 ) , a registered nurse from West Virginia .