For the first time in 56 years, Anna Hauptmann returned last fall to the town where her husband was sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing the Lindbergh baby.

I don`t know if I am strong enough, she told her lawyer. Half a century later, the screams of Baby killer! still ring in her ears. It was in Flemington, N.J., in 1935, after three desperate years of trying to find a suspect, that a jury convicted Bruno Richard Hauptmann of slipping into the mansion of aviator Charles A. Lindbergh-the most famous man in America at the time-and abducting his firstborn son.

The State of New Jersey electrocuted Hauptmann in 1936.

The widow never stopped fighting to clear his name. It is the reason God keeps me alive, she has often said. Wouldn`t a husband expect a wife keeps on fighting, until her last breath?

But now, at 93, Anna Hauptmann grows weary of the fight. Her optimism-her hallmark-is waning. And so is her health.

Somehow I feel I`ve failed Richard, she said recently. She has told friends I wish I could just lay down and die.

Just three years ago, Anna still shoveled snow and climbed a step ladder to clean her windows. Now, she suffers from horrible headaches, sleepless nights and increasingly painful arthritis. Just the day after her trip to Flemington-to make one last, desperate, public appeal to the governor-she fell down and fractured her wrist.

She is lonely and horribly homesick. Soon after her husband`s execution, Anna left New York and relocated, penniless, with her small son in South Philadelphia. She never changed her name. Never remarried. Eventually, she settled in Yeadon, in suburban Delaware County, where she lived for 32 years. She was an institution in town. But last spring, she moved to an apartment in Amish country to be near her son, Manfred, and his wife.

Most troubling of all, two of her closest friends believe she is being manipulated by the man she has entrusted for 10 years to clear her husband`s name, lawyer Robert Bryan. In the last year, Bea Kershenblatt, a freelance writer who met Anna in 1987, and Toni Rafferty, a longtime friend and former borough councilwoman in Yeadon, have grown skeptical of Bryan. Kershenblatt says Bryan parades Anna in front of the media just to keep his own face in the public eye.

Kershenblatt, who once covered New Jersey for the Philadelphia Bulletin, has urged Anna to fire Bryan. She has called him a liar. Bryan, a well-known Death Row lawyer in San Francisco, says he loves Anna. He has called Kershenblatt`s behavior bizarre, her accusations insane, and says,

Her information is very distorted and very wrong. He has spent thousands of dollars of his own money to represent Anna. And in 10 1/2 years, he has never charged her a dime.

My goal remains to secure official recognition that Richard Hauptmann did not receive a fair trial and was innocent, he insists. The State of New Jersey suppressed evidence which would have resulted in an acquittal. The record must be cleared while my client is alive.

Such acrimony upsets Anna terribly, leaving her confused and dejected.

I tell you those girls, I can never thank them enough, she said recently. `They are friends. But if it wasnt for him, where would I be? He came to me. There was nothing ever that had come out. Maybe some things he should have done different, and I know they think it would be best if I changed the lawyer. But it would be so upsetting.

Bryan had told Anna to pack her bags. He never mentioned Flemington, N.J. She thought they were going to Trenton, to sit down and talk to the governor directly, to convince him of her Richard`s innocence.

But on Oct. 4 Bryan took Anna Hauptmann to Flemington, to a place she always vowed she would never return. The memories of the trial, the circus atmosphere, the hatred, her manipulation by the media still haunt her. She was a German immigrant, naive, innocent, with a husband she loved and an infant. She admired Lindbergh. And the people of Flemington, the state of New Jersey, took it all away.

Bryan had returned to Flemington to attend a drama about the famous trial, written and produced by a local high school theater teacher and performed in the actual courtroom to sellout crowds. Bryan put Anna in a hotel that evening while he attended the show. The next morning, on Oct. 5, he brought her into the Union Hotel, where she stayed during the trial 56 years ago, for a news conference.

Bryan seated Anna Hauptmann at a table between himself and Suzanne Donahue, a 22-year-old actress portraying her in the drama. Donahue, who had never met Anna before that morning, held the old woman`s hand throughout the news conference. I believe Richard Hauptmann was innocent, she told the media.

In the last few years, Bryan has tried to persuade Gov. James Florio to issue an executive order-similar to the one Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis ordered for Sacco and Vanzetti-recognizing the unfairness of the trial and removing any stain or stigma from Hauptmann`s name.

In Flemington, Bryan repeated his plea.Time is running out! he warned.

It had been Anna`s idea to come to Flemington, Bryan said immediately after the news conference. She wanted to come back to where it all began. But weeks later, he conceded that it had been his idea. Such a public appeal was important, he said, to apply pressure. He also promised there will be no more news conferences.

Rafferty, the friend and former councilwoman, looked after Anna for years when she lived in Yeadon. She flew to Hawaii in July in an unsuccessful attempt to meet with Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the aviator`s widow, and arrange a meeting between the last two survivors. Rafferty believes Mrs. Lindbergh must know that Richard Hauptmann was innocent.

I think somehow God expects me to do something for Anna, said Rafferty, and I have been busting my gut how. She deserves to lie down and die with a smile on her face.

Rafferty for a long time was a supporter of Bryans. Just last summer she said, ``He has helped her a lot. He has done a great deal.`` But she began to have doubts. ``Bea and I feel he knows a lot more than hes telling Anna,``

she said. It could be to save her disappointment. No point getting her hopes up and dashing them again. Bea and I don`t want to do that, either.

After the Flemington news conference, that tone sharpened.

I have seen nothing produced toward the clearing of Mr. Hauptmann`s name-other than a lot of publicity, she said, adding: I strongly question the wisdom and motives of putting an actress next to this lady, making what I consider a farce of a presentation that accomplished absolutely nothing.

Clearly, the most damaging evidence against Hauptmann is the $14,000 in ransom money found in his garage. Bryan says the money was left in Hauptmann`s garage by a friend, Otto Fisch, in late 1933. Also suitcases were left there and other personal things, Bryan said. Fisch died of tuberculosis in March 1934 in Germany.

Hauptmann, he said, discovered the money in a sealed box in 1934. There is no evidence he was involved, said Bryan. Evidence that he possessed it, yes. Suspicion, maybe. But no evidence. One can have that opinion (that he was involved), but where`s the proof? Either way, we`re talking about a legal system where you`re presumed innocent.

Annas goal has always been to clear her husbands name before she dies. She has insisted over the years that God will not let her die until this work is done.

Lately, however, she has begun to accept the possibility that God might have to take care of this without her earthly help. Things will happen in His time, she says. God knows who kidnapped that baby. God knows all things. If I die before Richard`s name is cleared, I know He will do it in His time.