EXCLUSIVE: World-famous aviator Charles Lindbergh’s wife 'knew something' about his multiple affairs and second families in Europe, their daughter reveals on 85th anniversary of Lindbergh baby's abduction

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World-renowned aviator Charles Lindbergh’s wife ‘knew something’ about his multiple affairs and his second families in Europe, their daughter has revealed.

Reeve Tripp, now 71, told DailyMail.com that her mother ‘knew something but didn’t know what she knew’ before it emerged that Lindbergh – the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic – was a serial adulterer who had fathered children by three different women.

Details of Lindbergh’s incredibly tangled love life emerged after illegitimate children revealed their true parentage in 2003 – shortly after his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh passed away.

On the 85th anniversary of their first-born son Charles Lindbergh Jr’s kidnapping and subsequent murder – described as the ‘crime of the century’ at the time – Lindbergh’s daughter has spoken of the discovery that she had siblings she had never known of, that her father was a serial adulterer, the revelation that her mother knew ‘something wasn’t right’ and her life growing up in a family haunted by her older brother’s kidnap and murder. 

In a wide-ranging interview, Mrs Tripp told DailyMail.com that she believes her mother had a hunch about the double life even though she didn’t live to see the full scale of the betrayal.

World famous aviator Charles Lindbergh's wife 'knew something' about his affairs and second families in Europe, his daughter has revealed to DailyMail.com. Although Lindbergh (right) and his wife (left) were known as the 'perfect couple', they led separate lives after losing their child.  Here, they posed for their first picture just after they had married in May 1929

 On the 85th anniversary of Charles Jr.'s kidnap and subsequent murder, Reeve Tripp (pictured at the center with her brother Land, right) says the tragedy may explain why Lindbergh embarked on countless affairs and fathered many children

She said: ‘One of my aunts whom I trust and who was very close to my mother told me she knew something but she didn't know what she knew. 

‘That strikes me as most believable....that something didn't seem right but she didn't know what it was.’ 

Lindbergh had stunned the world and shot to inconceivable fame after he became the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1927. 

Two years later he married Anne Morrow, the beautiful daughter of the wealthy US Ambassador Dwight Morrow. It was a marriage made in heaven and they were dubbed the ‘perfect’ couple.

But their lives changed forever when their first-born was abducted from the second floor nursery of their home in Hopewell, New Jersey at about 9pm on March 1, 1932. A ransom note demanding $50,000 was left behind.

Despite the Lindberghs’ willingness to pay the amount, the kidnappers murdered Charles Jr. and his body was found two months later. 

 The Lindberghs went on to have another five children, their marriage appearing to survive the tragedy.

But Mrs Tripp, the youngest of the couple’s children believes it was this tragedy that led her parents to live separate lives and might explain what caused her father to embark on countless affairs.

Reeve and her siblings Jon, Land and Scott – their sister Anne died of cancer in 1993 - were shocked but also skeptical when they found out.

She said: ‘It was just astonishing. We would have not expected it. We thought it was a false claim and we found out that it wasn't.’ But a DNA test confirmed that Lindbergh had fathered seven children with three German women.

He had three sons with Munich hat maker Brigitte Hesshaimer, two sons with her sister Marietta and a son and daughter with his former private secretary Valeska, whose last name was never disclosed.

Lindbergh's affairs began thirty years after he married and he fathered seven children with three different women, including Munich hat maker Brigitte with whom he had three children: Astrid Bouteuil, center, Dyrk Hesshaimer, left, and David Hesshaimer,right

But the Lindberghs' lives changed forever after their first-born was taken from the second floor nursery of their home in Hopewell, New Jersey at about 9pm on March 1, 1932. Charles Jr was 20-months old at the time of the abduction and he is pictured here a year before the kidnap and subsequent murder, which was called the 'crime of the century'

His kidnap prompted a nationwide search - as seen in this advertisement - but it was futile as Charles Jr was found murdered on May 12 1932. Because of his abduction, Congress passed the Federal Kidnapping Act, commonly called the "Lindbergh Law", which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime

The only thing his abductors left behind was a ransom note (left) demanding $50,000 and the police announced a reward of $75,000 for anyone able to trace him

Lindbergh’s affairs began in 1957, 30 years after he married. The three children he had with the hat maker, Dyrk and David Hesshaimer and their sister Astrid Bouteuil, did not know they were the aviator’s children since their birth records had been labelled as ‘father unknown’.

Although they remember seeing Lindbergh in their childhood home once or twice a year, their mother only revealed his true identity after he died.

Speaking about his late father Bouteuil said: ‘People may wonder about his treatment of his wife and my mother, but the fact that we exist testifies to the fact that he was simply a man - not a hero.’

Before the claims were made in 2003, Lindbergh was seen as the American hero and had the reputation of being a faithful husband and wife.

The entire nation was gripped as they offered leads and tips when Charles Jr was abducted and a ransom note demanding $50,000 was left. The 20-month-old was still murdered despite the family’s willingness to pay the money.

The case was on the cover of newspapers around the world, but years later the family remained tight-lipped about the loss – even in their own home.

Mrs Tripp said her parents never told her what happened to the sibling she never met because it was such a ‘painful’ experience, yet she felt the effects of their loss because they were so protective.

She said: ‘My father barely spoke about the kidnapping… instinctively, I knew it was very painful, difficult and very personal. 

This event is not a piece of history or a story, it's a family death. 

Before details of his secret life emerged, Lindbergh had the reputation of being a good father and husband. His wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, is pictured here cradling their first son, Charles Jr just after he was born

The Lindberghs would go on to have five more children but their youngest says the tragedy caused her parents to be very protective. Here, Mrs Lindbergh is pictured with three of her children Reeve, Anne and Scott (left to right) in 1950. Anne Spencer Lindbergh died of cancer in 1993, aged 53,  at her home in Vermont

Mrs Tripp, pictured on the right at just a year old with her sister Anne (left), says she rarely asked about her Charles Jr's death because she felt it was too 'painful' for her parents to talk about.

‘We didn't have a direct sense that that tragedy had an effect on our lives but it probably did. If only in the sense that our parents were so careful and so private and tried so hard to keep us away from the press.’

These are lessons the Lindbergh children still follow. Apart from Mrs Tripp who acts as the family spokesman, the other siblings, Jon, Land and Scott, lead quiet lives.

Like her mother before her, Mrs Tripp has become a noted writer and has documented her life in several books.

In her memoir Under a Wing, the Vermont native spoke of the moment she lost her own first-born son to meningitis.

Mrs Tripp, 71, says her mother had a hunch about her father's secret life, although she died shortly before her suspicion could be confirmed

In a horrible parallel with her mother’s loss, she found her two-year-old son lifeless in his crib in her mother’s home in 1985. 

‘My mother was the greatest help and I cannot imagine how she was able to do it having lost her own child at that same age but she did.’

Even though she separated from her husband shortly after her baby died, Reeve said her mother’s words helped her move on and start a family with her new husband, whom she wed in 1987.

‘She said to me, “When a child dies, there's a part of you that dies...you are reborn with every child”.

‘I had never heard her say that until the time she had to say something to her own daughter and it comforted me.

‘It was true...I had another little boy and you are reborn.’

Mrs Lindbergh died in 2001 but Mrs Tripp is still living by her mom’s advice, and has let go of any grudges she may have had in the past.

Mrs Tripp lost her two-year-old son to meningitis in 1985 but she says her mother's encouraging words helped her pull through. Shortly after her son's death Mrs Tripp, remarried documentary film maker Nathaniel Tripp  on the same day she signed her divorce papers. The mother-of-four is pictured here with her second husband and five-year-old son Benjamin, who is playing with a Lego airplane set on the bedroom floor at their home

Now a mother-of-four and a grandmother-of-five, she has a close friendship with some of her half-brothers and sisters and has learned to live with some of the difficulties that come with being a Lindbergh.

Last year, she received a letter from someone who claimed Charles Jr hadn’t been killed and she was his child.

Such claims had been made before and have sometimes caught her off-guard but now, with years of experience in such dubious claims, she said: ‘I was able to switch right away into Lindbergh mode and I wrote to tell them that actually that child had died and had been found and identified by his father, doctors and the forensics of that time.

‘Occasionally, they are the child of someone who believes that and they contact me. ‘It's complicated and confusing and it makes you sad but that is one ongoing result.'