Jack Wallace, Police Captain in Lindbergh Kidnap Case
John B. (Jack) Wallace, a former state police captain who helped capture the kidnaper of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., has died at the age of 84.
Wallace, who died Wednesday at a hospital here, joined the New Jersey State Police in 1924. While assigned to the detective bureau in 1932, he took part in the investigation of the kidnaping and subsequent murder of aviator Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son.
Wallace was with FBI agents and New York and New Jersey state police who trailed and arrested Bruno R. Hauptmann after Hauptmann began cashing some of the registered gold certificates used in the Lindbergh ransom. Hauptmann was executed in 1936 for the baby’s murder. Wallace was also instrumental in the recovery of the ransom money found in Hauptmann’s garage.
Wallace retired as a state police captain in 1952 and began work for a private detective agency the following year.
He founded the New Jersey Trooper Education Fund, which grants interest-free education loans to children of troopers killed on duty.
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