By John Tredrea, Special Writer
A new book about what has long been called “The Crime of Century” — the kidnapping and murder of Charlie Lindbergh, the infant son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh — makes a compelling case that the crime was masterminded by a man named John Knoll.
The crime took place in 1932 at the Lindbergh estate, “Highfields,” in the Sourlands. The property is in a rural area of East Amwell (Hunterdon County) near Hopewell Borough.
Robert Zorn’s recently published book, “Cemetery John: The Undiscovered Mastermind of the Lindbergh Kidnapping,” seems bound to arouse much interest in the this area and points far beyond.
”Zorn’s research is both meticulous and compelling,” said John Douglas, the criminal profiler who pioneered the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. “Had it been available during the original investigation and had I been advising the police, I would have said that John Knoll is the guy you want to put on the front burner.”
Mr. Zorn maintains that John Knoll’s brother, Walter, also participated in the crime, along with Bruno Hauptmann, who was executed for it in Trenton State Prison. Mr. Hauptmann maintained his innocence to the end.
Mr. Zorn and his book are featured in a NOVA documentary that is expected to be aired early next year.
Mr. Zorn began the writing of his book with his father, the late Eugene C. Zorn Jr. (1916-2006), who grew up three doors from John Knoll in a German neighborhood in the South Bronx.
The book tells how, at age 15, at Palisades Park in New Jersey, where he had accompanied Mr. Knoll, Gene Zorn unwittingly became the only known eyewitness to the conspiracy.
”The case is now 80 years old, but this evidence is brand new,” Mr. Zorn said of the contents of his book. “John Knoll lived out his life in freedom, and we will probably never know for sure why Bruno Hauptmann went to the electric chair without fingering his co-conspirator and accomplice in this ruthless crime. But now we do know exactly who ‘Cemetery John’ was. And based on the insights of top FBI criminal profilers, including those of John Douglas and of Dr. Mary Ellen O’Toole, the country’s leading expert on child abduction, we also know what likely had motivated Knoll to kidnap the baby of the world’s most famous man.”
”I’m convinced that John Knoll engineered and carried out the Lindbergh kidnapping and that he was Cemetery John,” said retired FBI special agent Edward F. Sulzbach. “I taught students in my criminal profiling classes at Quantico that life is simply not that coincidental, and there are too many compelling pieces of evidence that point squarely at Knoll for him not to have been involved. And like the physical profile, the behavioral profile of the ringleader of this crime matches the personality profile of John Knoll, not that of Hauptmann, who was a common criminal and not a leader type.”
”I’ve always believed that Hauptmann was guilty, but that he worked with accomplices,” said former New Jersey Gov. Brendan T. Byrne. “Cemetery John validates that conclusion.”
Gov. Byrne signed the executive order releasing 250,000 files on the case to the public. A former prosecutor himself, he was a respected friend of the late David Wilentz, the attorney general who prosecuted the Hauptmann trial, which was held in Flemington.
Robert Zorn is a graduate of Duke University and the Wharton School of Business. A businessman who lives in North Brunswick, he has started and sold several software companies.
”My Dad was my greatest hero,” Mr. Zorn said. “I wrote this book for him. He really believed that John Knoll and Walter Knoll had escaped justice. That really haunted my father. Writing this book was a surreal sort of experience. I’m a businessman. It fell into my lap to tell this story. I’m the son of the only man who witnessed the conspiracy. This story found me. I never dreamed that I would come across all the evidence I did.”
Mr. Zorn plans to speak in Flemington on Sept. 29 at a time and place to be determined. For more information, call Twice Told Tales bookstore at 908-788-9094.

