When Charles Lindbergh's baby was kidnapped in 1932, the nation was shocked. Wilmer Souder of NIST was one of several handwriting experts who independently identified Bruno Richard Hauptmann as the writer of the ransom note. That same year, Souder used his two decades of forensic science experience to help establish the FBI's crime laboratory. When he retired from NIST in 1954, the Washington Post called him "one of the nation's best but ... least known criminologists."