Charles Lindbergh, at Le Bourget Airport, Paris, next to Spirit of St. Louis, May 31, 1927. Everett Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment As I write, the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC's Today host Savannah Guthrie, from her home in Tucson AZ, remains unsolved and unsettling. Little is known for sure other than that a beloved matriarch vanished in the dead of night and that recently released Nest Cam footage of a suspect may lead to a break in the case and, one hopes, the redemption (the Puritan word seems appropriate) of the captive. What is known is that the Guthrie abduction has mesmerized the American public as no true crime case has since - what? The 16-month-long delirium that was the O.J. Simpson case in 1994-1995? Unlike the vulgar spectacles anent OJ-TV, however, the Guthrie case has engendered a heartening degree of public sympathy and sensitivity, perhaps because of the double dose of pain unique to the crime of kidnapping, which tortures two sets of victims: the captive and the family that wants her back. Related Stories Business The "Paramount-Warner Bros. Corporation" Nearly Happened -- Then the Stock Market Crashed TV Rob Reiner in 'All in the Family': A Boundary-Pushing Legacy Americans have been feeling that media-forged emotional bond since the first convergence of all the elements of electronic-age news coverage. It too was a kidnapping case, in fact the case that warrants the oft-used hyperbole, the crime of the century: the kidnap-murder of the twenty-month-old son of aviator Charles A. Lindbergh and his wife and copilot Anne Murrow Lindbergh. In 1932, before snuggling up to the Nazis and serving as the most enthusiastic spokesman for the isolationist and antisemitic American First Committee, Lindbergh was the most admired - adored is not too strong a word - man in America. His non-stop solo flight from New York to Paris on May 20-21, 1927, inspired a wave of adulation that has never been equaled. "Grant after Appomattox? Dewey after Manilla Bay? The troops after World War I?," recalled Fred Allen, looking back in 1956, still in thrall. "Lindbergh after Paris surpasses them all." The Lone Eagle was 25 years old, slender, matinee idol handsome, and authentically heroic. No wonder the nation swooned. 1929: Charles Augustus Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Hulton Archive/Getty Images) In 1929, "America's uncrowned prince" met his princess - the pretty, bookish, and brilliant Anne Morrow, who became his copilot and radio operator. On June 22, 1930, she gave birth to a son - Little Lindy, the Little Eaglet. On August 5, 1932, when newsreels screened the first pictures of the baby in his stroller, audiences cooed and applauded. On the chilly night of March 1, 1932, the unimaginable happened. The baby was kidnapped from his crib in the second-floor nursery of the Lindbergh home in Hopewell, NJ. The kidnapper had climbed to the nursery with a homemade ladder, later found on the grounds with a broken rung. He (no one for a minute thought the perpetrator was a woman, though many assumed a female accomplice would be necessary to care for the baby) left a handwritten ransom note demanding $50,000. The note was signed with a strange symbol at the bottom to verify the kidnapper's identity in future communications. At 10:46 p.m. that night the New Jersey State Police sent out a teletype: "Colonel Lindbergh's baby [has been] kidnapped." The three branches of the mainstream media of the day sprung into action. Newspapers, heretofore the go-to source for news and information, scrambled to put out extras "hot of the presses," but no matter how hot typeset print could compete with the speed of electricity. By 1932, roughly 40 percent of American households owned a radio (higher in urban, lower in rural areas). The public appetite for news about the Lindbergh baby was so ravenous that Americans would not wait for the next day's newspaper. Radio broadcast hourly bulletins on the case and interrupted entertainment with urgent developments. To get the latest news, Americans now "reached for the dial" and stayed "glued to the set." Both phrases survived into the television age before becoming anachronisms in the age of digital media. However, the instinct first acquired in 1932 has remained with us ever since: when we are hungry for information and want it now, we turn on an electronic device and stay plugged in. The home of American aviator Charles Lindbergh in Highfields, New Jersey, during a police reconstruction of the kidnapping of Lindbergh's infant son Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., 1932. A ladder was leaned against the nursery window to simulate the ladder the kidnappers were thought to have used. BIPS/Hulton Archive/Getty Images The third pillar of the media triad was also