Violet Sharpe, a sharp-tongued English immigrant in her late twenties, was a domestic servant employed at the Morrow estate in nearby Englewood, New Jersey. Sharpe’s defiant – and almost uncooperative – demeanor with police officers at the onset of the investigation immediately aroused the suspicions of the head of the New Jersey State Police, Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
When first questioned about her wherabouts on the night of the abduction, Sharpe intimated that she had gone out on a blind date along with another couple – whom she did not know – and seen a movie. She could recall neither the name of her date nor the names of the second couple nor any details about the movie they all had seen. During a subsequent interview, Sharpe claimed that the group had actually gone to a local roadhouse that evening.
Although the Morrows and the Lindberghs professed complete trust in their domestic staffs, Col. Schwarzkopf was reticent to rule anyone out. He announced his intent to question Sharpe a third time – to press her for details about her companions and to ask her about her bank account. But before he could do so, Sharpe committed suicide at the Morrow estate in Englewood. Some conspiracy theorists contend that Sharpe was involved in the abduction and that guilt led her to take her own life.