The Lindbergh Case: Your views?

[LizzieMaine]

 

[MisterCairo]

Today in 1936, Bruno Hauptmann was executed by electric chair for the kidnapping & murder of the Lindburgh's son.

Um, Happy Anniversary?
[huh]

 

[scotrace]

My wife and I are producing a bi-weekly true crime podcast (22k subscribers and growing fast), and it has been the research into many of them that has turned me off the death penalty. The state gets it wrong surprisingly often and even one innocent person killed by the state is too many to accept the risk.
And if such a high profile case as Hauptmann's can get a question mark in the margin 80+ years later...

 

[tonyb]

My wife and I are producing a bi-weekly true crime podcast (22k subscribers and growing fast), and it has been the research into many of them that has turned me off the death penalty. The state gets it wrong surprisingly often and even one innocent person killed by the state is too many to accept the risk.
And if such a high profile case as Hauptmann's can get a question mark in the margin 80+ years later...

I wouldn’t wish anyone thinking my opposition to the practice is founded in a sympathy for the killers or that I find the world a lesser place due to, say, Ted Bundy’s absence from it.

And I can grant the believers in execution a point or two, not the least of which is that if you kill the ba***rd you can be damned certain he won’t kill again (see Bundy, Ted, above, who escaped jail TWICE, to commit even more murders of young women), but I don’t accept that those outweigh the very real risk of killing an innocent person, or that there is any way to apply the sanction fairly.

So what’s this podcast, Scott? My lovely missus is hooked on true crime podcasts, and I’m certain she’d give yours a listen.

 

[tonyb]

I think I found it. The bride’s name is Amanda, maybe?

 

[scotrace]

That's it. The State of Perfect Balance. It leaves the romanticism of the murderers to others and respectfully focuses on the victim and their families. It got a writeup in Vulture.com last week.
(Still have to present the ugly facts, we've found)

 

[tonyb]

That's it. The State of Perfect Balance. It leaves the romanticism of the murderers to others and respectfully focuses on the victim and their families. It got a writeup in Vulture.com last week.
(Still have to present the ugly facts, we've found)

That niche you carved out for yourselves — small-town Ohio homicides only — might have a certain crossover appeal. Ohioans, of course (lotsa those), followers of the changing times in small-town and rural America, and true-crime buffs.

 

[scotrace]

It has been surprising. We have a lot of subscribers in FL, NY, CA, and TX. Outside the US, they're in the UK, Australia, and, oddly, Scandinavia.

Ohio has a sickening number of underreported murders in small towns. We figure at the rate of publishing every other week, we're good for another ten years, at least.

Recently, Amanda interviewed the mother of a teenaged girl who was abducted along with a friend at a video store several years ago. Her daughter was killed quite brutally, while the friend escaped. The insights are heartbreaking. I really don't know how one survives such a thing, except through strong faith, which has strengthened the young girl's family throughout.
That will be an upcoming episode. Along with the sorority girl who felt such intense pressure to fit in that she left her dying newborn in a trash bag in a dumpster on campus. And the openly gay bar owner, loved by all in the community, who was beaten to death one night after closing in a hate crime. Or the toddler girl who was apparently killed by the little boy next door, her body left in the brush under a tree nearby.
The hard part for me in doing this (I write the scripts), is the research and putting it all together. Each script is 3k-4k words, and by the end of it, I'm ready to for an hour long shower and a few hours of Disney movies (while Amanda spends another five-six hours recording and editing). Doing a podcast at any level of quality EATS time, and I also write for five weekly newspapers, take care of this place, and have two books, a screenplay and a stage play script in the works. Amanda has a day job managing 200 apartments. We're hoping to pick up some sponsorship soon. The rate of growth we've seen should make that happen at some point.

 

[tonyb]

Ever wonder how many are Ohio ex-pats?

Those other states you enumerate are the most populous ones. I get many a customer from those states as well, cuz that’s where the people are.

And Massachusetts—greater Boston. I’m at a loss as to why that should be.

 

[scotrace]

Surely a lot. Ohio is a good state to be from but live somewhere else.

 

[tonyb]

Surely a lot. Ohio is a good state to be from but live somewhere else.

Yup. I know a few myself. Still lotsa people living in Ohio, though.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ever wonder how many are Ohio ex-pats?

Those other states you enumerate are the most populous ones. I get many a customer from those states as well, cuz that’s where the people are.

And Massachusetts—greater Boston. I’m at a loss as to why that should be.

They probably just got lost trying to find their way off the Mass Pike.

 

[tonyb]

…

Ohio has a sickening number of underreported murders in small towns. We figure at the rate of publishing every other week, we're good for another ten years, at least.

Recently, Amanda interviewed the mother of a teenaged girl who was abducted along with a friend at a video store several years ago. Her daughter was killed quite brutally, while the friend escaped. The insights are heartbreaking. I really don't know how one survives such a thing, except through strong faith, which has strengthened the young girl's family throughout.
That will be an upcoming episode. Along with the sorority girl who felt such intense pressure to fit in that she left her dying newborn in a trash bag in a dumpster on campus. And the openly gay bar owner, loved by all in the community, who was beaten to death one night after closing in a hate crime. Or the toddler girl who was apparently killed by the little boy next door, her body left in the brush under a tree nearby.
The hard part for me in doing this (I write the scripts), is the research and putting it all together. Each script is 3k-4k words, and by the end of it, I'm ready to for an hour long shower and a few hours of Disney movies (while Amanda spends another five-six hours recording and editing). Doing a podcast at any level of quality EATS time, and I also write for five weekly newspapers, take care of this place, and have two books, a screenplay and a stage play script in the works. Amanda has a day job managing 200 apartments. We're hoping to pick up some sponsorship soon. The rate of growth we've seen should make that happen at some point.

My wife checked it out. Good stuff, she says. Keep it up, she adds.

 

[Harp]

...The state gets it wrong surprisingly often and even one innocent person killed by the state is too many to accept the risk. ...

Justice nestles a sword by her side, an amazing contradiction for validity; its misapplication
renders her little more than a cruel vixen prostrate rather than proud, and humbled before human fault and frailty.
The death penalty is both cruel and capricious in application.