Leopold and Loeb

Nathan Leopold Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr. was born on November 19, 1904, in Chicago, Illinois, the third son of Florence (née Foreman) and Nathan Leopold Sr., a wealthy German-Jewish immigrant family. A child prodigy, Leopold was recorded in his baby book as having spoken his first words at the age of four months and three weeks old. At the time of the murder, he had completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago with Phi Beta Kappa honors. He planned to begin studies at Harvard Law School after a trip to Europe. By many accounts, Leopold, who had bulging eyes and a small stature, was sensitive about his appearance. He threw himself into intellectual pursuits where he met with remarkable success. Leopold had studied 15 languages and claimed to speak five fluently. He had achieved a measure of national recognition as an ornithologist. He maintained his interest in birds after his crime, raising birds in prison and working to help with the struggling Puerto Rican Parrot population after his release on parole. Richard Loeb Richard Albert Loeb was born on June 11, 1905, in Chicago, the third of four sons of Anna Henrietta (née Bohnen) and Albert Henry Loeb, a wealthy lawyer and retired vice president of Sears, Roebuck & Company. His father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic. Like Leopold, Loeb was exceptionally intelligent. He was an avid reader, with a passion for history and crime stories. At age 12, he entered the innovative University of Chicago High School. With the encouragement of his governess, he completed his high school education in two years. In 1923, at the age of 17, he would reportedly become the University of Michigan's youngest graduate. Following graduation from Michigan, Loeb enrolled in a few history classes at the University of Chicago. Unlike Leopold, Loeb was athletic and considered handsome. == Adolescence and early crimes ==

The two young men grew up with their families in the affluent Kenwood neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. The Loebs owned a summer estate (the farm part of which is now called Castle Farms and is a popular wedding venue) in Charlevoix, Michigan, as well as a mansion in Kenwood, two blocks from the Leopold home. Though Leopold and Loeb knew each other casually while growing up, they began to see more of each other in the spring of 1920; their relationship flourished at the University of Chicago, as part of a mutual friend group. Their sexual relationship began in February 1921 and continued until their arrest. Since childhood Loeb had been stealing small things from friends, family and stores. He would sometimes show off his pick-pocketing skills to friends in high school in an attempt to impress them. When Loeb met Leopold, they began to steal things together, and worked out a system to cheat their friends and family during games of bridge, though it was largely unsuccessful. They would also drive around throwing bricks through windows and committed several arsons, often mingling with the crowd watching firefighters work. After robbing Loeb's old fraternity house at the University of Michigan, where they stole penknives, a camera, and a typewriter that they later used to type the ransom note for their murder victim, Bobby Franks, Loeb proposed they should commit a "perfect crime" that would attract public attention and confirm their superiority to others. == Murder of Bobby Franks ==

Murder Leopold and Loeb, who were 19 and 18, respectively, at the time, settled on kidnapping and murdering a younger adolescent as their perfect crime. They spent seven months planning everything, from the method of abduction to the disposal of the body. To obfuscate the actual nature of their crime and their motive for it, they decided to make a ransom demand, and they also devised an intricate plan for collecting the ransom, which involved a long series of complex instructions that would be communicated one instruction at a time. After a lengthy search for a suitable victim, mostly on the grounds of the Harvard School for Boys in the Kenwood area, the pair decided upon Robert "Bobby" Franks (born September 19, 1909), 14-year-old son of wealthy Chicago watch manufacturer Jacob Franks. Bobby was an across-the-street neighbor of Loeb's who had played tennis at the Loeb residence several times. On the afternoon of May 21, 1924, using an automobile that Leopold rented under the name Morton D. Ballard, they offered Franks a ride as he walked home from school. The boy initially refused, because his destination was less than two blocks away, but Loeb persuaded him to enter the car to discuss a tennis racket that he had been using. The precise sequence of the events that followed remains in dispute, but the prevailing view placed Leopold behind the wheel of the car while Loeb sat in the back seat. Loeb struck Franks, who was sitting in front of him in the passenger seat, several times in the head with the handle-end of a chisel, then dragged him into the back seat and gagged him, where he died. With the body on the floor of the back seat, out of view, the men drove to their predetermined dumping spot near Wolf Lake, in the extreme south side of Chicago. After nightfall, they removed Franks' clothes, then concealed the body in a culvert along the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks north of the lake. To obscure the body's identity, they poured hydrochloric acid on the face and genitals to disguise the fact that he had been circumcised, as circumcision was unusual among non-Jews in the United States at the time. Investigation By the time the two men returned to Chicago, word had already spread that Franks was missing. Leopold called Franks' mother, identifying himself as "George Johnson", and told her that Franks had been kidnapped; instructions for delivering the ransom would follow. After mailing the typed ransom note and burning Franks' clothes, then cleaning the blood stains from the rented vehicle's upholstery, they spent the remainder of the evening playing cards. Once the Franks family received the ransom note on the following morning, Leopold called a second time and dictated the first set of instructions for the delivery of the ransom payment. The intricate plan was stalled almost immediately when Franks' father forgot the address of the store where he was supposed to receive the next set of directions, and it was abandoned entirely when word came the same day that Franks' body had been found. Leopold and Loeb disposed of the typewriter and burned a blanket which they had used to move Franks' body. Leopold and Loeb both enjoyed chatting about the murder with their friends and relatives. Leopold discussed the case with his professor and a female friend, joking that he would confess and give her the reward money. Loeb helped a couple of reporter friends of his find the drugstore to which he and Leopold had tried to send Mr. Franks, and when asked to describe Bobby he replied: "If I were to murder anybody, it would be just such a cocky little son of a bitch as Bobby Franks." Police found a pair of eyeglasses near Franks' body. Although the prescription and the frame were common, they were fitted with an unusual hinge which had been purchased by only three customers in Chicago, one of whom was Leopold. When questioned, Leopold offered the possibility that his glasses might have dropped out of his pocket during a bird-watching trip the previous weekend. During formal questioning on May 29, Leopold and Loeb asserted that on the night of the murder they had picked up two women in Chicago using Leopold's car, then dropped them off some time later near without learning their last names; however, Leopold's chauffeur told police that he had been repairing the car that afternoon, and his wife confirmed that claim. The typewriter was recovered from the Jackson Park Lagoon on June 7. Confession Loeb soon confessed, told police that he was the driver and Loeb the killer. Their confessions otherwise corroborated most of the evidence in the case. Leopold later claimed, long after Loeb was dead, that he pleaded in vain with Loeb to admit to killing Franks. "Mompsie feels less terrible than she might, thinking you did it," he quotes Loeb as saying, "and I'm not going to take that shred of comfort away from her." Most observers believed that Loeb did strike the fatal blows. (A witness claimed to have seen Loeb driving the car, and Leopold in the back seat, minutes before the kidnapping.) Both Leopold and Loeb admitted that they were driven by their thrill-seeking, Übermenschen (supermen) delusions, and their aspiration to commit a "perfect crime". == Trial ==

The trial of Leopold and Loeb at Chicago's Cook County Criminal Court became a media spectacle and the third to be labeled "the trial of the century," after those of Harry Thaw and Sacco and Vanzetti. The Leopold and Loeb families hired the renowned criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow to lead the defense team. It was rumored that Darrow was paid $1 million for his services, but he was actually paid $65,000 (equivalent to $ in ). Darrow took the case because he was a staunch opponent of capital punishment. While it was generally assumed that the men's defense would be based on a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, Darrow concluded that a jury trial would almost certainly end in conviction and the death penalty. The trial (technically an extended sentencing hearing, as their guilty pleas had already been accepted) ran for 32 days. The state's attorney, Robert E. Crowe, presented 88 witnesses, documenting details of the crime. The defense presented extensive psychiatric testimony in an effort to establish mitigating circumstances, including physical abnormalities, an over-abundance of money and, in Leopold's case, sexual abuse by a governess. Darrow called a series of expert witnesses, who offered a catalog of Leopold's and Loeb's abnormalities. One witness testified to their dysfunctional endocrine glands, another to the delusions that had led to their crime. at the conclusion of the hearing has been called the finest speech of his career. Its principal arguments were that the methods and punishments of the American justice system were inhumane, and the youth and immaturity of the accused: Darrow's handling of the law as defense counsel has been criticized for hiding psychiatric expert testimony that conflicted with his polemical goals and for relying on an absolute denial of free will, one of the principles legitimizing all criminal punishment. == Imprisonment ==

Leopold and Loeb were initially held in Joliet Prison and did menial labor, Leopold working in the prison's rattan factory and Loeb in the chair factory. Although they were kept apart as much as possible, the two of them managed to maintain their friendship. Leopold was transferred to Stateville Penitentiary in 1925 for an appendectomy, where he worked in the shoe factory and then in the library as a clerk for the prison's Protestant chaplain. He was caught violating prison rules and sent to solitary confinement many times, at one point possibly being involved in the escape of seven prisoners. In Joliet, Loeb worked in the yard delivering messages before being promoted to clerk for the deputy warden. He was transferred to Stateville in 1930, where he began to work in the prison's greenhouse and landscaping the prison yard. Once Leopold and Loeb were in the same prison, the pair began to spend much of their time together. They did sociological research together and expanded the prison's school system, adding a high school and junior college curriculum. Loeb's death On January 28, 1936, Loeb was attacked with a straight razor in a shower room by a fellow inmate, James Day, and died in the prison hospital soon afterward. Day claimed that Loeb had attempted to sexually assault him, but he was unharmed while Loeb sustained more than fifty wounds, including defensive wounds on his arms and hands, and his throat had been slashed from behind. News accounts suggested that Loeb had propositioned Day, Several weeks after the killing, Mark Hellinger wrote in his syndicated column, "I must tell you of the line that came to me from an unknown correspondent in Chicago. This anonymous contributor said he had the absolute low-down on the recent slaying of Dickie Loeb. Seems that Loeb made a slight mistake in grammar. He ended a sentence in a proposition..." While some sources state Ed Lahey had previously written in the Chicago Daily News, "Richard Loeb, despite his erudition, today ended his sentence with a proposition", no evidence has been found that this was ever published, and actual copy from that date reads otherwise. Though several prison officials, including the warden, believed that Loeb had been murdered, Day was found not guilty by a jury after a short trial in June 1936. In his autobiography, Life Plus 99 Years, Leopold ridiculed Day's claim that Loeb had attempted to sexually assault him. That was echoed by the prison's Catholic chaplain, a confidant of Loeb's, who said that it was more likely that Day attacked Loeb after Loeb rebuffed his advances. Leopold's years in prison , 1931 Leopold continued his work expanding the school and teaching after Loeb's death. In 1944, Leopold volunteered for the Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study. He was deliberately inoculated with malaria pathogens and subjected to several experimental malaria treatments. He later wrote that all his good work in prison and after his release was an effort to compensate for his crime. was published in 1956. Levin portrayed Leopold, under the pseudonym Judd Steiner, as a brilliant but deeply disturbed teenager, psychologically driven to kill because of his abnormal sexuality, troubled childhood and an obsession with Loeb. Leopold later wrote that reading Levin's book made him "physically sick... More than once I had to lay the book down and wait for the nausea to subside. I felt as I suppose a man would feel if he were exposed stark-naked under a strong spotlight before a large audience." Leopold's autobiography, Life Plus 99 Years, was published in 1958 as part of his campaign to win parole. While the book received generally positive reviews, some accused Leopold of writing it solely as a means of rehabilitation of his public image, ignoring the dark side of his past. == Leopold's post-prison years ==

After 33 years and numerous unsuccessful petitions, Leopold was released on parole on March 13, 1958. He was known as "Nate" to neighbors and co-workers at Castañer General Hospital in Adjuntas, where he worked as a laboratory and X-ray assistant. Later in 1958, Leopold attempted to set up the Leopold Foundation, to be funded by royalties from Life Plus 99 Years, "to aid emotionally disturbed, retarded, or delinquent youths." The State of Illinois voided his charter on grounds that it violated the terms of his parole. In 1959, Leopold sought to block production of the film version of Compulsion on the grounds that Levin's book had invaded his privacy, defamed him, profited from his life story and "intermingled fact and fiction to such an extent that they were indistinguishable." After 11 years and many appeals, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled against him, holding that Leopold, as the confessed perpetrator of the "crime of the century," could not reasonably argue that any book had injured his reputation. He also continued to commit crimes, though he was never caught or prosecuted, including offenses of statutory rape and charity fraud. Leopold earned a master's degree at the University of Puerto Rico. He became a researcher in the Social Service Program of Puerto Rico's Department of Health. He also worked for an urban renewal and housing agency, and he conducted studies on leprosy at the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. Leopold was an active member of the Natural History Society of Puerto Rico. He traveled throughout the island to observe its birdlife. In 1963, he published Checklist of Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. While he spoke about his intention to write a book about his life since his release from prison, which he titled Reach for a Halo, he never completed it. Leopold died of a diabetes-related heart attack on August 29, 1971, at the age of 66. == In popular culture ==

The Franks murder has inspired works of film, theatre and fiction, some of which imply the homosexual nature of the perpetrators' relationship without stating it outright. These works include the 1929 play Rope by Patrick Hamilton, and Alfred Hitchcock's film of the same name in 1948. A fictionalized version of the events formed the basis of Meyer Levin's 1956 novel Compulsion and its 1959 film adaptation. was based on contemporary newspaper accounts of the case, and included an overt portrayal of Leopold and Loeb's sexual relationship. In his book Murder Most Queer (2014), theater scholar Jordan Schildcrout examines changing attitudes toward homosexuality in various theatrical and cinematic representations of the Leopold and Loeb case. the Columbo episode "Columbo Goes to College" (1990), Tom Kalin's 1992 film Swoon, Michael Haneke's 1997 Austrian film Funny Games and the 2008 International remake, Barbet Schroeder's Murder by Numbers (2002), Daniel Clowes's 2005 graphic novel Ice Haven, the Murdoch Mysteries episode "Big Murderer on Campus", Stephen Dolginoff's 2005 off-Broadway musical Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story, Micah Nemerever's These Violent Delights (2020), and the Ghostface killers in Scream (1996). In the WB series Riverdale, Archie is incarcerated in the "Leopold & Loeb Institute for Delinquent Youth." Prior to becoming the Chief Creative Officer of Archie Comics, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa wrote an unauthorized play in which the fictional teenager Archie Andrews had a homosexual relationship with Nathan Leopold. Before it could open, Aguirre-Sacasa was forced to stop the production after being served a cease and desist from Archie Comics. The production eventually opened under the name Weird Comic Book Fantasy. Gregory J. Read's 2006 film Like Minds (also released as Murderous Intent) is believed to have been inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case. The film depicts a photograph of Leopold and Loeb in the fictional book Principles of Criminal Psychology: Fifth Edition by George R. Booth and Andrew Porter, which is consulted by the character Sally Rowe, a forensic psychologist, during her research into Gestalt psychology. == See also ==