NEW ORIENT
Real-life murder behind Christie drama
mystery, rage, loss and grief underneath it all
BRANAGH SPEAKS ABOUT HIS NEW ORIENT MOVIE MURDER on the Orient Express is based on a real-life kidnap and murder that had shocked Agatha Christie to her core.
The 1934 whodunnit was inspired by the death of American aviator Charles Lindbergh’s toddler son and heir Charles Augustus-Lindbergh Junior. He was 20 months old when snatched from the family’s mansion near Hopewell, New Jersey, on March 1, 1932.
A £38,000 ransom was paid but the boy was still killed. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 35, was found guilty of the murder and executed on April 3, 1936.
Nine years earlier Lindbergh had become first man to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic. SHOCK Our report