Retired psychologist Mylen Fitzwater answers the doorbell in less than 30 seconds, but he keeps the screen door closed. I explain that I've come to his quiet cul-de-sac in the central California city of Merced to research an article about one of his former patients.
"It's that guy standing behind me," I say, nodding toward the old man in a dark blue suit who stands blinking in the sunlight. "The one who thinks he was the Lindbergh baby."
"Oh, yes," says Fitzwater, who at 83 is a bit stooped and completely bald. "I certainly remember him. Come on in."
Once we are inside, Fitzwater recalls the exact years--1978-1980--when he worked with this patient who calls himself Charles Lindbergh Jr. Back then he was called Loren Paul Husted. He suffered from big gaps in his childhood memories and hoped that the doctor could help him reconstruct his past under hypnosis, a controversial process that is still widely used.
In more than 100 sessions, Fitzwater's patient developed a complex story that explained his lifelong identity conflict. Almost every detail supported the idea that he had been the baby stolen from the world famous aviator's home in 1932. In its time, the kidnapping was considered the "Crime of the Century."
"Didn't you think that maybe he was delusional, or paranoid?" I ask. "Didn't you give him a diagnosis that would explain this?" Charlie might be a charming, persuasive fellow, I continued, whose difficult life led him to create an alternative identity.
"I wasn't asked to give a diagnosis," Fitzwater answers. "But I'll tell you, I didn't think he had a serious problem. He was functioning in his life. He wasn't depressed or psychotic in any way. He was just a fellow who had this story he wanted to get out."
"But do you think it's true? Do you think he was the Lindbergh baby?"
"I can't say for sure. But he honestly believed it was the truth. He was very consistent in what he said under hypnosis, and he had a lot of very interesting details."
The details and the consistency are persuasive to other people who hear Charlie, 74, tell his tale. But nothing in what he says, or how he says it, is as powerful as the photos he keeps in a bulging manila envelope. The pictures show Charlie and members of the Lindbergh clan. The similarities--the strong chin, broad nose, distinctive mouth and even the hairline--are uncanny.
